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About this blog

A documentation of my journey both as a golfer and through the PGA PGM Program.

Entries in this blog

Journey To PGA Membership

Catch Up

FINALLY! I’m finally posting this entry to catch up on what has happened since my last post (November 7 I believe it was). And honestly, not a lot has happened. The rest of the semester was a blur as far as golf goes, and I haven’t played or practiced a ton this winter either. Here are a few highlights: 11/12: My second lowest round on Downback. Wasn’t the greatest start: +6 through five holes. I parred six through eight then bogeyed the ninth to make the turn in 43. My only bad hole on the
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 12: Monarch Cup

Four weeks left. It’s hard to believe that my first semester of college is only a month away from being over. Anyway, here’s what happened this week: Tuesday and Sunday: Stayed at the range for about an hour both days and focused primarily on strengthening my grip as recommended by @iacas. Thursday: After seeing me play last weekend and talking a bit, my dad suggested I hit more 4- and 5-irons on the range so I could become more comfortable with them. And on this day, that’s exactly wh
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 11: Starting Again

I’m proud of how much work I was able to put in this week. I went for at least an hour every day Tuesday through Saturday. I won’t go day-by-day this week because all of my range days I worked on solidifying the grip @iacas talked about in the video, but I will go through some highlights. Wednesday: I went to the course after my 1:00 class and warmed up for my 3:20 Monarch Tour tee time. The format was a Tombstone, where we all got 33 shots and we put a flag where our 33rd shot ended up. 
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 10: Titleist

Another week down, and we’re nearing the end of the semester. Here’s what happened this week: Wed. (10/19): Wednesday afternoon I had a putting lesson, specifically lag putts, in response to poor putting at The Cardinal. Here are two key points that I took away: •Match the follow through with the backswing. I never realized that my backswing and follow through on my putts didn’t match, so this one was big. •Look at the hole during the practice strokes. This, he said, was to train
Journey To PGA Membership

Weeks 8 & 9: Catchup

Hey guys! I unfortunately forgot to post here for week 8 but I’m back to report on my last two weeks to catch up!   WEEK 8 (Oct 3-9) Tues. (10/4): I turned Tuesday of this week into a practice session. I decided to hone my short game, and I essentially did everything I did in the previous week’s short game session, except I hit shots from multiple spots around the green. I came away from the practice session very confident about the Monarch Tour event that I was playing in th
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 7: The Lull

Another week in the books, and almost halfway through the semester! Unfortunately I was only able to get out to the course once this week due to weather and just a load of schoolwork I had to catch up on, so this is going to be one of the shortest posts I’ve made so far. The one day I was able to get to the course was Wednesday, but I made the most of it. I spent over two hours at the course Wednesday afternoon. The first hour and a half or so was spent watching guest and MU PGM gradua
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 6: Lots Of Golf!!

Hey guys! Week six is in the books, and this week was action-packed in terms of golf. Tuesday and Friday I didn’t do anything but here’s what happened the other days: Mon. 9/19: Finally, I was fit for new irons! I was fit for Titleist T200s with stiff S300 shafts. The iron set will include 4-PW, with the PW at 43 degrees. I still have the 46/50/54/60 setup, so I have two options as to how I want to handle that: 1. Take out a slot in the top end of the bag. This would be the most compli
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 5: The Struggle Continues

Hey guys! Here’s what happened in week 5 of the semester: Tuesday: I decided to head to the course after lunch so I’d be done in time for my 3:30 class. I pretty much just worked on what I’ve been working on the past few weeks, and I’m looking to get another lesson in the next couple of weeks as well. Wednesday: Two things happened Wednesday: •We worked on chipping in player development, and it went really well. We were given a couple of tips on chipping and pitching, and those al
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 4: Getting Back Into It

A lot happened this week, as y’all will see! Monday (9/5): My brother and I actually had an afternoon tee time and were planning on playing a quick 9 before I had to leave again, but we unfortunately were rained out. Tuesday (9/6): Didn’t get to the course Tuesday, but I did have my first interview!  We had a few pros from the Country Club of Virginia come down and talk to us during class about their facilities and internship opportunities, and everything about them and the opport
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 3: Inconsistency

Week three is in the books. And I’ll say this: it wasn’t a great week for my golf game. To be honest, I haven’t gotten to the course much. Only went two days, and here’s what happened: Wednesday: I decided to hit some balls after the first Player Development class of the semester. I worked on the stuff I was given in my lesson, but I only stayed on the range for about half an hour, and here’s the main reason why: Despite just coming out of the PAT and what I dubbed a really bad cold, I
Journey to PGA Membership

Week 2: PAT

Time for my second post! This one will be solely focusing on my PAT from this weekend, because I was sick all week (wasn’t completely cleared until Friday) and wasn’t able to get to the course. I wasn’t sure if I was gonna have the energy to walk 18 on back to back days, but I couldn’t get a doctors note because they said “we’ve already cleared you”, so I didn’t have much of a choice. And I knew going in it wasn’t going to be easy. Sat.: Not much to say about this round. Front nine was cons
Journey To PGA Membership

Week 1: The Beginning

Hey guys! As promised, here is my first post documenting my journey to becoming a member of the PGA of America! In this blog I will focus primarily on my golf game, but I will also go a little bit of what we went over in class when I feel it’s appropriate. For example, the Qualifying Level test is scheduled for October 6, and when I get my results I will post here. For this first week and a half or so (Aug 12-21) I will only go through highlights on the golf course. In class it was mainly j

Wrapping Up the Season/What’s Next?

