Wet but good weekend

Big weekend for myself on the links. I started on saturday with the Niagara Mens Tour qualifier. Going in I knew it wasn't going to be to difficult to make the cut. Due to low demand this year, they made it so you broke 90 during the qualifier and your in. Out at Penn Lakes with that type of wiggle room I wasn't worried in the least.

So just as I'm about to tee off the rain starts. I had a grabbed a cart in the attempt to stay slightly dry, but that proved to be useless. It rained so much and at times so hard that there was no avoiding being soaked to the bone. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Mens Betterball with Matt where it was 3 or 4 degrees, atleast on saturday it was in the high teens which made being wet for 4.5 hours bearable. I also purchased a rain jacket the night before which helped a lot.

Not going to do the hole by hole recap. My round went o.k. I started off making a lot of boogies. But the key here was I kept my cool. I was only making boogies, no doubles or worse, and I was only making boogies cause of lipouts. The greens were also running surprisingly firm and fast for the conditions. So i didn't get angry. I was hitting the ball well other then a few misclubed shots. So i just kept grinding. Telling myself it will come.

I made the turn shooting a 7 over 42. The main thing was i could have been worse. The back nine went much better. I started making pars. It was crazy that I was playing better on the back cause it rained ever harder on the back 9. With the rain coming down sideways I made a par on 5 holes in a row. By this point I had totally given up on keeping my hands dry, went through every glove I had in my bag, had worked through 5 towels that were now to wet to bother with, but some how was making great shots and pars. I ended up booging the par three 17th to go into 18 4 over for the back when suddenly the rain stopped. First hole of the day with no rain. A short par 5 downwind. I blast a drive to about 210 yards from the pin. Played a nice little 4 iron to the left of the green which took a great bounce hard right and gave me an eagle putt from about 20 feet. I lagged it up and made the short birdie (only one of the day for me) and posted an 81. I was extremely happy with that under the conditions we played.

After playing I found out they were just letting everyone in who showed up. So wasn't that big a deal I made the cut. I took some pride in the fact that I finished 4th for the day. The low was 73, then a 77 and 78, and me. I think 4 or 5 guys didn't break 90, but they made the cut anyways.

So i played the first event on sunday of the Mens tour. Didn't play aswell as I wanted to. I basically had 2 bad holes. Took a 6 on the first par 3 cause I missed the green way short and right, had to chip around a tree, then on to the green. Then I missed my putt and stupidly akwardly tried to tap in for the double and missed a 3 incher. And on the back the nine I played a short 400 yard par 4 horribly and made a 7. So i through away 6 easy strokes and shot an 84. Obviously the old saying of could have been blah blah blah come to mind, but that shit won't work for me anymore. I have to stay focused for 18 holes, not 16.

The positive aspect i am taking from this weekend is that I was very comfortable playing. Not nearly as nervous as years passed and pushed through some rough holes, didn't get down on myself or frustrated. I missed a 2 footer on the first hole for par, and then that awful 6 on the second. Usually I would have just blown up but i cooled off on the way to the nest tee and made a solid par. Hopefully it's nice this weekend and I can get out to St. Catharines for a few relaxing rounds. Already played more tournys then I did all last year. Plus I need to start positing some rounds in the 70's like a true 2er would.