A tournament setback and some lessons to learn

I have been replaying this one scene in my mind for the past 18 hours. It was the pivotal point in the most important round of my fledgling career and I can’t figure out if I made the right call or bungled the decision by trying to do too much and reacting rather than stepping back and thinking. I can’t get it out of my head, which means that it’s important and something I can learn from.

What I am talking about was my second shot on the 13th hole of yesterday’s Oregon Am qualifier, but let’s back it up a bit and start from the beginning.

I had family visit for the five days leading up the tourney and didn’t get out to the course during that stay as we went to the coast and I took some time away from practice. I wasn’t sure how this would affect my game, but when I went out to warm up yesterday morning I felt fresh and clear headed so I knew it was not going to have any negative affect. This was a relief as sometimes when I step away from the game for a bit it takes a day to get back into the groove. Yesterday I felt ready to go and my body was ache free, so all was well.

I was nervous, of course. This was the biggest tournament I had played in and I knew I could make the cut if I had a decent round. Also, I have wanted to play in the Am for two years but this year was the first time where my handicap was low enough to get into the qualifier. To top that, a bunch of friends were following my scores online and I knew plenty of people in the field so there was extra incentive to perform well. I really wanted this and was excited to get the chance to play. It felt like a reward, or something that I had earned, to be in the field and my goal was to appreciate that I GOT to play, not to assume anything or take it for granted.

With that mindset I headed out on the first hole of Stone Creek Golf Club in Oregon City. It was a perfect golfing day: overcast with temperatures hitting 70 and a light wind. The greens were firm and the course was in pretty good shape all-in-all. Pins were setup in some interesting and tough locations, but everyone played the same course so fair was fair. I had played the course once about 3 weeks ago and wasn’t too familiar with the layout, but there were only a couple tee shots that were blind or didn’t seem obvious from the box. I was a little worried about reading the greens well, but that didn’t turn out to be the breaking point of the round and I only misread one green all day.

The first hole is wide open and I hit a great drive right down the middle to position A. Then after hitting the green from 150 out I made a downhill putt for birdie. Perfect way to start: one under through one. On the second hole, par 3, I missed the green with a little pull and ended up exactly where you don’t want to be on the hole. The ball bounced down a hill and came to rest 30 yards out to a short-sided pin well above my head. I pitched on and lipped out the par putt tapping in for bogey.

The third hole has a hazard down the left side and is wide open on the right. I tried to aim a hair down the right side of the fairway AND hit a draw to go more right, but blocked the shot and it went left hitting a tree, falling on the cart path and then bouncing into a red staked hazard. This is a crucial moment as I had to make a tough decision whether to punch out or to take a drop. There was a rules official standing there (he found my ball) and he gave me the ruling as to where I could take relief. The relief point did not have a clear shot at the green so if I dropped I would then have to punched out and be hitting my fourth shot to get up to the green. The alternative was to try and punch out from the hazard to the middle of the fairway and then hit on with my third shot. Seemed like an obvious choice to punch out, but my ball was sitting against a half-inch thick blackberry root jutting out of the ground and over the ball. My mind thought of a friend, Chan Song, who broke his hand trying to hit off of a root and who told me it was never worth it, even in competition.

I thought about it for a couple of minutes weighing the pros and cons of the situation and for better or worse decided to hit my 50 degree and punch out of the hazard. I cut through the root and caught the ball clean. It bounded out over the fairway and ended up propped up in the rough with a clean-ish shot to the green 150 yards away. It was a gamble that had paid off. That said, I hit an 8-iron and the next shot hit a branch and fell down 97 yards short of the green. I managed a good up and down to save bogey, but it had been a tough hole brought on by a big miss with the driver.

The next hole was a par 5 and much cleaner. I hit a drive and then laid up to 100 yards with a short iron as the green is very protected by bunkers and the one thing I learned from my only other time playing the course this year is that those are not the bunkers you want to mess with. Unfortunately I thinned a gap wedge and the ball went over the green; chipped back up and two putted for another bogey. I was 2 over through 4 and my goal had been to be one over, but not too bad all things considered and I was ready to move on to the next group of four holes.

