The thing is, this is an incredibly hard game even when you are just out by yourself.  Add swing changes and the world’s eye on you and I can’t imagine what it must be like for Tiger right now.   I’ve never been a fan boy of his or anything like that, but always appreciated how effortless he made this game seem.  He was the world’s number one player for 13.1 years, which is absolutely incredible when you think about it.  He’s a generational player and one of the better ones at that.  Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and all the other players Nike has acquired to be their poster people, these players of the game are GREAT.  Not just good, not just the best, but fantastic at what they do and achieve.

Then you have the last year for Tiger…

Amazingly, he actually had the longest driver average for the first two days at the Phoenix Open, but could not seem to get a ball up and down or even close.

As much as I possibly can, I understand his pain.  In my attempts to improve my game I switched wedges about two months ago.   For the entire time trying to adjust to them I kept hitting 3 or 4 fat shots per round that literally didn’t go anywhere and then I would overcompensate and blade it over the green a couple of times.  I hadn’t a clue what was going on and kept sticking to the new sticks thinking that I would eventually adjust to them.  But, after a long time of fat and thin shots I finally went back to my old wedges and like meeting up with a long lost friend we immediately hit it off again.  The last few rounds have been refreshing and inspiring from a short-game perspective.  I’m not saying everything was perfect as there is still a good bit of adjustment in going back to my old ones after 2 months away from them, but like revisiting a previous love it’s not nearly as hard as learning someone new’s behaviors and interests.

I know that Tiger is trying to change his short game and I appreciate that as, in my own way, I am changing my swing as well as short game.  It doesn’t happen overnight and he’ll get it back no matter what people are saying.

I’m still hard pressed to break 80 right now, but I’ve gone from 1 out of 5 swings feeling “right” to about 3 out of 5.  The next step is 4 of 5 and then the new swing is ingrained and what feels natural.

We have to stick through the hard times and remember not to judge people like Tiger on his down round or months as he is just as mortal as the rest of us.  The main difference is that he will stick to his process and come out better on the back end.  That is what makes someone great.

I never realized how much I actually enjoy the competitions until this weekend and I think it might be a new sign.  The feeling of playing in them reminds me of when I first played a par 3 nine hole course back in Nebraska with my brother.  I was nervous and excited through the entire round, played like crap and as soon as we finished all I wanted to do was start over and do it again.

This past weekend I played in the Oregon Mid-Amateur.  The Mid-Am is similar to the Oregon Amateur except you have to be at least 25 years old to enter.  I suppose the point is to take it out of the hands of the college kids.  Whatever the reason for the age limit, it still brings out a field of great golfers (you have to be about a 5 handicap or lower to enter) and the course is usually tricked out and in excellent shape.  That was definitely the case for this one down at Emerald Valley in Creswell, OR.

I had never played Emerald Valley, but through the practice round on Friday and entering into the tourney I could see that it was going to be a really fun and challenging track.  The greens are much more sloped than the courses I usually tee it at in Portland and they were firm and fast.  If you ended up above the hole on a lot of them it was a struggle to two-putt.  The fairways were firm too, so a good shot would release and become a great shot.  It was prime time and the track was mint.

On Friday night I was nervous entering into the tourney and had some negative thoughts as I had been struggling with tee shots lately, again, and was focussing on that instead of positives.  But, I roomed with a friend who has a good amateur golf career from qualifying for the USGA Mid-Am to winning his club championship 6 times.  He was so happy and excited to be playing in the Mid-Am that he said he would probably wake up at 4am ready to go.  I thought a lot about his excitement and realized that I needed to embrace the challenge rather than think of it as something I could potentially mess up.

At that moment I began to see tournament golf in a new light and immediately the excitement started taking over.  I didn’t know what would happen, but I was down there and couldn’t wait to go.  I teed off on the back side of the course and was ecstatic to be playing golf on a beautiful summer morning:

I was excited, but the nerves were evident in that I tried to guide my shots way too much on the first few holes which created a rough start to the two-day tournament.  But, this time, and for the first time in my golf career, I embraced the feeling of the nerves and appreciated everything that was going on in a more analytical way.  Still, it took 6 holes and a rather bizarre happening to really get into the flow of my game.  The start:

1.  Hooked a 3-wood into the trees, punched out, hit the green on the approach but it was firmer than I thought and rolled off the back even though I landed 5 yards short of the pin where I had aimed for. Chipped back on but it was also faster than I thought and the ball rolled well past the hole. Two-putted for a double.

