<link>https://thesandtrap.com/blogs/blog/34-from-hogan-to-short-round/</link><description><![CDATA[<p> This is a blog about the rollercoaster ride that is my golf journey. My trials and tribulations. I might even use it occasionally, which is funny to think about considering how much of it I post in various topics anyway. </p> <p> For the longest time I only wore flat caps (like Ben Hogan) to play golf. I kind of became known for it around here, I think. I retired my last flat cap last year and decided I wanted to collect the occasional golf hat from courses that I play as I get older and travel more as souvenirs. I never liked baseball caps as a kid because it made look like Short Round from <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em>. Thus, the name of the blog. </p> ]]></description><language>en</language><item><title>Ruminations Part 2https://thesandtrap.com/blogs/entry/485-ruminations-part-2/ Day two of the four day tournament. Sunday, April 21, 2024.

As luck would have it, my fellow competitor and cart partner during the qualifier was the 3rd seed, so we would play against each other in the first round. He is a very nice guy and we got along very well. I think that made it easier for both of us to play. It was his first tournament, and he was nervous, but he told me I helped him a lot by explaining rules and keeping the mood light by being the general assclown that I am. And that helped me, too. I didn’t really think about playing golf except for the brief moments I had to, which I devoted my full attention to. He did rake a putt in the qualifier round, but even with that penalty stroke he managed to shoot net 71. I covered our match briefly in the member tournament thread.

My warmup for the day went terribly. I was struggling to hit the ball well on the range at all. It was kind of uncomfortable walking off the range feeling like I didn't know how to swing a golf club. There was nothing I could do about it, so I moved onto the putting green and did my usual thing there.

Trading Blows

I surprised myself with how well I played, especially when I really needed to. He was getting five strokes from me. I hooked my 4i off the first tee and made double, down 1 right from the start. Followed that with a much better 4i off the tee and won #2 with par. On #3 we both missed the green and he pitched it inside of 2', which I gave him. I almost holed my chip and we halved. The 4th was the first par 5 of the day which I won with a 3-putt par. We had matching bogeys on #5 which he won because he got a stroke, then he won #6 with par. The tees were way up and the hole played under 100 yards. I had a little bit of fun on this hole and decided to hit a low runner type of shot which wasn't a bad idea and I actually hit it pretty well, but it just caught the ridge and rolled off the back. I think if I had to do it over I'd still hit the same shot, just more to the right.

Tees were up again on #7 (I think they were having a little bit of fun setting up for the tournament). The pin was front left and I smoked my 4w. One of the other guys in the group asked if we should yell fore for the guys putting on the green. I said no, I'm well right of them. And it turned out I hit the green, but I was also 30 yards right of them so I felt like I was right in not having to yell fore, but maybe that's close enough to warrant it? I still don't know how I feel about it, honestly. I didn't yell fore, nobody got hurt, and nobody seemed mad at me about it, so I think I'm ok. I 2-putted for birdie and won the hole. I pushed my drive on the tough par 4 #8 but found the fairway bunker and hit a great shot out of it just past pin high left of the green. Faced with a hole cut on a hump and everything sloping away from me, I decided to putt my ball out of the rough and I almost holed it. Made par. He made a mental error here as he lagged his 4th shot inside of 2' and I asked him what he was putting for, since he was getting a stroke on the hole. He started to count his strokes, then kind of just haphazardly tried to hole the putt in the middle of counting because he was standing astride someone's line before he gave me an answer and missed it. I felt kind of bad about it because I had asked with the intention of possibly conceding the putt. #9 is the mistake I mentioned in the other topic where I put my second shot in the water trying to go for the green in two, knowing I was giving up a stroke and he had already hit two good shots. He made net birdie anyway and we were AS after trading eight of the first nine holes.

Stick to the Plan

We played Lake for the back 9. It was the course I hadn't played in the two rounds at Neshanic this year so far, so I tried my best to take my game plan and apply it on the fly. We both made par on #10. On #11 I thinned the crap out of my 4i and it didn't clear the ESA. Teed it up again and hit it right where I wanted to hit it the first time (more experience). He didn't hit his tee shot well and then had some trouble hitting out of the rough a couple of times. I realized I wasn't dead on the hole and hit my 110 yard approach inside of 10' and two putted. We halved. On #12, a par 3, I hit a bird. Literally. At least I think I did. I watched the ball come down and disappear behind the mound where it should have hit the green and rolled to the left, instead it took a hard crazy sideways bounce right just as a bird flew off in the opposite direction. There isn't a sprinkler head there or anything. Maybe it didn't hit the bird because I probably would have killed it, but it was a weird bounce all the same. We both made 4. On #13 I smoke my drive and had about 110 left to the pin, accidentally hit the ball out of the sweet spot on my approach and ended up 60' past it. Then I putted that one to tap-in distance. He made net par to halve.

