First ever tournament!

[jaysquared]

Hijacking this thread instead of opening another thread with same topic.

Today was day 1 of 2 of my 1st ever tournament.  Here's what I went through and learned.

- My current handicap is 19.6 from a course which, by everyone's account, plays 2 - 3 strokes harder.   If they are right, I figure I should be doing better on another course (Del Monte, Monterey, CA) even though it will be my first time playing there.  Sure enough, I did well (considering), carding 93 from white tee (70.5/128).    I will see if I play better than my HI tomorrow on another new course (Spanish Bay).

- I was mentally sharp for the tournament and it helped my 1st half score.   But getting up early, putting and waiting around (of course, I was there 90 minutes before starting tee time ) for tournament to begin took a toll toward the end.   I lost focus and made some empty headed mistakes down the stretch.  I played 11 over on the last 6 holes (vs 10 over the 1st 12).

- I was nervous on short putts and missed 4 - 5 short putts I'd normally make.   Putting felt different when in tournament.   Hopefully, I would not feel nervous tomorrow. Still putted 34 times on a very fast green (fastest I remember).

- Hit number of provision in case I could not find my ball.  I didn't want to come back and re-tee.   Thankfully, I had no OB or lost ball today.   I started and finished the round with one ball.  LOL, I brought 2 dozen balls just to make sure that I don't run out.

- Other than the above, I played my usual way, joking around, enjoying scenery, keeping cool (even through 11 over 6 hole stretch).

Best way to play a tournament.. Just treat it like a regular round of golf.. Don't put too much pressure on yourself. I always set my goal to just shoot my handicap and things always work themselves out.. When your goal is to shot lower than our handicap you'll put too much pressure on yourself and your swing will just go to $ht! Good luck though.. I love playing in tournaments..

[Kelzzy]

I say 2hrs is overkill. For me it would take less than 30minutes to warm up.

2 hours is nothing close to overkill. You need a good amount of time to get warmed up on the range, practice some chipping and putting. 2 hours may not even be enough.. for my tournaments I try to get there four hours before to warm up my entire game.

[Pretzel]

2 hours is nothing close to overkill. You need a good amount of time to get warmed up on the range, practice some chipping and putting. 2 hours may not even be enough.. for my tournaments I try to get there four hours before to warm up my entire game.

Interesting philosophy there. Just to warn you though for when you get into high school tournaments is that you likely will have around 30 minutes to get ready. My team meets at a location and heads up to the course together and we always end up arriving about 30-45 minutes before it starts, so you might want to try and shorten your warm up routine in preparation for that.

[fracas]

Four hours????   You have to be joking.   Good one!!

All you really need is a half hour, 45 minutes tops.   Do some stretching of your back and legs....  then take a couple of clubs and make some easy full swings to stretch your shoulders, chest and arms.   Hit some balls, starting  with the short irons and just get a nice tempo going......don't worry about where the ball is going.   Work your way up to the long irons, the hybrids, and then the driver.  I don't try to hit every club.   I probably only hit about 5 or 6 of them, at most.   Hit a few chips and a bunker shot or two.   Then hit the putting green.   Putt a few 30-40 footers from different angles to get the speed, then putt a few 5 footers to finish.   Really focus on making the 5 footers as you will almost always have at least 6 of them EVERY round, some for par, some for birdie.

If you only have 5 minutes (which should never happen in a tournament),  the stretching is more important that anything else.

If you have swing thoughts that you want to work on, those are better worked on AFTER the round.   Use the pre round range session to warm up and get loose.  You don't need to be trying something new "to see how this works" in a tournament.

As far as playing in tournaments, treat it exactly like a regular round of golf.   The more you build it up the more pressure you put on yourself and you take yourself out of your comfort zone.   Don't take foolish gambles and don't try to hit shots that have a lot of risk without a lot of reward (as an example, hitting to a back right flag with a right to left wind and trouble near the green).   Believe me, NOBODY else cares what you shoot, so don't be embarrassed or self conscious on the course, or the first tee especially.  The pros have to make a lot of birdies to win, all amateurs have to do is make par after par after par.   So take what the course gives you and don't try to force it.

We all fail far more often than we succeed, so don't be disappointed if you don't play your best.   Get back on the horse and play another tournament.  The more you play, the more natural the feeling becomes.