2. Pulled an iron into the bunker on a par 3.  Hit it out and decently close, two putts for a bogey.

3. Hooked a 3-wood into the trees. Punched out and then hit it on. Two putts for a bogey.

4. Finally hit a good tee shot.  Laid up and then hit the green and two putted for a par on a par 5.

5. Pulled the 3-wood into the trees.  Thought I had a line and hit a shot that I was not fully committed to, which ended up clipping a hill and bounding into the hazard. Took a drop from 100 yards and hit the front part of the green but it rolled out to the back as it came from the rough.  Hit a sub-optimal chip and then 2-putted for a triple.

6. Pulled the 3-wood right again and had to punch out.  Hit it to the back of the green which was very sloped and my putt rolled 15 feet past the hole, then two putted for a double.

At this point I had hit mostly tight-gripped nervous shots and was scrambling to get things back into fairways and onto greens.  My approach shots were hit lightly, too, which didn’t put enough spin on the ball so when it landed the ball was releasing through the greens.  It was a bad combo and took this next event to get me to calm down and start playing my golf.

I hit a decent tee shot on the 7th but again pulled it towards the right and the ball ended up in a fairway bunker.  I was about 160 yards out and from a bunker that’s my 7-iron. It’s a shot I’ve hit plenty in my career and I put a good easy 3/4 swing on it, but the strangest noise happened at impact.  I heard a clank and a pop then something hit the lip in front of me and went flying into the air.  I thought it was the ball then I saw the ball come back down and land maybe 5 yards from where I hit it. I looked over and it was the head of my 7-iron that had snapped off and almost hit my playing partner.  Somehow the KBS Tour shaft snapped through the soft sand leaving this:

Honestly, I couldn’t help but laugh and I think it was just what I needed to relax.  I hit an 8-iron to the front of the green (could have used a 7 ) and two putted for a bogey.  I was 10 over through 7 holes which wasn’t where I wanted to be and was pretty similar to the last 2-day tourney I played in, but I took a deep breath and started playing some golf.  I ended up shooting an 87 on the day which if I just look at the score was disappointing, but I am learning how to embrace the challenge of tournament golf and with the help of the Vision54 coaching also am starting to find some swing feels and play boxes that work under pressure.  I learned through those first holes a few things that are not optimal for me when under the gun and have noted them.  It’s a work in progress, but I am also taking note of what does work and collecting that info in my yardage book.  Eventually I will have 4 or 5 tried and true swing thoughts that I can utilize.

The most important thing I realized, though, was that I really love tournament golf.  There is nothing like it and immediately after that round I couldn’t wait to go back out.  It was hard to sleep that night as I was even more excited to get back to it and experience the ride again.  I knew I was out of it score-wise, but I also knew I could learn more and hit some better shots the next day.  All I wanted to do was get back out there under the gun and hit some shots.

Despite my best efforts to enter day two with the mindset I had through the last 11 holes of day one, my body and grip were far from relaxed for the first few holes of the second day.  I played a hell of a lot better but ran into a bit of trouble with two doubles in a row on the 4th and 5th hole, which are pretty tough holes on the back 9 of that course (I started on the back 9 again).  I shot a 42 that go around which was 5 strokes better than the day before.  The rest of the day went pretty well although I didn’t get a birdie for the entire 36 hole tournament.  I shot a 38 on the second 9 to improve from an 87 to an 80.  Of the 75 guys who played in the event (about 12 withdrew after Saturday, I can only guess because of high scores or something similar) I ended up in 45th place.  My goal was to be in the 30s so I missed the mark by a few strokes, but am very proud of the improvement I made from day one to day two.

