Web5770 Career Thread

[rednu]

Q-School...the pressure of trying to qualify for the tour. I've played I don't know how many rounds at Dannebrog Delta trying to prep for this, but I'm sick of the damn course (in a good way!). I've been consistently clocking in at between 4-under and 8-under with my rounds in practice, aside from the rounds I'm using to get into trouble (if I accidentally hit into THIS bunker, can I cover THAT out-of-bounds area...can I clear THAT tree from here using THIS club...you know, the stuff one wants to figure out in practice rather than on the fly in a tournament). 

My plan...the Front 9 seems way harder to score on than the Back 9. Holes 1 & 2 strike me as birdie holes, but I'll be darned if I've managed to go birdie-birdie in a round yet. On the flipside, I've knocked out a lot of 6 and 7 birdie back 9's, so if I can get through the front 9 without making a mess of life, I'm liking my chances to make moves on the back 9.

My reality...The wind is favorable on hole 2, so I decide to try and cut the corner and drive it up into comfortable chipping distance of the green. Wouldn't you know it, the little hiccup that happens maybe once every 6-8 rounds for me that causes the backswing to go slow, resulting in a 90 percent shot...I'm OB, have to re-tee and take double. Two over after 2 holes is not the way I saw my career going. I balloon up to 3 over a couple holes later before I start the climb of extracting myself, finishing the first round at 4-under. Round 2 goes slightly better as I get off to a 3-under start on the front 9 and get to thinking this has some potential. But a few burnt lips later and I'm signing for a 6-under for my second round...10-under at the midway point. I can live with this. Round 3, in my opinion, is the easiest set of pins on the course, so the goal will be to try and go low and then chip off a few more strokes in Round 4.

Stay tuned...a new career is born. 

[rednu]

Wrapped up Q-School today...as I said in my last post, I felt the Round 3 pins are the easiest and most attackable set on the course. Naturally I go about proving this by somehow falling into a 4-over hole early (the green speed had a little to do with this...note to self, actually practice at 144 a few times...) and then having to throw on the rally cap to get back to 4-under for the round. But, hey, I got my first Q-school eagle on hole 15. A nice little 39-foot putt from the lower level up and dead center into the cup on the top side. Yay me

Round 4 just sizzled despite a lot of dangerous pin positions and I somehow managed to throw an 8-under on the scoreboard (including a repeat eagle on hole 15, this time from a far more respectable 12 feet on the proper half of the green.

FInal Q-school damage total...22-under. Nothing fancy and I'm getting absolutely decimated on the leaderboard, but a number that I'm happy with given how I was playing the course during practice. I need to hit the range to work on approach shots as my average distance was something like 33-34 feet away...which strikes me as a high number that I definitely want lower. Was happy with putting as I was 100 percent from short/medium distance in 3 of the 4 rounds...another reason to work on the approach game!!

But for now, sitting back with some new year's champagne and waiting on my tour card to show up later in the week. The rigors of Q-School have finished.

[rednu]

So it came in the mail today...my CC-C club card!! The rigors of Q-School paid off!

Now it is time to book the plane tickets to Northern Ireland for a date on Royal County Down (TMT) next week! This is a great course for me to be making my official tour debut on. RCD is one of those courses that I went searching for soon after getting this game, so it is one that I've played casually multiple times. It's a "real" course, so it is set up to think your way around as a golfer (as opposed to as a gamer, which is why I'm choosier with my user-created course like's). Like most classic links style courses, it primarily has two defenses...the wind and slopes. The wind forecast for the week strips it of one of its possible defenses, because even at default the wind is pretty benign. So it will largely be a task of avoiding roll-away areas that you don't want to be in. And the nice thing about RCD, as opposed to some other UK courses, is that the roll-aways are less severe, so it isn't as necessary to be conservative to avoid short-siding yourself.

From a playability standpoint, it is fairly user-friendly. Most of the fairways are U-shaped, so soft misses on the edges will likely kick back into the short grass. There aren't a lot of "jail" locations that absolutely need avoided, so it is a course that, with very rare exceptions, can be attacked. In the cases where you do find yourself in trouble...get to the middle of the green, take your 2-putt and just minimize the damage...opportunities will be there so there's no need to try to force anything. The pin sets seem pretty balanced to me, so there's no single day that seems better/worse than others. Holes 1 and 16 are absolute birdie holes...I'll be bummed and feeling like I dropped a stroke if I walk off either green with anything less. Hole 4 is probably the hardest one...missing right is probably the worst miss on the whole course. My plan here is just to try and get the ball on the proper third of the green (front/middle/back), take my 2-putt and get to hole 5 happily. Hole 14 is an example of a hole where being too aggressive can be dangerous as well. the middle third/half of the green is slope to the left...when the pin is left, there's no reason to go too crazy aiming at it as anything with proper distance hit to the middle of the green will still end up close. When the pin is right, I actually aim off the green sometimes as the bounce will take you back closer to the putting surface and the "bad miss" is anything that catches the slope and ends up on the left side of the green. In all though, a good week of approach shots and putting will make for a very low set of numbers.

I've been pretty consistent in the -6 to -8 range for my rounds as I've prepped the course, so I'll call my "dream" week to be anything -30 or better. Anything worse than -22 will be disappointing and we'll chalk it up to the nerves of making a tour debut. See everyone on the links!!