Hey guys! Sorry to leave y’all in the dark about the last portion of the golf season, but here I am to catch y’all up!  April 19: This was the last non conference match of the season. Honestly I don’t remember much about this one, but I shot a 44 and went +6 in my last four holes. April 25: The conference tournament at Hillandale was on April 25. It was hot on this day, so I went easy on my warm up session and sat in the coach’s cart the last 10 minutes or so until my tee time. I
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Thursday’s Match

Time to update! Today I’ll be updating y’all on the match that took place last Thursday at Chapel Ridge. Surprisingly (and we didn’t even know this until halfway to the course), we were going to be doing tee times, opposed to the shotgun start we normally do. I ended up playing with one of my teammates, and after a good range session, we were off. I’ll go hole by hole here. No. 1: Par (E). Not a bad tee shot but it ran through the fairway and I had tree trouble. A great punch left me a
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Last Two Matches

Hey y’all! This post will outline the last two matches we’ve had, the conference match from Thursday and one we had yesterday. It will also outline what the rest of the season looks like. I won’t go hole by hole of either match, but I will just note the highlights. THURSDAY: In practice the day before, the coach gave us the opportunity to choose which hole we wanted to start on. I chose the par-3 seventh, a hole I have historically played well. That also meant I would end on the par-4 sixth
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Catchup Day!!

Hey guys!! Here’s the blog post I promised 🙂 In this post I’m gonna highlight each match, and because we had a great match yesterday (hint: our best of the year so far), I will go hole by hole there. On to the matches! Starred dates mean the match was non conference. 3/2*: The first match of the year was a non conference match at Umstead Pines. I shot a solid five-over 40 with a double and three bogeys, and we shot 208 as a team. This was a solid start to the season. 3/7: Won’t go
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The Countdown Begins!

Second blog post of the season! Today I’ll explain what I did last week for practice, a little bit of new info I got about the season, and plans for this week. LAST WEEK IN GOLF Last week I had a goal of getting to the course four times, but only got out three times because I was sick Thursday and Friday (luckily just a cold). In those three trips to the course, we put in a good short game practice session and two solid nine hole rounds (39 and 43 with only one truly bad hole). It
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My Senior Golf Season: What I Know

Hey guys! Finally found a good time to write my first blog post of the 2022 golf season! I don’t really have anything specific to write about, so for the opening post I’ll stick to the state of my game currently and what I know (not much) about the golf season itself. MY GOLF GAME My last two 18-hole rounds were about two weeks ago (the 12th and 13th) and I shot an 82 at Greensboro National and an 86 at Umstead, both rounds from the whites. In Greensboro and on the front nine at U
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Match Day Revived

A bit of good news: the match that I was supposed to have with a coworker a few weeks ago is happening tomorrow. However, he only has time for nine holes (unless he tells me differently), so instead of the $60 wager we made (lunch and balls) we are just playing for lunch at the turn (meal, a side and a drink comes out to be around $10). Oh, and I have a bit of home field advantage: we are going to be playing Umstead Pines, my home course. He’s never played there before. My plan, just like d
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Match Day!!

Hey y’all! Been a long time since I’ve posted in this blog in my quest to get into single digits, but I have made some good progress: my handicap is currently 11.3 and everything feels good right now. However, something has cropped up: a coworker and I are going to play an 18-hole match Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what we were thinking: •We play Croasdaile, the course where we both work. After a fair bit of discussion, we decided to play the blue/white hybrid tees (6241 yds, 70.8/133). 
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And So It Begins…

Over the past two weeks or so, I’ve been listening to a podcast on iTunes called Chasing Scratch. Two guys started in August 2017 with 11 handicaps, and they gave themselves about fifteen months (end of November 2018) to get to scratch. Short story: they didn’t (I think the lowest either of them got was a 5.6), but it inspired me. In the past week or so, I’ve decided to start my OWN quest, but it’s not to get to scratch. My goal: to get a single-digit handicap by next golf season (which wil
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Regionals!

Sorry for posting so late as regionals was over a week ago, but I’ve finally got a good time block to write this! Regionals was last Monday, and it was a fun day of golf! Talking in the hotel room the night before, we came to the conclusion that to have a chance to advance to states, I’d have to shoot around 80. Given the way I was hitting the ball in our two rounds the previous two days, that wasn’t out of the picture. It would be difficult, yes, but not out of reach. However, on the front
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Conference Championship!

The conference championship was yesterday, and it was a fun time, especially considering we were playing for a spot in regionals (we were second before the championship, and two teams advance to regionals), and I was playing for a spot in All Conference (top ten qualify for All Conference, I was somewhere between 8th and 12th, so I was close going in). We were so far ahead of third place that advancing to regionals seemed like a formality, so I was mainly focused on All Conference, which I said
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Match Day #3

Never did my anylasis of our last match, so I guess I’ll do it now. 😃 The first 18-hole match was Thursday, and I’ll just say this: it wasn’t near the level of success we had on Tuesday. Not terrible by any means, but definitely not great. The course we played, Kerr Lake Country Club, wasn’t in fantastic shape, but it was a fun layout that kinda made up for the condition. We played the white tees (just under 6200 yards), so all yardages I note are from there. I’ll do another hole by hole an
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Match Day #2

There is honestly a lot to say about our match today. As you’ll see later, we made a really good run today! Now to the round. I hit range balls beforehand, and from my very first shot (a striped 8I), I could tell today was going to be a good day. Good shot after good shot on the range, and I was building confidence with each one. After putting for about 20 minutes, and hitting some really good putts, I was ready. I’ll do a hole by hole analysis. Yardages from the tees we played, but the fou
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