Tournament debut

I played in my first competitive round in about a year and had modest success with my performance. The conditions were not favorable as we teed off at 9:00am with the temperature around 39 degrees. It was cloudy all day and probably warmed to 45 degrees by 1:00pm. The wind was not awful, but seemed to have a greater effect with the cold, wet conditions. The combined roll yardage of all my drives, as well as everyone in the field was probably less than 5 yards.

The tournament was the KPGA Pro-Senior held at Harmony Landing CC near Louisville. The club was replacing irrigation lines, as we did 2 years ago, so hole #14 was closed for the event. The result was a 17 hole score for all teams and players. I finished with a 75 which placed around the low 25 scores out of 50+ golf professionals.

My driver was the best part of my game as I hit the ball in play all day except for the last hole, when I tried to do too much with my driver. The driver being the best part of my game is huge change from the past where it easily could be considered the worst. Hopefully my swing changes combined with weight training is going to be positive for my golf game in the future.

I did hit one awful iron shot making my old mistake, but I made bogey as did most of the field on this 215 yd. par-3. My biggest problem of the day was club selection, as I fell into a common amateur problem of underclubbing myself all day. Not so much from the fact that I thought I should hit my irons further, but I didn't want to put the ball into a position above the hole. After a few times of coming up short, I should have been able to make an adjustment giving myself a better opportunity to score.

Most of my iron shots were right in front of the green or on the front of the green, giving me easy opportunities to make par, but little chance to make birdies. I had borrowed a SkyCaddie GPS unit and it worked perfectly, but I made little adjustment for yardage due to the cold, wet conditions. Into the wind, I was always short, but downwind my club selection was better.

I would encourage everyone to invest in a SkyCaddie or some type of handheld GPS unit for golf, as it is a great training device for determining your yardage for each club. 90% of all golfers believe they hit the ball further than they actually can usually will cost them several strokes especially when playing new golf courses.

I have ordered a selection of Skycaddie GPS units which should arrive in the next week. Bring in a copy of this blog and I will give you a 10% discount towards the purchase of a Skycaddie.

My weight moved back up to 188 lbs. and I hope to get in some good cardio work over the next few days and really watch what I eat. Maybe I can make it to 185 by next Monday.