Not a Typo on the eGolf Site

If you've been to the eGolf Tour's website to check for the results of this week's event at Northstone Country Club, you probably think that they must have entered my scores incorrectly. Given the consistency with which I have played this year and the way that I have describing my game as trending in the right direction, it is shocking to see scores of 73 and 77 next to my name, but unfortunately that is  correct. A lot of good streaks came to an end with my poor play in Tuesday's second round. My highest score since February also marked my first missed cut since March. In addition to that, I failed to make a  birdie for the first time in longer than I can remember in the second round. It was a tough day, for sure, and it's impossible to shoot a score like that and not feel a bit worried about things, but I can honestly say that my game feels okay. I had a great afternoon of practice following my second round on Wednesday morning, and I think that I can get things back on track very easily. I want to talk more about my poor rounds here at Northstone and talk about things that I have learned this week, but for now I'm just going to confirm that those were in fact my real scores. I am going to have a great day of practice on Thursday, but please come back in the evening for some analysis of the tournament and an exciting report about what's coming up next. Thank you for following me, and please don't be too disappointed by this minor little setback. Great things are still coming!

Good Results Coming Soon

I'm in Huntersville, North Carolina (just north of Charlotte) for the eGolf Tour's Northstone Open at Northstone Country Club. I had a great weekend of practice at home and a good day of preparation on site on Monday heading into Tuesday's opening round. I even had a very productive morning leading into my afternoon tee time on Tuesday, but I struggled from beginning to end in the first round. I bogeyed the first hole because of a poor opening tee shot, and a really cold performance on the greens kept me from getting anything going all day. My only awful shot led to a double bogey when I splashed my approach to the par-4 12th hole into a green-side pond, and, though I actually hit some decent shots following that blunder, I did not make any birdies in the closing stretch of my round. In fact, I made just one birdie all day and posted a two-over-par score of 73. I feel good on this golf course and feel like my game is in fine shape, but I am obviously very disappointed with that score. Things weren't really as bad as my score would indicate, though. I know I'm a great putter, but I was icy cold on the greens in round one. If I can stay positive and be committed to a good game plan on every shot in Wednesday's second round, I know that I will putt better and get better results. My game is in good shape. Great things are coming. Keep it here for a good round-2 report in the evening. Thank you for following me!

Great Weekend of Work

I came home from my tournament this past week with a lot of mixed emotions about my golf game. It has been really great lately the way that I have been able to take some very poor ball-striking and manage it quite well to post some great tournament scores. That is very encouraging, but the fact that I am hitting the ball poorly puts quite a bit of pressure on the rest of my game, and when I made a couple of mental mistakes in my final round of last week's tournament, it was too much to overcome. I posted a lousy score that left me at the bottom of the final-round field. In addition to the ball-striking woes, I have gone back and forth over the past few weeks as to whether or not I am making good progress towards my goal of improving my pre-shot routine and instituting a new "one-look-at-the-target-and-go" approach to hitting golf shots. I was thinking about a lot of things as I made the trip home on Thursday evening, and two thoughts became clear to me. First of all, it is really impressive how good I am at golf to be able to have the successful results that I have in the past four weeks without hitting very many solid shots. Secondly, I needed to have a very good weekend of work.

I have continued to meditate on that first thought, and I am glad to say mission accomplished on the second thought. I really haven't found any major improvements in my ball-striking yet, but I have had some great practice sessions and absolutely nailed all of my putting drills and short game work. I focused a lot on my routine while I was practicing, and I think I have come up with a key to help my improvements take hold. The "feel it" portion of my "see it, feel it, trust it" approach to golf is very important. If I can truly feel the shot that I am trying to execute before I address the ball, one look at my target just confirms that feeling and I am ready to pull the trigger. If I address the ball and am still trying to get the feeling of what I want to do, however, I fidget and take multiple looks at the target before I finally start my swing. Therefore, it is imperative that I feel the shot that I am trying to hit before I take my stance at the ball. I feel like I definitely made great progress towards improving my routine this weekend. My putting and short game work this weekend was some of my best practice of the year. I'm still not sure why my ball-striking is a little bit off right now, but I feel good about everything else and am confident that I will start hitting the ball better, too. Overall, I feel great about my game after the weekend of work that I just completed.

