My Journey 2 Scratch

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Reverse that and you basically summed up my golfing week.  Played a couple rounds this week at my current favorite course the Vineyard and had two completely different rounds.  On Monday the 16^th, I shot a disappointing 79 (+9).  Just didn’t feel comfortable with my swing all day and could not hit it where I wanted.  Was missing greens badly even from when I managed to be in the fairways and short sided myself all day.  Stats overall actually weren’t terrible; 7 of 14 FWs and 10 of 18 greens, but was only 2 of 8 on up and downs because I was missing short side and had two 3 putts on 15 and 16.  After playing so well for the past month with consistent low scores, I was certainly frustrated with this round, but tried to keep a positive mindset and continued to believe in my abilities.

On Wednesday, I headed out to the Vineyard again for a redemption round and I found it…shooting a career low round of Even par 70!!  In practice before the round I had figured out that I had started to creep a little too close to the ball on my address, slightly adjusted it to standing a bit further from the ball and it made a huge difference.  Had it to (-1) heading into 17, but blocked an 8iron into the green side bunker on the par 3.  I dropped another ball just to practice and hit it to about 2 feet for a tap in birdie…ughh if I could have just done that when it counted I would have sealed my first regulation under par round!! Nonetheless, wasn’t able to get my first ball up and down from the bunker and bogeyed to drop back to even.

I missed so many great birdie opportunities and the two birdies that I did make on the day were long distance putts that obviously I wasn’t really expecting to go in. So it’s kind of funny, when I was actually playing the round I didn’t really feel like I had my best round ever going because I was missing so many makeable opportunities.  Missed about 3 or 4 8-12ft uphill birdie putts, only scored a par 4 on the drivable par 4 7^th after I had drove it just off the back in 1 and didn’t birdie either of the par 5’s after being near the green in two on both.  So as excited as I am to shoot a new career low round of Even, it is frustrating knowing just how many shots I left out there, but I shouldn’t be focused on the negative, there will always be shots you know you should have made and that’s why golf is a mental grind.  I’m going to keep staying positive and believing in my abilities and hopefully the results will continue and I’ll squeeze that under par round in here soon.

My annual Palm Springs tournament is coming up here in less than 2 months, so I hope I can shoot an under par round before then.  One of my goals for 2014 has been to be able to shoot an under par round at the tournament this year, so I’m focused on making that happen.

Stats:

The Vineyard Escondido Par 70 71.0/126 6,531 Yards

6/16/14:

Score: 79 (+9) FW: 7/14 GIR: 10/18 Putts: 32 Up/Down: 2/8 Sand Save: 0/1 Penalties: 1

6/18/14:

Score: 70 (E) FW: 8/14 GIR: 12/18 Putts: 29 Up/Down: 4/5 Sand Save: 1/2 Penalties: 1