My Journey 2 Scratch

Well that certainly crept up on us fast huh? It is now the start of a brand new year, 2014 and I am happy to see it.  I’ll admit I’m the type of person who is a sucker for New Year’s resolutions.  The start of the New Year always fills my mind with so many possibilities, the chance to start fresh and refocus myself on my new goals.  I’d say I’m almost always at my most positive and creative state on December 31^st, of course like most, that heightened state of mind slowly dissipates a few weeks later with the realization that truly reaching your goals is going to be a tough, harsh, mental and physical grind, but I’m ready.

Before I talk about my 2014 goals, I should probably do a quick recap of my 2013.  I started this blog at the end of May, so I’ve been at it for a full 7 months now, but in the past couple I have only been focusing on golf and not this blog.  In 2014, I will stay consistent in updating this blog because my hope when starting this blog was to entertain and possible help others who had similar dreams and interests, but also to feed off your viewership as a way to hold myself accountable to not only better my golf game, but better myself as a person as well.  In 2013, I accomplished one of my big goals and that was to win at the annual 3-day Palm Springs golf tournament.  Finishing 1^st and beating a field of 85 players was an amazing feeling and I’m very proud of myself for staying focused and playing well under pressure.  My other main goal for the 2013 was to shoot an under par round of golf on a regulation course.  Unfortunately, I fell just short of that goal, posting a few +1 and +2 rounds, but had multiple 3-putts that cost me that under par round.  Had a round, at one of the most difficult courses I’ve ever played this year, where I shot +1 with three 3-putts…eliminate those and it’s a (-2) round.  Not all is lost however, I did manage to shoot a 4-under round at an executive course just about a month and a half ago and in some aspects, it can be considered tougher to shoot under on an executive because of the amount of par 3’s, where you must hit it close in order to score.  4-under par anywhere I feel like is a respectable score, so I actually consider this goal somewhat accomplished.  Those were my two big main goals this past year and I’m really pleased that I was pretty much able to accomplish both.

So now I head into 2014 and I’m ready to tackle it with full force.  This is going to be the most demanding year of my life; I will push myself harder and further out of my comfort zone than I have ever been before.  It will no doubt be uncomfortable and difficult, but I know that if I put in the effort and hard work, endure the struggles and sacrifices, that I will see myself accomplish the things that I can only dream about now and start to truly fulfill my potential.

I only have 3 main golf goals for this year of 2014 as of now and I’ll add more as my progress goes along, but for now here they are:

1)      Win our annual work tournament in April/May.  It is a scramble style tournament and my team and I have shot (-10) each of the past 2 years and come in 2^nd and 3^rd.  This will be our 3^rd time playing and I want to win this tournament badly.  I will definitely have to improve my game over the next 4-5 months if we want to win as a lot of the shots will fall on my shoulders.  We will have to shoot in the 50’s to win and if I play my best, I feel we can for sure accomplish that.

2)      Improve on my scores from last year in Palm Springs and shoot an under par round at the tournament.  Even though I won this past year, my short game was abysmal and I could have easily shot a lot lower if that part of my game was sharp.  So my goal is to not only win again obviously, but to improve my total score and have one of the rounds be under par…that would be amazing.  The tournament isn’t until August 2014, so I have 8 months to practice and I think I will be able to sneak a couple under par round of golf into my game by then, hopefully!

3)      To play in and win a Golf Channel Amateur Tour Event.  I’ve wanted to play in these events for the past 2 years now, but have been hesitant to make this next step until I felt like my golf game was strong enough.  Truly it’s more just about nerves than anything else, so my goal is to step out of my comfort zone and play in a few tour events this year.  My plan is to focus on practice for a few months and then play some events starting in April.

So those are my top 3 golfing goals for the year 2014, besides the obvious one of trying to get down my handicap to scratch.  I will also aim to update this blog a lot more frequently, thinking at least 2 times a week going forward like I did when I first started.  I’m sorry I have not put the time and effort into this blog as I had intended, one post a month is just not right.

Thank you to all of my viewers for the wonderful encouraging comments you guys have provided in 2013, they really do help me in staying positive and focused on accomplishing my goals and dreams and I hope you all stick around, follow and enjoy my golf journey in 2014.

I’d like to end this post by asking what are your golfing goals for the year 2014? I’d like to hear them in the comments below and I wish you all the best with them.  I hope that this blog can possibly be a source of encouragement or help for you as we both head down that mysterious path together that accompanies that journey to accomplishing dreams, cheers!