Poor Finish

Friday was a roller coaster of a round, although the scorecard would suggest otherwise. I made 2 birdies and 2 bogies on the day, but it was a very interesting round in breezy conditions. I hit the first 10 greens in a row, but was 1 over par. The problem was that I didn't hit it very good, but was consistently missing it straight. So although I was hitting greens, I really only had a couple good birdie looks. The one conversion being on a well struck 8-iron on the par 3, third hole, coming to rest 9 inches from the cup. Then, my green streak was snapped when I hit it in a bunker on the difficult par 3 11th, and had a tricky up and down. But an awesome bunker shot to two feet kept me going. I would go on to miss 6 greens in a row, converting a 30 yard pitch, a 15 yard flop shot, an easy pitch from in front of a green, a super difficult shot from the back of a bunker to a short-sided pin, and finally a 60 foot putt from the fringe. Got all six! A two putt birdie on 17 got me back to even. I treaded water on a day when I had far from my best game. I stood T-5 going into the final round, just 4 shots off the leader.

The final day saw me hit it really well on the front nine. I hit one really poor shot into two and was dead in a bunker and short-sided. NO chance. Blasted out to 25 feet and 2 putted. A number of good shots with too much spin got some ridges and fell off a couple greens. A number of really good putts lipped out or slipped past. And some misplayed wedge shots led me to an extremely disappointing 77. It was a relatively easy day, and shooting 77 was alot like driving 55 mph during the Indy 500... you're going to get lapped. I dropped back to the middle of the field, but all-in-all it was a positive week. I got back into contention in a tournament, and I'm feeling good about the game. It might have been a little pressure that caused the swing to unravel slightly during the final round, but I'm soooo close to breaking out. Heck, I almost broke out this week!

I'll be home for 2 weeks now. Week One is an off week, where I will be getting some good practice in with Joe B, and continuing to groove my swing so that no amount of pressure will cause any revertigo to bad habits. Week Two has me playing a US Open Local qualifier at Quicksilver GC on Tuesday May 17. Joseph Zinsky will be on the bag. One of the last times he carried the bag, we successfully qualified for the US Junior Amateur... so I'm expecting good things.