By the way, I was thirty minutes of short game work shy of completing all of my process goals the week before last. That bothered me. I worked really hard to complete my fitness and putting goals, but I didn't get all of my short game work done. Darn it. I made up for it this past week, though. After completing very few of my practice or fitness goals before traveling home on Thursday evening, I worked very hard and efficiently over the weekend to complete all of my process goals. My goals are definitely doing their job. I feel great physically and my game felt good during some highly focused practice sessions. I will get my goals done every week!

I am hitting the road Monday morning for an eGolf Tour event this week at a course called Northstone Country Club just north of Charlotte, NC. The event is Tuesday-Thursday, and Northstone is a course that I know decently well. I will get in a practice round on Monday and will be ready for a great week. I'm excited about my game. I can't wait until something clicks and I start hitting the ball better, but I know that I am good enough to get the results I want even if I'm not hitting it very well. I have a feeling good things are going to happen this week, and I'm nearly certain that great things are coming up in my future. Keep it here to enjoy this fun ride with me. Thank you very much for following me and for your support!

Disappointing Result, But Excited Going Forward

I did not get the results for which I was hoping from the final round of the Carolinas Tour's Tour Championship. I mixed in some very poor shots with a lot of mediocre ones on my way to a one-over-par round of 73. On a day with perfect scoring conditions, that is a very disappointing result, but I'm not discouraged. I did make progress with my pre-shot routine, and my iron play and driving of the golf ball still showed signs of improvement. It certainly was a sad way to end the Carolinas Tour season, but the day was definitely not a total loss.

I am now in my East Tennessee HOME for the first time in quite a while, and I am very excited to have a great weekend of practice. I have a lot of work to do on my progress goals for the week and also need to have a quality session with Bobbo to make sure that nothing funky is going on with my mechanics. I know that my game is in good shape and continuing to get better, but I feel like I need a productive weekend of practice just to get that lovin' feeling back.

I will be playing an eGolf Tour event next week at a course called Northstone Country Club just north of Charlotte, NC. I'm riding a little momentum on the eGolf Tour with consecutive fourth place finishes in my last two events, but I think it is time to get back in the winner's circle. It will start with productive weekend of work here in Tennessee, though. Keep it here for a practice report later in the weekend. Thank you very much for following me!

Room to Improve But Feeling Good

I made a double bogey on the first hole of my second round. I took two swats at my ball in a fairway bunker on the way to my opening blunder, but I stayed very calm and played another solid round. I hit every green in regulation after the first hole and made five birdies and no bogies over the final 17 holes. My matching rounds of 69 to open the Carolinas Tour's Tour Championship do not have me where I want to be heading into the final round, but I am pleased with the way that I am hitting the ball and feel like my game is progressing.

Only twelve players made the cut here in this small field event, and I am in eighth place and eight shots behind the leader. That means that tomorrow's final round will be a great opportunity for me. I am still not happy with the status of my routine. Three weeks ago when the eGolf Tour opened its fall series of events in Ninety-six, South Carolina, I had my less-fidgety, one-look-at-the-target-and-go routine somewhat ingrained, but for some reason I have not been able to stay comfortable with that over the past few weeks. My non-fidgety routine feels good in practice, but I find myself struggling to stick with it in competition. Thursday's final round will offer me the opportunity to force myself to be uncomfortable and commit to executing my new routine. I need to trust my new routine under tournament conditions so that it can get truly ingrained and comfortable. The reason that this is so important to me is that my See it, Feel it, Trust it approach to hitting golf shots works most effectively if I execute my shot while the image and feeling of the shot that I'm trying to hit are fresh in my mind. I don't know why I'm so uncomfortable pulling the trigger after one look at the target, but I'm going to get there, and forcing myself to do it here in this week's final round will be a great step.

Though I'm definitely not happy that this issue with my routine is something that is causing me such trouble, my game is in very good shape. I'm struggling with a cold putter this week, and I've thrown away a couple of shots with two uncharacteristic mistakes, but I feel like I am still putting well and my ball-striking is starting to come back around. I know that great things are coming this fall!

I am more interested in working on my new routine and committing to it than anything else in Thursday's final round here at the Carolinas Tour's Tour Championship, but don't be surprised if I shoot a good score and climb up that leaderboard a little bit as well. Come back late in the evening for a report from the action. Thank you for keeping up with me!