I think that in the past I was trying to avoid the pressure and nerves and struggled with what it meant to play in events, but I finally learned to accept and appreciate those feelings this weekend.  And, not just accept them, but to fully embrace the challenge.  There are plenty more events coming up to continue working on this.  And work I will do.

I was going to make it a pdf download and ask people to contribute what they thought it was worth, but I thought if I put the book up on Amazon’s website it would be better formatted for all types of digital readers.  If this doesn’t work after a couple of months I may put a link to the pdf up as well, but for the time being please think about supporting The Dan Plan by purchasing the book here:

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And most any other country, email me if you want a specific link or search for “The Dan Plan”.

I wish to apologize in advance as a few external links did not translate to this format.  One of the most blaring absences are videos.  On a few occasions I talk about watching a video and it’s just a blank on the page.  Outside of that the content is whole.  I edited out about one third of the posts but there is still quite a bit of content, too much in a lot of ways.  Down the road at some point I will have a professional editor (or a well versed friend, or myself when the amount of time in a day magically doubles) take a gander at the content and polish it up.  For now, this is the story, more or less, word for word from the beginning.  I hope you enjoy and get some value out of the content.

For every book purchased from Amazon almost $5 goes to The Dan Plan.  Thank you for reading and please help spread the word to anyone potentially interested in seeing what it takes to make such a drastic change in one’s life.

Cheers!

I attended the Vision54 two-day course in Denver and it vastly surpassed my expectations.  Not that I necessarily had expectations, but what I learned over the weekend couldn’t have come at a better time and was an enlightening birth into the world of playing golf.  That might seem strange coming from someone who has practiced and played golf daily for the past few years, but in all honesty I walked away from the class with a deeper understanding of what it means to play this game beyond the superficial hit-and-score sense that I had been participating in to date.

To back up a hair, the two weeks leading up to the 1,243 mile drive were some of the toughest to date.  I was wanting to step away and take a serious break for the first time in the past 4 years.  I was finding myself stuck on outcomes and from my point of view the outcomes were almost all negative and getting worse.  No matter how good I hit a shot I kept warning myself that a bad shot was around the corner and I had stopped appreciating any positives throughout a round.  Playing golf had started to lose appeal and as soon as I hit a bad shot or two on the course I was mentally finished with the round.  In other words, I had hit a dreaded mental slump and didn’t know what to do.  The last full round I played before leaving was a struggle just to finish and I couldn’t foresee things getting better under my own tutelage.  All of my efforts and energy just seemed to fuel the negativity and dig the hole a tad bit deeper every day.

The road trip out there was long enough to process my current place in this universe and put things in a better perspective.  Still, when I pulled up to the CommonGrounds golf course in Denver, CO I wasn’t exactly ecstatic to grab the sticks out for the first time in four days.  That said, I was interested in what Vision54 was about and curious as to what extra information they would present above and beyond their books, which I read last year.

Speaking of books, I have read a lot of books on the mental side of golf over the years and have learned some things from each of them, but I always found it a bit difficult to truly implement what I read.  For example, Zen Golf was recently re-consumed and I noticed a number of highlighted passages that when first read I wanted to try out in my game.  I did consciously attempt to be more neutral and kind with my self-talk, but without a system to implement it was like canoeing upstream without a paddle.

What I got from the two days of Vision54 was an entire new way to look at both practice and play, as well as, and most importantly, a system to implement these playing/practicing techniques.  For some time I have felt like no matter how much I worked on my mechanics and despite the quality of my range and short game practice work, nothing was translating into better success in tournament play.  Outside of a few decent tourney rounds earlier in the year I felt like I was plateauing when it counted.

I had been spending plenty of time working on all different aspects of my game and on the range could hit good drives, solid irons, chipped well and made putts.  I couldn’t figure out how to bring that to the course under pressure in new surroundings and was drawing a blank as to what I needed to do next.

I spoke with a number of people I respect and all signs pointed towards Vision54.  I had talked with them last year and it didn’t quite work out, but when I heard there was a two-day session in Denver I hopped in the car and made sure to be there this year.

