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About this blog

As I have joined the PGA recently as an apprentice, I can play in local tournaments and other cool tournaments in the PNW as a pro. I'll just detail certain tournaments and/or what I do to prepare for them.  

Entries in this blog

WA Assistant's Championship

Played yesterday in the WA Assistant's Championship at Fircrest GC.  Weather ended up being perfect despite the tendency this time of year to rain. I ended up shooting even par 71 and T-4th. The round started off interesting, with a duck hook drive into the woods left. I punched it out to 100yds and stuck the 3rd to 8ft which I made to save par. My irons overall were good. The tough part about this time of year is getting distance dialed in as the air starts to cool, so needless to say I was
phillyk

phillyk

3

Is It Important to Have a Caddy on Tour?

This isn't apart of my normal road to championship stuff, but just something I thought about a lot in the Kuchar caddy payment thread. Part of the Kuchar issue is what role the caddy actually played, in his win.  But, it begs the larger question of what does a caddy really do for a Tour player? Besides the normal role of carrying a bag and raking bunkers, etc., a caddy is, imo, in essence a GPS for the player, a support person, and sometimes a coach.  Not that the player can't get the inf
phillyk

phillyk

7

WA Assistant's Championship

My last entry mentioned the Pro-Assistant, so I will start there.  We played Willamette Valley CC in Canby, OR for the two-day Best Ball event.  My boss and I played better than last year.  We had a couple blemishes, but had several birdies drop to finish T-10th (out of 54 teams) at -8.  Winning team was at -16 and won by 4 strokes.  I struggled to hit the ball straight Day 1, but once I got my stance aligned correctly, I hit the ball good.  My stance had been closed by quite a bit and I was hit
phillyk

phillyk

1

Another Season Started

March always marks the beginning of the golf season in WA.  We have pro-ams starting up, the temperature starts to get back into the 50's, and the winter rains start to lessen and go away.  So, it's time to start getting back into some serious practice and see how low we can go this year.  In the beginning of February, I decided to get over it and make a change to my swing that it needed.  It was flat, loopy, flippy, bizarre, and too many things needed to happen correctly to make it work.  I man
phillyk

phillyk

0

The Zone

Well winter has really set in, here in Western Washington, with snow a week ago and now blustery rainy days that won't end until April.  I've done a lot of reflection after the Newport Cup because of how well I played that final day.  It was a good way to end my season.  I knew that my swing had been coming around and that there were only a few swing thoughts I wanted to keep track of.  I had a good warm-up that day, not doing anything special.  Just getting finding the rhythm and the way the ba
phillyk

phillyk

0

Recent Hot Streak Part 2

Now to the Newport Cup. I've been so pumped for this event ever since I was selected to play in it.  But, it's nerve wrecking, for me, because you're meeting people you've known for a couple years over the forum, but want to impress them I guess?  I don't know how to explain it other than because I'm a +1 cap, how can I prove that I play well?  Not many people can say they're a scratch golfer and when we see new people come on the forum and say this and that, we are all skeptical until prov
phillyk

phillyk

4

Recent Hot Streak Part 1

I haven't really written a lot about my golf this season, so I'll talk about recent tournament rounds, that I can remember, including some in the Newport Cup. Part 1 will cover before Cup events.  Part 2 will be Cup stuff.  Just separating my thoughts a bit. I don't remember when I first started the swing thoughts I have now, but I've been working with them for a few months now and it really seems to make my game consistently better and better.  In my pre-shot routine, I start with my
phillyk

phillyk

0

Teaching Seminar

I recently came back from my PGA education seminar in Florida.  The instructor, Joe Plecker, is a PGA Master Professional in instruction and GOLF Magazines top-100 instructor .  Gosh, he made it look so easy.  I just wanted to share some things he told us about. It started by having a girl in the class stand up and get into a golf posture then take an imaginary swing.  Her hip turn tried to turn around her right leg and the inside of her right foot came off the ground.  He mentioned her kne
phillyk