#14 is where his troubles began. I wrote about this hole in the other topic, too. He hooked his drive into the pond and I hit a pretty good drive just left into the rough/fescue. I hit my second into the left fairway bunker and spent some time helping one of the other players in the group look for his ball in the fescue. We found it and he asked me if I knew the yardage from where we were. I looked at my H4 and it had given me the yardage to the next hole, presumably because I had crossed over to it at some point during our search. I switched it back and gave him the number - it was like 150ish. After he hit his shot, I went to my ball farther up and in the bunker. For whatever reason, I didn't use my rangefinder and only briefly glanced at my H4, which gave me a yardage of 150ish. It didn't occur to me at the time that it couldn't have been that number. I don't know if it was the GPS lagging because it was overcast, or it was on the wrong hole, or I simply read it wrong. I pulled a club and hit what I thought was a great shot out of the fairway bunker based on the contact, only to watch it fly the green by a lot. This would not be the last time I pulled the wrong club during this tournament. I almost lost the ball, but fortunately the 4th member of our group found it in the deep stuff. I managed to gather myself and hit a decent shot just onto the green and two putt for bogey to win the hole.

#15 is a simple, short, dogleg right par 4. They removed the pot bunkers hidden behind the hill in the fescue which makes it much more inviting to just hit driver over everything and leave a 50 yard shot into the green. I stuck to the plan and smoked a 6i to the corner in the middle of the fairway. My opponent hit a decent drive past my ball. I pulled my approach shot and hit the green but had about 50' to the hole and he thinned his over the back. He flubbed his chip and was over 30' away and I hit another long putt to tap-in distance and won the hole. #16 is another short dogleg par 4 with water all along the right that was playing up again. I briefly flirted with the idea of going more aggressive but went with 7i off the tee. Neither of us hit good shots and we both ended up in one of the fairway bunkers on the left. I had an 80 yard bunker shot with water to the right and behind the green. I kind of just went with my gut and hit a half swing PW 8' short of the hole. He struggled on the hole, just getting it out of the bunker on his second and I don't remember exactly what he did on his third because as he put it, my bunker shot was "the nail in the coffin." I two-putted to win the match 3&2.

I Can Breathe Again

I breathed a sigh of relief that it was over and then I pulled my tee shot on the par 3 17th into the weeds. The other match was still going on so I told them not to worry about what I was doing, to do their thing and I'll just find my ball and pick it up. I didn't find my ball. We got to #18, Lake #9 which is my favorite hole on the whole course. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. I hooked it OB off the tee and decided I was done playing golf for the day. Apparently I had reached my limit of focus for golf for the day, or perhaps I really just let it all go once I relaxed, but I knew after hitting two straight misses I hadn't hit all day that I was not capable of playing any more golf. There was another match going on in our group, after all, and I did not want to be a distraction.

My opponent hit what he described as the best hybrid he'd ever hit on #17 to 6' and made par. He followed that up with a well played par net birdie on #18. Apparently the pressure of the match being gone had the opposite effect on him.

]]>485Thu, 30 May 2024 00:23:15 +0000Ruminations Part 1https://thesandtrap.com/blogs/entry/483-ruminations-part-1/ First tournament win. It still sounds good. I realize that I've written about this tournament in various posts and topics but I kind of want to put it all together in one place. I have won the net division of the 2024 William Anderson Match Play Championship at Neshanic Valley Golf Course. That's probably the last time I'll type that sentence. It consisted of a single round stroke play qualifier in which the top eight players advance to match play. Four rounds spread between two weekends. There were 22 competitors in the net division this year.

Not My First Rodeo

My first tournament round ever was in this tournament last year, but last year the odds were stacked against me. I had only played three rounds of golf outside of a trip to Hilton Head the whole year and my handicap was significantly beyond my reach due to a few really good rounds I played in the summer of 2022. If I remember correctly, my index at the time was around 12 and the best differential I had shot so far in 2023 was a 16. It was the best round I had since sometime in September 2022. I knew I wasn't going to make the cut. I signed up just for the experience and I went into it with zero expectations. I shot a 98 in the stroke play qualifier for some double digit net score over par. Needless to say, I did not make the cut. But I did gain the experience of playing in competition. I learned the format of the tournament, how to keep track of other people's scores as well as my own, and I thankfully was of sound enough mind and didn't rake any putts away. It was enough, I think, to say that I had done it and would know what to expect next time. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts, next time didn't happen in 2023. Every club championship in the county happened on a weekend where I was unavailable for one or both of the rounds.