I don’t think that I would do a good job summing up what Vision54 is all about, but anyone interested in learning more can read about them on their website:  http://www.vision54.com

The interesting thing is that they never once talked about swing mechanics or how to hit the ball, instead the time was spent on how to prepare, execute and analyze each shot.  They covered how to prepare, play, practice, perform and accept and through all of their research I came away understanding so much more about myself.  It was pretty shocking how the instructors could tell what type of golfer I was (as well as type of person) after just a few hours together.

When I left the course I was wishing that I had attended it at the very beginning of the journey, but after processing everything I realized that now was the perfect time in my golfing career.  I was far enough along to understand just how important their teachings are, but still have so much golfing life in front of me in which to implement the lessons.

I’m actually a bit overwhelmed right now, in a good way.  I learned so much over the weekend that I don’t really know where to start with blogging about it.  I am planning on working with them as much as possible down the road and this weekend was just a kickoff, in my mind.

To start, I am back in Oregon now and writing this during a break at Riverside.  I just “played” all 18 holes of EastMoreland golf course on the range and putting green here.  We went over how important visualization is and since I have a two-day tournament at Eastmo this coming weekend I decided to begin my new practice sessions with a visualization exercise.  It went great and I shot a 38 on the front 9 and a 36 on the back.  I pictured every single hole and shot, went through my pre-shot routine and executed.  I also spent time between shots just as I would out there and the entire round actually took me a couple of hours despite just making 74 shots.  It was great and by the 4th “hole” I could really see and feel what it was going to be like this weekend.

After that I worked on different Play Boxes to see what was working for me right now.  A Play Box is the area where you simply hit the shot.  Once you enter the Play Box, you don’t hesitate or become distracted. All of the thinking behind the shot should be left to the Decision Box.  A Play Box can be any number of feelings from grip pressure, body tension, tempo, etc.  It’s the swing thought that you want to use to execute the shot.  By picking one thing to concentrate on it’s easy to quiet the mind and execute the shot.

The Think Box is where you should consider all the variables for the shot: wind, lie of the ball, shape you intend to hit, trajectory, distance, club selection, etc.  Once you make a concrete decision it’s time to hit the Play Box and make the swing.

This isn’t new for most experienced golfers and I have heard about and learned about these concepts for some time, but I never quite understood how important the decision and commitment piece was.  I always tended to walk up and decide what club to hit then think about the shot and my swing while addressing the ball and have a “swing thought” along the lines of “straight wrist and draw it” which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.  Also my “swing thoughts” tended to wander and change through a round especially after hitting a bad shot.  I never had anything consistent or steady to go to when ball striking went south.  Now I can work on figuring out exactly what those things are.  I’ll be keeping a notebook about what works from now on and when I have a consistent few feelings that I can depend on I will have a card I can carry with those written on it.  A go to list!

But there is so much more than just that.  The Play Box was a good concept that I can practice and develop over time and will start that process today.  Other learnings from the weekend were about how to control mood and adrenaline.

Strangely enough, I learned that I play better with some adrenaline.  I have always tried to calm my nerves as that is what I thought you were supposed to do before hitting a shot, but what we found was that when I try to amp up my adrenaline slightly before striking the ball I hit it with greater consistency.  My new pre shot routine is starting to look more like Keegan Bradley and especially for tee shots I am exciting myself before the swing and then taking breaths to calm down afterwords.  It works well for me.

At the end of the day you have to find something that works and that you can believe in.  Vision54 might not be for everyone, but what matters is that it clicks with me and makes me excited to get out and practice and compete again.

Much more to come, this is just a taste of what I have been experiencing over the past week.

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.

I had two friends visit from Denver (one originally from Cuba and Portland is now the third place he has been to in his entire life) over the past two days and now my parents are flying in tonight for their once-every-two-to-three-year visit.  We’re going to head to the coast for three nights starting tomorrow morning and I was not planning on bringing any clubs on the trip (although a putter and wedge might be in order).  We planned this trip months ago, well before the Oregon Am qualifier was scheduled, and I am going to stick to the plan of taking some time away from training to spend with family.