phillyk

6

Love/Hate relationship with scramble formats

Yesterday was the annual Ball Buster at my course.  This is where you tip out the course, if not longer, and put pins on the middle of a slope and/or the edges of the greens.  Course played tough, but was even harder because of the weather.  The first 9 holes were played in a windy, rain storm.  After 9, the rain stopped and the wind picked up even more.  Greens rolled well, but fairways are soggy.  Every winter, the fairways go to soggy messes.   Scrambles are always fun to play in.  I enj
phillyk

phillyk

15

My Golf Journey

Well, I've hit 1,000 posts here. Woohoo! Took me long enough (almost 6yrs).  So I thought I'd do the whole journey of golf thing like other posters have done, although I'll abbreviate it as much as I can so this doesn't get too long.  Just fyi, I'm a terrible story teller. Ufta, it is a little long, but enjoy!  Child, born in 1990, to 15yrs old  I started before I knew what I was doing.  My parents got me the blue plastic, double-sided iron and putter with wiffle balls that I could smack a
phillyk

phillyk

2

Friend who swings at 144mph

Working at a golf course, you meet all sorts of golfers with different goals and aspirations.  Jay started out by working as a cart kid and played golf a little bit.  A taller fellow who just wanted to rip it.  It was always funny looking at his clubs.  It was a bunch of different club makers and irons and wedges, because he kept braking everything quickly from swinging hard and hitting turf or sand or something.  He also went through drivers super fast.  One day working he got injured and tore
phillyk

phillyk

12

Putting it together

I had a pro am tourney today and shot a (-2) 70.  It's hard to quantify the round versus how the round would have gone with my driver.  As my last blog post said, my driver broke on Friday.  So today I played with no driver.  I do have an older SLDR S, but I just don't feel comfortable with it and the misses with it are really bad.  So, I thought it best to leave it at home.  Luckily, this course isn't the longest so I really didn't need more than 3 wood. Some stats for the round: 8/14FW and
phillyk

phillyk

0

Broken Driver, again!

UGH!!! So, earlier this summer I had noticed that my driver, Ping G30 LS TEC, had a crack on the face, toe side.  The biggest thing I noticed was the sound.  It seemed really dead.  So I sent it in and picked a new G30 LS TEC off the rack.  Same shaft, same driver.  But, it felt better as in the weight throughout the shaft felt heavier in my hand than towards the head of the driver.  I liked it and hit it better immediately and the sound was much better.  THEN, today I hit a few drives with the
phillyk

phillyk

3

PGA Assistants Championship Qualifier

Yesterday was our section's PGA Assistants Championship Qualifier at Fairwood G&CC (full results found at https://2016secassistant.golfgenius.com/pages/593656).  This tournament is a 36 hole qualifier, shotgun format.  First round was at 7:45 and next at 12:45.  3 spots were available to move on to Florida for the championship rounds in October.  Weird thing, I thought, was that you could ride for this event.  I assumed we had to walk so I took my push cart I recently got from TST and walked
phillyk

phillyk

1

Pro-Am tourney

After coming off of my men's league 31, I was excited to go to this championship course (Tumble Creek Golf Club) to see if I can continue the streak of good play.  As we were driving into the course, the first thing to notice was high winds.  It was very windy.  One of my guys had his ball roll away on the green before he set up.  The ball was almost always oscillating when on the green when the gust came through.  So, on the range, my plan was to practice some lower flighted shots to play for t
phillyk

phillyk

0

Playing with an old Pro

A week ago or so, I finally met a local PGA Pro who I had heard a lot about and plays here and there on the senior PGA circuit and co-runs a golf academy.  Our local golf pro's play in a match play event in spring that brings all of us together and have a double elimination match play over the course of a few months.  It's a lot of fun, and for me being relatively new, it gives me a chance to really meet all the other pros in my area. I won't use his name, but he played a few years on the PGA
phillyk

