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, with exception to my 3W.  For whatever reason my 3W is also one of my best clubs, I can hit any shot with it I want.  But, I have been working on keeping my right elbow "tucked" throughout the back swing, which helps me not over-swing as well as start my down stroke on a better plane.  My other piece I've been working on is not opening the club face on the way back (keeping it tow down).  So, going in to this pro-am I was feeling comfortable with most of my clubs, and hitting my longer irons a lot cleaner.  Driver has its moments.

Oakbrook has not aerated yet this fall, so the greens were smooth and running quick.  The course itself is flat and somewhat tree lined but the main issue is there is OB everywhere off the tee.  Any mishits are practically gone unless you are missing in the right spots.  With the course only at 6500yds, I could get away with long irons or 3W off most tees, but for whatever reason I did not do that at all... My course management was so bad that day.  I used driver almost every par 4, whether it was 330yds or 400yds.  With it being not terribly accurate / consistent, it was just a poor choice to use that day.  I guess I wanted to use it, because I was seeing good improvement and wanted to keep it going, but just a slight miss was going to cost me stroke and distance.  It was a good thing the rest of my game was doing well, for the most part.  One particular par 5 was at 490yds, driver left me in the right rough at 190 out, uphill to the green.  I used a choked up 5 iron to hit a high fade over the trees in front of me.  It was hit perfectly and landed a few feet past the pin and stopped, giving me a 5ft downhill slider for eagle.  I pulled the putt and tapped in for birdie.  But that was my only real putting mistake all day.  I was able to save par and get 2 other birdies on a lot of holes.  A lot of putts were just slightly off from making birdie.  I wouldn't say i was pulling or pushing them, just not quite getting the read down.  For 16 of the holes, play was average, I was hitting some good shots, some bad ones but I was sitting at +1. So, the score wasn't horrible.  But the other two holes......... crap.  I just can't get it into my head about what I was thinking.  First one is 329yd par 4 dogleg left.  OB left and long grass and OB straight and to the right.  Me, being a dummy, wanted to go for the green instead of a simple mid iron off the tee.  I set up like I wanted, but I knew instantly that I had kept the face open and it went straight into the long grass.  I never found it.  After hitting a provisional, the approach shot I skulled OB.... just a stupid shot, I don't know what happened, maybe I just got too quick because I was really upset about losing the ball.  Ended with a 7 on the hole.  The very next hole is a par 5 at 530yds.  I hooked the driver on the wrong hole, so it went OB through the trees.  Ended that hole with another 7, so I went +5 on 2 very easy holes to finish the round with a 77.  Should've been better, but hopefully I've learned my lesson.

My next tournament is the Chapter Championship and our Pro-Assist tournament in one at Sahalee!!  So I'm really excited to play there.  I've been looking over the course on their website, and it looks very tree lined and each hole has specific shots that are needed.  They strategically placed trees on some holes to only allow a certain shot type into the green.  Once again the yardage will only be around 6500yds, so not too long. My approach to the course is to play smart off the tee.  I know I'm comfortable inside 180yds, so if I'm not sure about the tee shot, I just need to play conservatively.  My boss, is a solid player as well, who can rack up a lot of birdies.  So, hopefully we'll give it a good run as a team.

My practice schedule is to do a lot more driver work and see if I can get the misses down a bit.  Obviously working with my turn around the spine is going to keep helping overall control.  I'm still very happy with my short iron and wedge performance, but I'll work to keep them solid.  My course just aerated so it might be tough to work on short game but I can work on that at home.