It’s hard to say whether this will positively or negatively influence my score next week, but it’s how it is and sometimes things can’t be perfect.  It’s important to go with the flow and just let what happens happen.  As my buddy Country Club told me, I’m ready for the qualifier and there is plenty of good golf in me; perhaps a few days off will allow me to stop overthinking about my putting and just play shot by shot.  That’s what I hope.

My game is on the cusp right now of what’s needed to get through to the actual Oregon Am.  If I hit it decently I will get in as the number is usually a 76 to pass this stage.  If I have an off day I will just miss it.  I’ve been shooting between 74-80 pretty often lately so anything can happen during an 18-hole event.  I will relax over the weekend and then enter with a clear head and the specific goal of remaining engaged throughout each shot.  Perhaps it’s time to reread Every Shot Must Have a Purpose.  This would be a good week for that.

Even though my game is on the cusp, I am also very ready for the event.  Going into the weekend I know I have about a 60% chance of passing the qualifier and the most important thing is to keep an open mind and learn from the experience.  This is the first big tourney of the season for me and I’m excited to see how it feels to be out there and what my mental process will be like.  To get past the qualifier I don’t have to play great golf, just have to play decent golf and make sure to remember every shot is important and deserves a clear vision of intention.  I know I can do this.

Speaking of mental process, I haven’t posted that many blogs lately because I have been spending a lot of time reading over the entire blog from day one in order to build an edited down ebook about the journey from launch through breaking par/5,000 hours.  I didn’t realize how big of a task it was going to be as I’m not just breezing through every entry but am instead lingering on the memories and moments and finding myself learning a ton from my own past experiences.  It is a good reminder to look back at journals/blogs/notes from years past when trying to improve in something as it helps demonstrate just how far you have gone in a short period of time.  It’s easy to get bogged down in the daily grind and hard to see progress from one moment to the next, but looking back less than 3 years ago to my first ever round of golf from white tees (with 6 clubs) and shooting a 97 is humbling and inspiring.

I was hoping to have the ebook up soon, but I’m not quite half way through the past blogs and it might take a few more weeks to read them all with proper attention.  Will definitely write about it and have a link when it is finished.

Off to the last day of practice before the tourney.  Today I want to solidify my putting and work out a couple kinks in my iron swing that have been leading to inconstancies with those clubs.  Then some chipping and tee shots as those can always use improvement.  After that it’s officially summer vacation then right into a great tournament round.

Has your sense of smell ever brought you back to a time long forgotten?

That’s the Atlanta air in the Spring for me.  Everywhere I went my heart was heavy with memories of my childhood.  It didn’t hurt that one of the courses I played while there happened to be about a half mile away from where I lived from birth until 8 years old.  I couldn’t hide from being overwhelmed by visions and thoughts that had not been in mind for years.

It wasn’t a bad thing, by any means, just contemplative.

On Thursday morning I met a group of guys playing in a small annual charity tournament at Peachtree Golf Club.  It is a hidden gem of a course built in 1947 under the orders of Bobby Jones and happens to be the most aesthetically pleasing course I have ever had the privilege of playing.  It was about as magical a track of land as I could imagine and I was surprised that it was just that half mile from my childhood home.

After the round I decided to drive by the old neighborhood to see how things had changed.  When I got out of the car and smelled the air I remembered playing tee ball in the front yard, riding big wheels down the street and wandering through the small creeks that seemed so huge as a wee lad.

The house was a lot smaller than I remembered too, but it was still very adequate for a family of 5. Nothing compared to the mini-castles that are being built where some of my friends old houses were town down, but plenty of house and a great yard for a young family.  I knew I had a fortunate childhood and standing there I realized that I need to do more to make sure others enjoy a similar childhood.  I am not sure exactly what that means right now as I write this on the return flight, but I know that I have more to give.

After taking in the scene I remembered there was a small lake next to some tennis courts that we often walked to.  Instinctually I began the short trek and with every step of the way it felt like yesterday when I last hiked the path up to Silver lake through the woods along a small creek.

When I reached the lake I was flooded with more memories.  Fishing, catching tadpoles, jumping off a diving board for the first time, getting a fishhook through my hand, a friend stepping on glass and cutting her foot, thinking the lake was endless and impossible to walk around or swim, and a man who used to hit beat up golf balls into the water with his son.