The fifth hole is pretty wide open, but you don’t want to miss right as you get blocked by the trees. So, I pushed the ball again and ended up hitting a tree down the left side dropping it 225 yards short of the green. I hit a hybrid that landed a foot off the green and then hit a good putt distance-wise but misread the slope and ended up with a 6 footer for par. Missed that to bogey the hole.

6 is a par 3 with water then bunkers protecting the green. It was playing 164 yards and the green visual appears small from the tee box. My memory was telling me not to miss it long, but short is in the bunkers or water. I really didn’t know whether I should hit a full 7-iron or try and go with a cut 6-iron. The wind didn’t seem to be a factor and the guy I was playing with hit first and went long left. I decided to go with a 6 to not be short, but my last thought before hitting was “don’t be long”. I hit it fat and sent the ball into the water. There wasn’t a drop zone so I had to re-tee and hit that one fat too but it just barely made it over the water landing in a hazard with a short sided pin. I had to hit over a bunker with tall grass in my backswing to a green that slopes away from me and I also couldn’t ground the club as I was in the hazard, but I made a good swing and got it on the green. I two-putted for a triple.

This was not how I had imagined the first 6 holes of the round going. I started with a birdie and felt pretty good, but then immediately after hit some off shots and got tight and nervous. I was now 6 over through 6 holes and knew that I needed to finish around 6 over so had to start playing some good golf. I loosened up and let go a bit and began to swing more freely. The next three holes I shot par so turned at 6-over 42.

The back nine is supposed to be the tough nine at Stone Creek and everyone told me that to be safe you need to turn around 38 or 39. I was a bit behind and needed some catching up.

I hit a good drive on 10 as it was a wide open hole (something after the round I realized: every wide open tee shot I hit really well, whenever there was trouble down a side I barely managed to get out of the box. This is something I need to address as it killed me yesterday) and hit the middle of the green on my approach. I had a long putt for birdie with a double break, but dropped it in the middle of the cup. On the next two holes I hit the green in regulation and almost dropped a bird both times, but at least managed to get it back to just 5 over through 12 holes. This was very close to what I was shooting for and I was happy to be back in it with a shot to qualify.

13 was where it all changed.

The 13th hole is a blind tee shot over a hill that has OB down the left side and a creek running through the green around 280 yards from the box. A driver and even 3-wood will get to the creek as once you hit it over the hill the ball runs hard towards the water. The guy I was playing with (who was a 2 handicap and a member of the men’s club at Stone Creek who says he regularly shoots 74-75 out there) hit his hybrid a little left of center. I remembered when I last played that the ball can kick towards that left OB and you want to be more towards the center or right side of the fairway so aimed for the middle and tried to hit a little draw with my hybrid. On a related note, for the past few weeks I have really struggled with hitting tee shots with my hybrid again and my confidence level was very low with that club. But, driver and 3-wood were too much and I didn’t think 4-iron would get over the hill and the next shot is very long and up a huge hill unless you get down towards the creek. So, I hit a hybrid and ended up pulling it a little down the right side.

He said I would be fine and maybe just have to punch out at worst and I wasn’t too disappointed with the shot. I had made good contact, just pulled it some. When we got to the top of the hill I saw the rules official walking down towards the creek and started to get worried. Normally there wouldn’t be any way that ball made it through the trees and through all of the rough and all the way to the creek, but it must have hit cart path or hard pan as the official said it just kept going. We found the ball about a foot into the hazard lying in marsh grass 2 feet tall. It looked like it would be possible to punch out as it was an easier lie than the one I had on the third hole and I could stand on top of a couple of rocks which gave me decent leverage. There wasn’t any clean look at the pin and if I had taken a drop I would have had to punch out to the fairway leaving me in the same situation as the 3rd hole where I would have had to hit my fourth shot onto the green. This approach was up a huge hill and hard enough as it was so I didn’t want to take the extra stroke and decided to punch out the same as I had before.

I should have asked the official what the ruling was and at least thought about what my shot would have been from a drop. Instead I went for the punch out. This time, though, there was a hazard across the fairway and my last thought before hitting the ball was to not send it across into the other hazard. I swung at it and popped the ball up but it somehow managed to go backwards deeper into the thick rough. I again decided not to take the drop and then hacked at it again with the same result. At this point I had to take an unplayable and drop four and punch out with my fifth shot. I hit a 6-iron up the hill just long of the green with my sixth shot then got an up-and-down for a quad bogey 8.

