What a week,
I landed in San Antonio TX on July 19th, Hopped in a rental car and drove a few hours to the Texas State Open in Dallas. After a few practice rounds my mental coach and I realized a few things were off in my game and decided not to make any major changes the night before my qualifier. I showed up to the qualifier crossing my fingers that my game would some how be good enough in that one round to advance me to the Texas State Open. After posting a less then stellar qualifying round I sat in my car and processed what happened with a narrative of asking myself three simple questions:
What did I do well?
What did I learn?
What am I going to do about what I learned?
What did I do well?
Asking myself that first question after not playing to my full potential was more difficult then I thought, but I needed to answer so I walked through my entire round and realized that I made every up and down out of the bunkers. I was in a lot of bunkers.
What did I learn?
I learned that I do not hit the ball on my starting line with any of my irons.
What am I going to do about what I learned?
There are 3 main components that go into an iron being perfect for anyones golf swing, and if just one of those components are off they are all going to be off. So I took my clubs to Carson Denaro at Sellingers Power Golf Studio in Dallas and had him check my Lie Angles first to see if my club heads moved at all during travel. Found out that my lie angles were almost four degrees off on each one of my irons. Golf is a game of inches and even half of a degree makes a world of difference to each shot. After we got them fixed and dialed in my mental coach and I went out for 9 more holes to see if that corrected a majority of my problems. We soon realized that my equipment was the main factor in my poor scores and made one other small swing adjustment to improve my distance control. I can’t fully explain what a breath of fresh air it was to find out that it was just a small equipment issue that was causing bad tournament rounds.
Fast forward 3 days…
After correcting my equipment I was excited to put them to the test in another golf tournament and I was able to find the Wolfdancer Golf Club Championship in Austin Texas. I signed up and drove down the night before to allow for a full night of rest and recovery from all the traveling.
I left my hotel room with an hour and a half to make it to the course that was originally a thirteen minute drive. About ten minutes in on the I-35 south traffic comes to a complete stop due to construction. As I am sitting in the car moving around one to three mph and watching the clock I start to worry that I will not make my tee time. Each minute moving a little faster as my “spare” time dwindles away.
I roll into the parking lot with 9 minutes to put on my golf shoes, walk through the club house and find the check in table at a course I had never been to before. After checking in I was able to roll four putts on the practice green before it was my tee time. Stepping onto the first tee knowing that not only was my equipment correct but that I had made the changes in my swing that I needed to, I had all the confidence I needed to play some of my best golf.
On the 6 tee box I was even par right before it started dumping rain. I was able to fire a 37 front nine and a 33 back nine for a total of 70 and win the tournament by 5 shots. I am over joyed from my first Professional win and I am beyond thankful for everyone on my team that is helping me chase my dreams as I tee it up each day.
Now it’s time to grind hard this week as I prepare for the next one. This is just the beginning.
2 Corinthians 4:16-17
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.“