I lingered on that last memory and recalled a time when he let me hit some balls.  I must have been 5-years-old and was a pretty shy little kid, but it looked like a ton of fun so I tried a few swings with the short right handed driver that his son was using.  I didn’t make very good contact and basically just spun around every time I made a swing, but then he asked me if I was a righty or lefty and I told him I wasn’t sure.  At that point, and still today, I did a lot of things with each hand.  He told met that he would bring a lefty out next time to see if that fit me better.

About a week later (in kid memory so it could have been a day or a year) I saw him again hitting balls into the little lake.  He had followed through in his promise and had a short left-handed driver for me to try.  I got over my shyness and gave it a couple of swings.  Surprisingly, I hit the ball pretty well and sailed a few into the lake.  I remember how it felt coming off that little wooden driver face and liked it.  I ran off to play with my brother, but before we walked home we bumped into the man at the top of the trail towards home.  He had the driver in his hand and told me that he wanted me to keep it.  I was, again, shy and didn’t say anything but took the club.  My brother told me to say thank you and I think I managed the two words before the man told us that he wanted to give me golfing lessons.  He said next time I see him that he would start teaching me how to make a good swing and what the game was.

We left and I cherished that driver.  I didn’t have any golf balls and instead of using it I kept it at the foot of my bed and was looking forward to bringing it back to the lake to learn how to use it.

I brought it with me every time I went back up there and always looked for the man but never saw him again.  After a while I stopped taking it with me and the club ended up living in a large chest that contained other sporting odds and ends.  The most use the club ever saw was hitting pine cones around the yard a few summer nights.  As a young child’s attention can meander, mine switched to other pursuits and I forgot about that small driver.

I found out a few years later that the man had died in his sleep just days after gifting me the driver.  In retrospect I know he must have been young, maybe 45 at the oldest.  He had a heart attack that ended his time far too early and despite never having given me a lesson I think he was a large part of why I am doing what I am doing now.  It only took a couple of minutes and the gift of a used child’s driver, but here I am almost 30 years later dedicating myself to becoming the best I can be in this game.

I’m not necessarily saying that those experiences led to my decision, rather I was pondering how much a quick interaction can influence a life.  I stood there looking out at that lake wondering where I would be today if not for that memory.  I didn’t have an answer, but felt happy in the moment and knew that meant I was doing what I needed to be doing.

The funny thing is that just hours earlier I was debating my path as I played the incredible Peachtree Golf Club without being able to hit a single decent shot.  I was caught in the moment lingering on my shot by shot performance rather than being able to step back and appreciate how far I had come to date.  And, I was letting it get me down while playing golf on one of the more special courses in the world.  Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciated the experience and was in awe of all three courses I got to play while in Atlanta, but was getting in my own way by being frustrated by shots instead of playing each one as a unique experience.

Frustration doesn’t accomplish anything, it just interferes with both happiness and progress.  The next day I took that thought into the round and even though I started 6 over after 6 holes I staved off that emotion and ended up shooting a 76 on a par 70 course. That was about 15 strokes better than either of the first two days and wholly because I kept my mindset in check.

The lake and those memories helped me, the trick now is to keep that in mind while continuing the push forward.  At any point it’s easy to pull on either positive or negative memories and the good thing is that I think it’s a choice we can make for ourselves. And, I think that with practice it’s possible to change anything including out emotional responses to a given situation.

Golf notes:  over the first two rounds I hit more driver shots OB than in the fairway.  For the third round I hit the driver once and snap hooked it so went with 3-wood for the rest of the round and hit almost every fairway.  I played East Lake, Peachtree Golf Course and Capital City Brookhaven.  I have never in my life seen greens quite like Peachtree and hear they are similar in style to Augusta, which makes me really want to see that course.  I hit it well once I got out of my own way.  My putting was solid, I need to learn a technique for chipping/pitching from tight bermuda lies.  Driver must be improved.  I can rely on the 3-wood and get it out there 260 yards on firmer fairways.  For fluffy bunkers you can really use the bounce unlike the muddy/firm bunkers through the Portland winter where it needs to be hit down on.