Encouraging Start at CPGT Championship

As I chronicled in yesterday's post, it has been a long few days to get me to Carolina Lakes Golf Club for the Carolinas Pro Golf Tour's Tour Championship. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep on Monday night and had an interesting morning battling I-77 traffic as I completed the journey to the south-Charlotte golf course. I got to the golf course in plenty of time, however, and had a brief but great warm-up session before my 9:50 a.m. start time. After a poor tee shot off the first tee, I started to hit the ball better than I have in quite some time. My putter was fairly cold all day, but I made just one bogey and did manage to make four birdies for an opening-round 69. My iron play was fairly good all day and I hit the driver much more solidly than I have been lately. Neither my game nor my routine were as good as I want them, but I showed a lot of promise on both fronts, and I am encouraged by that. Carolina Lakes is a good test, but scores were pretty good in round one. My round has me four shots back after the opening round of this 54-hole event, but I'm feeling good about things and I think a low one might just come up soon! Keep it here to follow the action. Thank you for supporting me!

The (BIG) Ups and (little) Downs of Golf

A lot has been happening in the past week, and I am sorry that I have done such a lousy job of keeping you updated about it all. In the past five days, I have had a pretty dramatic high and a very disappointing low on the golf course, but in between the two, I was able to spend some quality time with some of my absolute favorite people in the world, so I would rate the last few days quite highly despite laying an egg on the golf course on Monday. I still have very little time to write, but I will try to give a brief synopsis of my last five days (and in doing so will explain why I have very little time to write).

It started in Mint Hill, North Carolina, last friday with the final round of the eGolf Tour's Olde Sycamore Open. After recovering from a terrible opening-round 74 with a bogey-free 66 to make the cut, I put up another bogey-free round on Friday and jumped from the back half of the field into a solo fourth place finish with a final-round 64. I still didn't feel great about the way I was hitting the ball, but I had a very good game plan and putted well enough to put up a good number. That round gave me back-to-back fourth place finishes on the highly competitive eGolf Tour despite not having my best stuff. That is pretty exciting!

As soon as my round was over on Friday, I drove up to my sister's new place just outside of Washington D.C. in Ashburn, Virginia. That made for a long day, but it was totally worth it because I got to hang out with my sis, and my parents had driven up for the weekend as well. I wish my sweetheart, Alicia, could have been there, too, but it was pretty darn sweet to spend a weekend with my sister. We spent Saturday outside exploring. In the morning we walked around her new stomping grounds and then headed out west and spent the afternoon in the northern VA Blue Ridge Mountains. It was an awesome day!

On Sunday, I was back to work preparing for the Web.com Tour's Monday Qualifier in Potomac, Maryland. Some strange weather halted my afternoon practice, but I still had a productive day and felt ready to go for the Monday Qualifier. Unfortunately, I didn't perform well on Monday. With my mom caddying and my dad and sister there to watch, I had poor touch on the greens and sprayed some tee shots off line as well. The touch issue caused a three-putt bogey early in the round and then a lost ball on my eighth hole of the day led to a very disheartening triple bogey. I fought hard and ended up posting a one-under-par score of 71, but that was two shots shy of the qualifying number. My game was sloppy and I wasn't mentally sharp enough overcome my poor execution. I am disappointed not to have qualified.

My ball-striking is definitely a bit off right now, but I think I am heading in the right direction. I have obviously posted some very good rounds lately, so I know that I am not too far off, and I believe that I am close to playing my best golf ever. I have not done of good job of sticking to my less-fidgety routine, however. I had it very close to where I wanted it a couple weeks ago in South Carolina, but old habits are dying hard. I will continue to work on it, and both my routine and my ball-striking will be back where I want them in no time.

After failing to qualify on Monday, I decided the best thing for my game right now is to keep playing. I am working through some things, and I need to keep putting them to the test under tournament conditions. With that in mind, I decided to take off Monday afternoon from the D.C. area and head back down towards Charlotte, NC. The Carolinas Pro Tour has its Tour Championship Tuesday-Thursday at a course called Carolina Lakes just south of Charlotte in South Carolina. Though I was nearly 500 miles away at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, I will be there and ready to compete for my 9:50 a.m. tee time on Tuesday morning. I am comfortable on that golf course and am excited to play!

Though my execution hasn't been good lately, my only goal from a performance standpoint this week is to have an intelligent plan on every shot, to commit to that plan, and to trust my new routine. If I do that, I know that good execution is just around the corner. I should be in contention for a win this week.  Keep it here for all the news--I will do a better job of keeping you updated! Thank you for following me!