Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Guess Who's Back!

I know it's been a long time since my last post and I apologize.  Once again, I couldn't find the heart to post anything after coming so close but just short at Q-School last fall.  I was really playing well in that last half of the year too.  I qualified for 2 Web.Com Tour Events and shot 71-66-70 to start at Q-school before a final round 74 cost me to miss by two.
My offseason started by getting back in to workout at Evolution Sports Institute (ESI) in Bridgeville, Pa.  I was there starting November 1st and was really making good progress.  I was able to workout with Neil Walker a few times as well which was pretty cool.  But we had a lot of Professional athletes in there, Steelers like Willie Colon and Ryan Clark, a boxer, Jason Bergman, and a QB from Dartmouth.  I think one of the most beneficial things is the infectious mindset and attitude gained from working with guys that are at the highest level of their sports.  The confidence in the room is astounding and like i said, helps you gain your own confidence.
Unfortunately, starting on December 12th, my workouts at ESI stopped because I needed and had surgery to remove two pilonidal cysts located just below my tailbone.  Pilonidal cysts are pesky because they tunnel to get to the skin surface, thus the encompass a much larger area and take much longer to heal.   I've had an open wound in that area ever since and still to this day have nurses come to my house daily to change the wound dressing.  The wound was originally 9cm long, 4 cm deep, and 3.5 cm wide.  After 4 weeks now I'm down to about half of that and tried to hit balls for the first time yesterday, but it was a little too painful, and the last thing you want to ever do is come back too soon and form bad habits due to injuries.  So I putted for a while down at the Dome during while my dad was hitting balls.  I did workout last night at Oxford for the first time since my surgery.  My dad and I walked a 1.5 miles on the treadmill and I was even able to get to a very light jog.  I did some light lifting and pushups as well.
So what have I done with all my free time lying on the floor with bum in the air?  Well, I remade a 1950's boardgame called Careers.  I also updated another boardgame from the 1960's called Mr. President which meant updating the Electoral Count and candidates.  We used fictional presidents from movies like James Marshall (Harrison Ford in Air Force One), Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas in the American President), Mays Gilliam (Chris Rock in Head of State) Henry Hayes and Robert Kinsey (President and Senator from Stargate SG-1) and so on… Yeah, I've had a lot of free time, haha.  But my dad has been nice enough to humor me and play alot of Mr. President games with me since I've been down for the count.
My first event this year, hopefully, will be down in Puerto Rico at the start of March.  I'm going to go down there and do the two qualifiers for the PGA Tour event like I did last March.  And I'll be going down to Tampa starting in Early to Mid February.  I'm planning on playing in the Marquette Alumni Match on February 21-24 as well, which should be in the Tampa area.  I'm hoping to do better at keeping this blog up to date, that's my new year's resolution.

Congrats to good friend Peter Malnati on his engagement!