phillyk

1

Finding the rhythm again

Played in an event yesterday at Tacoma C&GC.  My overall conclusion on how I played was pretty good, but I still have to work out how to hit tee shots.  Finished with a 77, so moving in the right direction in actual events.  Practice rounds at my home course are still around even par or under.  Not the same I know, but it tells me that I can play.  I just have to get comfortable playing in real events and just play my game. The course was in great shape even with all the rain we've had th
phillyk

phillyk

2

Can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk

It sucks to admit, but I can't perform when it comes to tournament play.  I over-estimated my ability by a lot at Sahalee.  Was it my swing, my plan, or simply I haven't had enough tournament experience yet to be comfortable?   I'd say a combination of everything. Sahalee is not a course you can walk onto the first time and expect to make a great score, which I thought I could do.  Its tree-lined right off the fairway.  But more than that, it forces very specific shots from the tee box.  One
phillyk

phillyk

0

Quick Round at Home

During the day today, I was thinking about what I could do to improve the swing, particularly the long clubs.  I thought about recent videos and that I feel a little crunched at impact.  I know i need better extension at impact.  So, I tried putting the ball further away from me with my longer clubs, with exception to the 3W.  I wanted to not stretch for the ball, but feel further away than before.  My mid irons I didn't move quite as much and the low irons and wedges I didn't move at all. I de
phillyk

phillyk

4

Game Plan - Sahalee

Warning- This is a long post! As my last blog post stated, my game plan / course management for Oakbrook did not exist, so I'm going to do a little brain storming for Sahalee.  There are 3 different 9's, North, East, and South.  I don't know which nines are played each day, so I'll do all three, and I'm not 100% sure of the tee set, so I'm going to do the blue tee boxes.  I very highly doubt they'll play the tips, and I think it'll be a mix of white and blue tee boxes, but better to plan for a l
phillyk

phillyk

0

Pro-am at Oakbrook GC

I played at RMG at Oakbrook on the 5th of October.  Most Pro-ams play at the tees around 6500yds, with pin locations set to moderate difficulty. Up to this point, the strongest part of my game has been short irons and wedges.  The weak part of my game has been driver and long irons.  I believe this has been due to a poor rotation around my spine and maintaining that angle through impact, both of which have been getting much better.  I have a tendency to pull up a bit and mishit the longer clubs
phillyk

phillyk

2


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  • Blogs

  • Blog Comments

    • cipher
      Reflections on Golf and Life After ECU Injury - Part 14

      By cipher · Posted

      It has been a while but I will try and fill you in to the best of my ability. I could do a lot of activities after the surgery but just not many that involved the left hand for me since that is what was operated on in my case.  It was about 6 weeks post-surgery before physical therapy recovered. If you have good flexibility and mobility in general hopefully that helps because I had some struggles with physical therapy and I think it was about 9 months after surgery before I tried to swing a golf
    • bkuehn1952
      Reflections on Golf and Life After ECU Injury - Part 14

      By bkuehn1952 · Posted

      @cipher may or may not see your post but I hope things went well and you are onthe road to recovery @Squeens33
    • Squeens33
      Reflections on Golf and Life After ECU Injury - Part 14

      By Squeens33 · Posted

      I know this Blog is from awhile ago, but I hurt my wrist about 2 months ago while hitting a bunker shot lying on an upslope and my doctor is 95% I tore my ECU Tendon as well. Felt the pain directly on impact, took a few weeks off and tried to play again but topped a 5-iron on hole 3 and the pain came right back (worse though). I took about 6 weeks off and just tried playing again this past weekend - swinging does not hurt, but if I don't hit the ball pure than the pain comes right back & my
    • Sammydreep
      Shooting Your Age

      By Sammydreep · Posted

      Congrats,👍 I’ve been close a few times this year!
    • Club Rat
      Shooting Your Age

      By Club Rat · Posted

      Congrats B Kuehn 🙂 Shooting my age is still my goal along with a clean card. My past two seasons have been hampered with injuries which limited my rounds, and the recovery has been tedious. I just turned 72 and have hopes of achieving that goal soon. 
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