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8 fairways, 11 greens, 35 putts: it adds up to 79. Lots of good players struggled today as the wind whipped up progressively as the day went on. My playing partners (Jay Don Blake and Kirk Hanefeld) were both at par or better on our first nine (the back), and Jay came in at even par 71 while Kirk, two time Senior PNC champion, shot 44 on the back, finishing double, bogey, triple, double. I mean, every hole was a challenge. The wind was especially fierce on the last three, strong enough to have the ball oscillating as it laid at rest on the green.
As you can see by my stats I didn’t hit it all that bad considering the conditions. In fact, I hit a number of really good shots, and got hosed a couple of times when a few feet here or there would have made a big difference. But the biggest difference was the putting, as I failed to convert on at least 6 putts inside of 6 feet. On a day like today and a course like this it is a given that you are going to have to make a bunch of short-ish putts for par, and since the birdie opportunities are scarce you just have to make them in order to keep your score from getting out of hand. I didn’t miss by much, and felt like I made some good strokes, but for various reasons they just didn’t go in. So, what should have been a 74 or 75, which would be middle of the field, turned into 79, and now I have to shoot even or so to make the cut.
I did make one heinous swing and one other bad one and those two cost me four shots. On the par- three 13th, my fourth hole, I pulled a 4 iron at least 30 yards left and long and ended up making triple. I found myself feeling out of sorts momentarily and chunked a couple of pitch shots, and then on the next tee cut my drive just barely into the hazard on the right which cost me another shot. I recovered nicely with four straight pars, but starting out the front nine I failed to get up and down from not too difficult spots three times in four holes and let the round get away from me. I did make two birdies, including one on the last hole to break 80, but I really hit the ball better than my score. I’m going to have to get the putts to drop tomorrow if I want to make the cut.
I want to thank everyone who dropped me a line wishing me luck. It means a lot to have you all rooting for me, and I hope that my experience and my reporting are helpful to you as you try to engage yourselves in your own competition. Playing is never easy, and moving up to a different competitive level is always stressful. The last thing anyone wants is to feel embarrassed in front of other players. But if you are playing a hard course and you don’t have control of the ball anything could happen. Sometimes it’s hard, when you get off to a bad start, to not think that you could shoot 90, or whatever a heinous score would be relative to your normal game. It’s a true test of character when you put yourself in a position to fail, and it takes a tremendous amount of will to keep grinding and to not get despondent about what is going on. But, and this is the big “but”, that’s where technique comes into play. If you have decent technique, and you have a pretty good idea of what you are supposed to be doing, or at least trying to do, you have an anchor to keep you going. If you are playing by “feel”, and the feel is missing, then you are screwed. It would not have been hard to shoot 85 or worse today. Every hole was a double waiting to happen. Every miss was penalized harshly. You’re only hope is to rely on your swing and you’re short game strokes to bring you home in a decent fashion.
So, tomorrow is another day and I feel as though a good round is in me. If not, it’s been a lot of fun and a privilege to play in such a great event.