[Golfingdad]

2 hours is nothing close to overkill. You need a good amount of time to get warmed up on the range, practice some chipping and putting. 2 hours may not even be enough.. for my tournaments I try to get there four hours before to warm up my entire game.

4 hours is kinda cutting it close, don't you think? Just to be safe, I'd say get there 14 hours early, which gives you a chance to warm up with each club for one hour each. P.S. Interesting fact: if you say "gullible" really slowly, it sounds exactly like "oranges." P.P.S. One hour max ... 45 minutes is probably perfect.

[Kelzzy]

30 minutes to eat, adapt to the course

20+ minutes to stretch

30+ minutes to warm up irons

30+ minutes to chip

30+ minutes to putt

After all, you're left with over an extra hour to relax, practice some putting drills, chip etc. There's no rush.. about 30 minutes before my tee time I like to hit on the range again until I'm sweating.. just like Tiger does it. If he has a tee time at 11am, he's there at 6am. Just saying..

[jamo]

4 hours is kinda cutting it close, don't you think? Just to be safe, I'd say get there 14 hours early, which gives you a chance to warm up with each club for one hour each.

I'd say make it 17, that way you can get in a quick nap. FWIW, 2 hours is probably my number, but I'm chronically early to everything. I end up spending most of the time just walking around and putting since I've always done my preparation beforehand.

[Pretzel]

30 minutes to eat, adapt to the course

20+ minutes to stretch

30+ minutes to warm up irons

30+ minutes to chip

30+ minutes to putt

After all, you're left with over an extra hour to relax, practice some putting drills, chip etc. There's no rush.. about 30 minutes before my tee time I like to hit on the range again until I'm sweating.. just like Tiger does it. If he has a tee time at 11am, he's there at 6am. Just saying..

So let's see here.

1) Cut out the eating/adaptation to the course. While you're heading to the course you can discuss the course and its features with your teammates. Also, course food is horrendously overpriced and usually not as good as something you could make or get elsewhere (discounting the fact that a bratwurst the course has is not really the optimal food to eat before a tournament).

2) Combine your chipping and putting practice so that you are making sure that you get up and down, rather than just doing each separately. This helps you get an idea about where you want to have your chips ideally miss.

3) If you have one extra hour to do whatever that means that the hour is completely unnecessary.

4) If you like to hit balls right before your tee shot, then just warm up with full swings after chipping and putting. As a bonus to that you can even use your chipping as part of your stretching if you gradually go from putts to chips to pitches to sand shots.

5) Just because Tiger does it doesn't mean that you have to for a high school golf tournament. There's a big difference between arriving at 6 AM for an 11 AM tee time and arriving at 3 AM for a 7 AM tee time.

All told you end up with, surprise, about an hour maximum of warm up time needed.

[Golfingdad]

I'd say make it 17, that way you can get in a quick nap.

FWIW, 2 hours is probably my number, but I'm chronically early to everything. I end up spending most of the time just walking around and putting since I've always done my preparation beforehand.

Me too ... and then I realize if I get there too early then I spend most of the time just walking around, or sitting around, and allowing more butterflies to manifest.  Now I shoot for 1 hour, and it usually ends up being something like ...

5-10 minutes to get out of the car, get checked in, and head to the range.

20-25 minutes of hitting balls, trying to figure out what my swing is doing that day.

10-15 minutes of putting, dialing in the speed, getting my Aimcharts ready.

And that pretty much puts me at 45-50 minutes, when it's time to get in the cart and head towards the first tee.

[David in FL]

30 minutes to eat, adapt to the course 20+ minutes to stretch 30+ minutes to warm up irons 30+ minutes to chip 30+ minutes to putt   After all, you're left with over an extra hour to relax, practice some putting drills, chip etc. There's no rush.. about 30 minutes before my tee time I like to hit on the range again until I'm sweating.. just like Tiger does it. If he has a tee time at 11am, he's there at 6am. Just saying..

:bugout: That's a full blown practice session. All you need to do before a tournament is warm up a bit. The last thing you want to do is try to "work something out"! Not to mention that you're gonna be waiting in the dark, in an empty parking lot, by yourself a lot too, when you show up for an 8am tee time at 4am.... ;-) I agree, an hour is about right. Remember, for a tournament you may have to wait a bit to get a spot on the range....