I had just gone from being in the hunt at 5 over to 2-shots off the cut line at 9 over in one hole. I can’t remember the last time I was 4 over on one hole and was a bit in shock from the entire experience. I have played it over and over in my head since then and just don’t know what I should have done. Normally I would have taken the drop and punched out then hit on the green, but I think I was being overly aggressive as I knew I needed to shoot as low as possible to make the cut. It was an all-or-nothing scenario and I walked away with nothing.

The next hole was a par 3 over a hazard which was playing slow due to the number of balls not hit on the green. It’s a short hole playing 135 and we had about 15 minutes to sit on the box and wait for our turn. The entire time I was trying to rationalize my decision on the previous hole while also trying to get back into the game and tell myself that I still had a shot. When our turn came up my playing partner hit his in the hazard and I hit a 9-iron just over the green to a backstop but the ball din’t roll back to the green how it seems like it should. I had another 5 minute delay on the green while the rules official decided on where my partner could drop and then I had a chance to chip on. I hit a good one and the ball looked like it was going to hit the cup the entire way but turned just before it and ended up 5 feet past the hole. I think my mind had wandered as I missed the 5-footer and came off with a silly bogey to now be 10 over through 14.

I was 4 off of what would make the cut and had 4 holes remaining. The last shot was to birdie out. There was a hazard on the left side of the 15th hole and I tried to relax, aim for the center and hit my normal draw, but blocked it left and sent the ball into the hazard. I had to drop at a point where I didn’t have a clear shot at the green and knew I was out of it for good. It just wasn’t my day and a few bad shots really added up and I compounded my mistakes on the 13th hole.

There is a ton to learn from the experience and simply by playing in the tournament I learned a lot about the state of my game and what I need to work on. Two things jump out immediately: hitting tee shots when there is a hazard in play and knowing when to take medicine and when to be aggressive. I think the latter comes with experience and I gained some of that yesterday; the former can be worked on with deliberate practice and is exactly where my focus needs to be right now.

Luckily, I was just invited to play the Royal Oaks Invitational Tournament this weekend. It’s a 3-day event this Friday through Sunday on one of the best tracks in the area. I’m excited to have three more tournament rounds already on the books and coming so soon and will be thinking about and adjusting my game accordingly after yesterday’s setback.

It was in no means one of my better tournament rounds to date and I know I could have made the cut, but when you hit 4 balls into hazards in 18 holes it’s hard to shoot a good score.

I am very bummed, and even somewhat mad at myself, about yesterday, but am going to take that energy and bring it to practice today. There is a lot to work on and now I have a better idea of exactly what that is.

11 Responses to "A tournament setback and some lessons to learn"

Bernhard says:

June 4, 2014 at 12:35 pm

Hey Dan,
sorry to hear about the bad round. Good to hear that you’re getting right back on the horse… (is there a more golf appropriate metaphor here?)
Brian Kuehn says:

June 4, 2014 at 1:21 pm

You are not going to be “on” every day or week. Playing lots of tournament rounds will give you more experience but, more importantly, it increases the chances you will be playing a tournament during one of your “on” periods. Even Tour players miss a couple cuts and then a month later win.
Learn from this experience and then put it out of your mind. As golfers we are going to fail a lot so having a short memory is an important tool.
Chris says:

June 4, 2014 at 2:09 pm

This is something literally every golfer has gone through. The more tournaments you play in the more comfortable you will get. Your swing is already good enough to play on the PGA tour. You just don´t know how to play golf yet because you spend too much time hitting range balls off mats into a wide open field. You need to practice less and play more. Atleast 18 holes everyday on different courses and not worry about technique so much. Learn to play golf instead of practicing golf.
Sam says:

June 4, 2014 at 2:52 pm

what was the final score?
Dave Petersen says:

June 4, 2014 at 8:03 pm

Sounds like a very educational round, well done!

I keep learning, that during practice rounds, I need to drop in hazards, and truly learn what my odds of a successful shot from different lies, might be. I just don’t practice those things. My cousin, who does play a good bit of tournament golf has always told me, never try a shot you haven’t practiced when you’re keeping score. Seem’s right, I try things and at best I’m 50/50.