So next time had to be 2024 and this year I could not have been more ready. I've been playing a money game with a couple of guys regularly for months and we played all through winter. I had already played almost 20 rounds of golf this year by the time of the qualifier round. I played enough golf to knock off all of my low summer scores. I was accustomed to the pressure of competition and how every stroke matters outside of my own personal satisfaction, which I've discovered is not much of a personal motivator for improvement. Left to my own devices, I could take it or leave it. I find ways to enjoy a round while playing poorly and I often joke about enjoying the weather when I'm playing poorly. I've stated many times in the past that I don't enjoy the game any more now than I did when I first got hooked and struggled to break 100. I like hitting the ball better as much as everyone else, but knowing what I'm capable of, both good and bad, I've simply accepted my game as it was. That mentality keeps me grounded and keeps my expectations realistic, but more importantly it doesn't drive me to score better. Personal improvement is nice, but it turns out not being the guy that's handing out money at the end of the round - that's a motivator for me.

Tournament Prep and Qualifier

I played a round at the course on the weekend before the tournament. It was in part to familiarize myself with the course. Neshanic Valley is a great golf course, but not one I play that often because it's the farthest one from my house out of the county courses. It's also the most expensive with a riding cart included in the greens fee and no discount if you walk. I don't know it like I know the other three I regularly play. I don't know where my regular misses end up, or what the optimal strategy (which I typically learn through trial and error) was. I wanted to make sure I knew, or at least as much as possible, and also to get a feel for the greens. I shot 91 (net 74) that day on what felt like a fairly mediocre round and I knew I had a chance to make it, so I started taking it more seriously. I even made some posts about it in the week leading up to the tournament and even though I only discussed a few holes, I took the strategy I devised and applied it everywhere. I needed to play within myself - embrace my strengths and try to reduce the impact of my limitations.

A range bucket was included with each tournament round. I used it to warm up and get feels for the day. That usually doesn't take long for me so I used half the bucket practicing my short game. Then I went to the putting green and hit long putts to get a feel for the speed, followed by short putts as I typically do. I actually arrived too early for my tee time and found myself having exhausted my routine with more than 30 minutes to spare.

I ended up shooting 91 again, which was good enough for the 6th seed. I was almost undone by a combination of poor greenside bunker play (one of my many limitations) and a massive brainfart on the #8 that led to a 9 on the card. I don't even remember how it happened, whether from a bad lie or simply a bad swing, but I had managed to put my second shot under a tree. It was a short tree with a wide canopy, one that I could not stand up straight under. The ball was buried deep in native grass and vegetation of some kind. And in that moment, I had completely forgotten about the many relief options available to me by declaring the ball unplayable. Instead, I thought I could simply get enough clubhead on the ball to bunt it onto the cartpath, which would cause it to roll down the slope and into the fairway. Instead, I bunted it several feet in front of me, still under the canopy of the tree. And then I bunted it several more feet which did clear the canopy of the tree, only to hit one of those hosel-grabbing pulls one typically gets out of tall grass. I almost put it on the next tee box. I got down in four from there. I thought for sure that my tournament was over at that point, but I soldiered on. I smoked my drive on #9, only to find my ball on the right third of the fairway, in the middle of a divot (or is it a divot hole?). I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it, but that was generally my demeanor the entire day. I laughed off hitting dumb shots or bad luck instead of getting upset about it, and I think that was a tremendous asset. I was unflappable. I topped a 9 iron so badly on #12 it didn't make it past the forward tees. I laughed quite a bit at that one. I hit the next one inside of 8'. On the par 5 #13, I was in the right greenside bunker in two. I skulled it into the penalty area and made 7. I followed that hole up with three straight pars. No matter what happened I kept focus on the moment and what I needed to execute the shot at hand instead of what I screwed up to get me in that predicament in the first place. And in the end, it was good enough.

Thoughts

In retrospect I wasn't really hitting my approach shots that well. There were a lot of mishits short and when I did hit the ball solidly, I missed long. I did hit the ball well off the tee and I really leveraged my length. I credit my game plan for that. My short game was poor but I actually putt to my handicap which is actually a good day on the greens for me. The round felt much the same as my practice round - mediocre. I kept focus and I grinded. It was good enough.

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