[rkim291968]

4 hours?   That's dumb (no offense, K).  Today at day 2 of my 1st ever tournament, I showed up 45 mins early, and just worked on putting.  Spanish Bay was fun (and beautiful) but hard.  Although Del Monte white and Spanish Bay white tees have almost identical difficulty rating, for me, Spanish Bay played 9 strokes harder today.   Some of you know from my posts that I average 32 - 34 putts per round.  I did 44 putts today at Spanish Bay.  44!  That's the worst since I started recording stats. I wasn't nervous at  putting.   The greens were just "diabolical" to say the least.  Green slopes, undulations, or whatever you call it were at extreme.  Holes seem to be always near greens' edge.   3 - 4 times, my 2nd putt ended up longer than my 1st.  Couple of my putts went off green and well into rough.   All in all, it was a good experience.

[flopster]

30 minutes to eat, adapt to the course

20+ minutes to stretch

30+ minutes to warm up irons

30+ minutes to chip

30+ minutes to putt

After all, you're left with over an extra hour to relax, practice some putting drills, chip etc. There's no rush.. about 30 minutes before my tee time I like to hit on the range again until I'm sweating.. just like Tiger does it. If he has a tee time at 11am, he's there at 6am. Just saying..

Serious? To say your overdoing it is an understatement, an hour maybe 2 at the most will be sufficient, if you want to study the course then do it the day before,need time to check in and all and maybe a light meal,hit a small bucket then do some putting for about 15-20 minutes and go, you will not tighten up in 20 minutes and in fact you want to let things relax for a little while after hitting balls. If I had to count how many times I played a tournament after arriving 15 minutes before tee time I would probably need a calculator and I played good a lot of those times.

[Pretzel]

The greens were just "diabolical" to say the least.  Green slopes, undulations, or whatever you call it were at extreme.  Holes seem to be always near greens' edge.   3 - 4 times, my 2nd putt ended up longer than my 1st.  Couple of my putts went off green and well into rough.   All in all, it was a good experience.

I've played on courses like that. One near me called Pelican Lakes doesn't have a single green with less than four distinct hills and breaks that go along with them. When they're cut to tournament speeds it can turn a GIR into a daunting putt-putt course if your ball is in the wrong spot.

[rkim291968]

Today at day 2 of my 1st ever tournament, I showed up 45 mins early, and just worked on putting.  Spanish Bay was fun (and beautiful) but hard.  Although Del Monte white and Spanish Bay white tees have almost identical difficulty rating, for me, Spanish Bay played 9 strokes harder today.   Some of you know from my posts that I average 32 - 34 putts per round.  I did 44 putts today at Spanish Bay.  44!  That's the worst since I started recording stats. I wasn't nervous at  putting.   The greens were just "diabolical" to say the least.  Green slopes, undulations, or whatever you call it were at extreme.  Holes seem to be always near greens' edge.   3 - 4 times, my 2nd putt ended up longer than my 1st.  Couple of my putts went off green and well into rough.   All in all, it was a good experience.

I won 2nd place!   Apparently, my home course really plays 2 - 3 strokes harder than its rating.   All my  posted handicap is from the same home course and despite playing +6 over 90% of my handicap, I finished in 2nd place.   I am so stoked (not as much as David_in_fl playing a round with GMac but, hey, this was my 1st ever tournament).

[MS256]

I won 2nd place!   Apparently, my home course really plays 2 - 3 strokes harder than its rating.   All my  posted handicap is from the same home course and despite playing +6 over 90% of my handicap, I finished 2nd place.   I am so stoked (not as much as David_in_fl playing a round with GMac but, hey, this was my 1st ever tournament).

Sandbagger. (Just joking)

Congrats on getting second place!!

[Kelzzy]

Sandbagger. (Just joking)

Congrats on getting second place!!

Yeah, dude, congrats. My first tournament was in Redwood and I won it with like an high 80's.. when I was asked how long I've been playing and responded "a couple weeks" i got some weird looks. Hahahaha. But they sucked down there, the real competition is down here.

[jaysquared]

Yeah, dude, congrats. My first tournament was in Redwood and I won it with like an high 80's.. when I was asked how long I've been playing and responded "a couple weeks" i got some weird looks. Hahahaha. But they sucked down there, the real competition is down here.

Have you really been only playing a couple of weeks as was able to shoot 80's?? If so then thats damn good!

[Kelzzy]

Have you really been only playing a couple of weeks as was able to shoot 80's?? If so then thats damn good!

Well I did play from four years old to nine, and haven't played in 5 years.. but I guess you could say I'm wired for the game.