Well done.
Dick Kusleika says:

June 5, 2014 at 7:17 am

I’m not so sure it was the decision making on 13 that was the problem. Put yourself back on 13, but this time you have to make the same choices you did the first time – so really you have no choice. What you would change? You can’t change the decision to punch out of the hazard, so about the only thing you can change is the type of shot you intend to play and your swing thought. Make the choice for better or worse, but once you do, commit to it and make the best shot you can. It reminds me of your Driver Woes/Positive Priming post. It’s like you were focused on your drop/no drop decision (internal) rather than visualizing what your punch shot would look like (external). Just my two cents.
Bernhard says:

June 5, 2014 at 8:51 am

So after making my donation ($20 for 2 birdies @$10/birdie), I was thinking…

you know what might be a fun way to raise some funds that doesn’t involve you doing much of anything extra, while being in line with your goals? Once a month, pick something that you need to work on, like playing a practice round, playing a tournament round, driving from the tees, whatever, and get your twitter followers to chip in rewards for success. Have a running tally of stuff like this on your site, and what the pay-off structure is (rewards for 80% in the fairway, 70% in the fairway, etc.).

It’d be a way for you to get even more practice dealing with pressure and being results-oriented for a particular round, and I know that funding models that allow me to see my contribution as a contribution to a clearly represented whole make it more likely for me to kick in some money. Just imagine that your other backers have put in enough to pay $97 per birdie. Seems to me that makes it more likely that someone will pledge the remaining $3 to get to a round number. And once your community has pledged $100, there’s the challenge of whether we can get to $150.

The other thing this helps with (from the backer side), is that a small donation, looked at on its own, doesn’t feel like it’s gonna make an appreciable difference to you; but if I can think of my small donation as part of a big, communal donation that *does* make a difference (my $3 donation is just one of 200 similar ones), that makes it seem a lot more efficacious, and hence makes it more likely for me to donate.

Anyway, idle thoughts on a Thursday.

(PS: I started thinking about this when I came across the Patreon funding site via the creator of Questionable Content comics: http://www.patreon.com/jephjacques. The site doesn’t seem obviously appropriate to what you’re up to, but the idea of putting together a whole bunch of seemingly insignificant contributions to collectively make a big difference seems *clearly* applicable here.)
Jim says:

June 5, 2014 at 12:54 pm

I googled to see that +7 was the number to make a playoff for the final qualifying spots, while you were +5 through 12.

Tough break, but you also got out of one hazard unscathed which could’ve cost you more strokes. We all tend to think about the near-misses or bad breaks that cost us strokes, but never say “well, I drained a 20 footer which is a really low % shot, so a normalized score is probably one stroke higher”.

Best of luck and keep grinding towards your goals.
3foot1 says:

June 6, 2014 at 2:17 pm

I’m no psychologist and we’ve never played together, but from long distance I’d suggest that the 6th hole was your downfall. Without the triple you wouldn’t have been pressing so much for the rest of the round. Even more, you revealed that your “last thought” before the tee shot was a negative, namely, “don’t go long.” The result was a chunk, which cost you 2-3 strokes.

Interestingly, the next time you mention having a “last thought” before your swing, it was also a negative, namely, don’t “send it across to the other hazard.” You were already in some trouble, but the result was the pop-up which again cost a couple of strokes.

You and your coach have probably talked this through already, but perhaps seeing it in print may help. You know better than all of us followers the value of visualization and thinking positive thoughts. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have taken the first step of 10,000.

Continued good luck on managing your game, and be sure to check out the best book on the subject, Raymond Floyd’s The Elements of Scoring. Even though it won’t contain many ideas new to you, I’d call it a Must Read. “Play comfortable.”
WickedHandicap says:

June 9, 2014 at 3:43 am

Stay positive & just realize that golf is 80% mental.
Take what you’ve learned, and apply it at your next tournament.
Good luck – we’re all pulling for ya!
Dazzler says:

June 10, 2014 at 4:10 pm

Keep going Dan. I’ve learned how to score in pressure situations simply from playing with a guy who thrives off it. Make it your mission to find the most win-hungry-steely-nervy player you can find (you know, the sort that hate losing but are not bad sportsmen – think Ian Poulter) and take him on in match play as often as you can and soak in everything you can. Some people are just born with this attribute but like everything on the “Plan” you can learn it! Sincerely all the best mate. I’m hooked.

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