Straight up bad luck

I was second off on day 2, and thought it would be a big advantage. Boy was I wrong. It was cold, windy, with a steady rain for my first 8 holes. I played tough but couldn't make the 6-10 footers for par I was having. A couple of the late groups didn't even have rain, but that's the luck of the draw. The tough conditions led to a 40 on my opening nine, and it didn't get much better as I dug myself a nice sized hole at 77.

Day 3 was much better. I played really solid and opened with birdies on the first two par 5's to get me to 2 under. A pulled 5-iron into a hazard led to a bogey on 15, but I sank a 20 footer on 17 to get back to 2 under. A had some nice up and downs on 18 and then on 2, and followed them up with a great 20 foot birdie putt on 5 to get me to 3 under, heading to the reachable par 5, 6th. I ripped a drive down the left side of the slight dogleg left. There are a couple trees just off the fairway that guard the corner a bit. My ball didn't quite carry them and we hear a loud thwack. Something falls straight down, figured it was the ball. We get up there and there's nothing. We look everywhere for the 5 alotted minutes, but the ball simply disappeared after hitting the pine tree apparently. I had to go back to the tee, and wind up making a double bogey to drop me back to 1 under. I finish with 3 pars to shoot 70. If we just find the ball, that's 2, maybe 3 strokes right there. The 8 the first day happened due to a poor drive, but this drive wasn't that bad, it was a missed tree away from being just about perfect. A birdie there to get to 4 under would have me in prime position heading into tomorrow. Now I need to make something happen, which I'm certainly capable of doing. I just need to give myself as many opportunities as I can and take advantage.