The rain cleared this morning but it had been raining during the night so the greens were a little soft out there today. Once again, and I must say it's a habit I am not liking, I started poorly with 3 bogies in the first 7 holes. The first was on the 11th, my second hole, where I hit it 1m off the fairway on the right side and simply had no shot to the green. I was stuck behind some trees leaving only a low shot underneath but unfortunately there were mounds there and I couldn't do that either. I opted to try and go round the trees up high with a fade but caught the top branches and just dropped down into the fairway. My third shot from 135m found the greenside bunker where I made a nice up and down just to save a 5.
My second bogie came on 13, after hitting a pretty good drive my ball came to rest on a severe downslope in the fairway somehow? I am not sure how it could stop on such a severe slope but it did. It made my second shot to the par 5 a difficult one and to be honest I hit a bad shot up the left side. It hit a tree and kicked 50m left into a clump of trees. Now I had absolutely no shot and did well to even get it out. My 4th shot was not much better and I hit a great shot to find the green but some 40 feet from the hole. Two putts for a bogey 6 and my start wasn't ideal. I started to find my range a little after that and played a good couple of holes and found myself with a birdie putt on 16 from around 30 feet. It was a makeable and I hit a great putt but it just missed. I then missed the return putt for par, my first 3 putt for the week and first miss inside 5 feet for the week. I have been holing out well so was really confident with the putter to make this one but for some reason missed. I didn't miss or look like missing any other short putts for the rest of the day. So with my back against the wall and knowing that 3 over wasn't really in the plan I really concentrated on doing my very best to choose the right shot based on what was before me, make sure that I practiced the feel to create the shot and then simply try and repeat that feel with the shot. For all you reality tv junkies out there and particularly the kitchen shows, I like to call this the "My Kitchen Rules" method. Murray Lott from Brisbane Golf Club has been helping me with my short game and he taught me this, I just gave it a name. The idea is that I am cooking with each shot. So the recipe is all the info you need, wind, slope, distance, pin location, best putt options etc. Once you have that then it is about the best shot to get the ball to where you want. Now when you are cooking for someone you are never going to serve up the food onto the dinner table without taste testing it first to make sure it is cooked. That is the practice swing, the taste test. Now if I do my practice swing and don't get the feel right, it's like the meal isn't quite ready so have another go...cook it a little longer. Once I am ready it is about serving it up. The idea is that I rate the taste test 1-5 with 5 being ideal and that I need to try and get a 5 with the end product meaning shot shape and direction to the target. My day in "My Kitchen Rules" then becomes about how many 5's I can match from the kitchen to the dining table!! Confused.....well I hope so, I thought I was a golfer!!! The rest of my day was an improvement as I shot 1 under the last 11 holes to finish on 2 over. I actually played my best golf for a long while in that stretch and had great looks at birdie on every hole except the last hole which I bogied. So even par total after two days isn't ideal as I am 4 shots behind the mark at this stage. Two days to go though which is a long time and I know how tight some people get in these q schools as the week draws to an end. I am going to finish strong and get
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AuthorCatch up with everything from the tour as I let you know about the course, conditions and my thoughts and feelings on how I am playing.....also some cool stories from the tour!! Archives
January 2017
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