[rednu]

First official tourney in the books with a 73rd place finish. Started great with a 62-64-64 beginning, but last round saw some bad approach shots and several burnt edges on putts and the score ballooned to a 68 for a total of 26-under for 4 rounds at Royal County Down. The last round cost me about 24 spots in the standings, but put my final score right in the middle of my target spread for the event, so I can't complain about it too much.

But now it is time to bid goodbye to RCD and say hello to...The Sidewinder. Unlike RCD, this is not a real course, and there are places where it definitely drifts across the line from real to arcade. I had never played it prior to this past week, so right now my experience is just 8 rounds. I am so glad I didn't play this course blind because there is a lot to take in. The course description claims it was inspired by Troon North and Entrada at Snow Canyon, but the course I got vibes of in places was Wolf Creek with the use of sloping and some short par 4's. I'll be honest, I wasn't a fan of this course the first couple of times that I played, but somewhere around round 4 or 5 it started growing on me. It isn't going to break into my Pine Valley-Cypress-Cape Kidnappers-Magnolia rotation of courses that I go to when I want a round, but it is growing on me. The true beauty of The Sidewinder, I think, is that with a minor error or lapse in thought, almost any hole can balloon up and suddenly become a bogey. Compared to last week's tournament at RCD where only one hole played over par for the field and one par 5 flirted with playing a full stroke under par...yeah, don't see that happening. This is a course where mistakes can compound atop themselves and big numbers are in play on some holes. You'll have a lot of side-hill putts, because there aren't many flat putts to be found. You'll have some dicey downhill putts. You'll have some greens and pins where you absolutely need to be on or below the correct level when putting because getting above and putting back down will be a disaster. You have roll-away areas where if you're not good with your chip, the ball can easily be back at your feet. Driver is not the correct club off some tees. Some places on the course can be attacked. Some places require you to take your foot off the gas pedal and accept what the course is giving you. These are not always the same holes every day as wind and pins will change that dynamic. My favorite hole on the course right now is hole 10, a reachable par 5 with an hourglass shaped green. The second shot is the key here...the green mouth is just wide enough to accept shots but narrow enough that it isn't an easy target. Get on, eagle is in play. Miss in either bunker and they're deep enough that the play back out onto the green will be an adventure in scrambling for par. The last of the par 3 holes is a fun play too.

Goal for the week -- Scores will be higher this week. This is a tougher course than RCD was. Initially, I was going to say if I could throw 4 rounds of 2-under on the board, I would be happy ending the week at 8-under. But then in my seventh practice round I had to go and card an 8-under for the round. I then chased that with a 5-under the next round. So now I'm going to bump myself up to 12-under as my goal score for the week and make 8-under my floor. Any score pushing the high teens under par or better will leave me elated. Catch you on the links1

[rednu]

Another week, another tournament. Finished up The Sidewinder in 81st place, carding a score of 21-under, which was WAY better than I had expected. This was thanks, in large part, to an out-of-body experience that resulted in an opening-round 60. Part of that was due to the greens running at 144 rather than their default speed of 171 and all those sidehill putts are WAY easier to sink at 144. But even still, that number defied all expectations. Things fell back to reality on Day 2 with a 67, and then when the greens kicked up to their default speed on Days 3 and 4 my scores moved back in line with my practice scores. Still, can't complain. The final result...a leap of 243 spots in the rankings to 2,587. Okay, so nobody is shaking in their shoes at that number, but still...it is upward progress and that's never a bad thing! Two week winnings total, $27,312. I'll wait eagerly by my mailbox for the check to arrive, because that's real cash, right? Right?

Well, darn.

This week it is on to Southfield Pond GL...due to that real life thing, I have only had one chance to play this course in preparation for the tournament, but playing it blind at default level I managed to card a 7-under despite plunking an approach shot into water on one hole. As a result, i'm going to set my target goal for the week at 24-under and we'll see how close I come. First impressions of the course (since I've only played it once) is that it is a fair layout that definitely has a real feel all the way around, despite being a fictional layout. It just really passes my eye test, so props to the designer. Obviously with Pond in the name, the water factors into play on multiple holes, but none of them feel repetitive in how they incorporate the water and nothing feels gimmicky about its use. I guess there's nothing left to do but trot out onto the first box and tee it up. Catch you on the links!

[rednu]

69-62-67-67 in the Promotion Challenge #3 event this week...totally forgot it was running, so played the course totally blind (not something I'd necessarily recommend on this layout...I got lucky avoiding bad positions in Round 1). I honestly don't know how these work, so haven't a clue if my effort will be enough to lift me form the C-C ranks or not. All I know is that the promotional event went WAY better than my actual C-C tour stop did this week. Southfield Pond and I did not get along well this week...but will lament about that more once the final damage totals are known.

[rednu]

So there are a lot of things one learns their first year on the tour, and I believe I learned a very important lesson this week -- don't try to golf a tournament after not practicing for 4 days. Southfield Pond and I did not get along this week for the most part as I shot 73-73-66-70 (-6) to finish darn close to dead last in the CC-C standings and pick up my first little red checkmark. Not sure what the impact to my world ranking is yet, but I'm sure it probably isn't good. I don't know what more to say about it than that...turn the page, put it in the rearview mirror and lets move on.

To the Vietnam Open at...Club de Golf Alcanada in...Mallorca, Spain??!? Obviously this week's tour stop is not sponsored by National Geographic...

This is a real course and a Robert Trent Jones design that was already in my favorited library, so I had played it some prior to practice week and was happy to see it come up on the course rotation. There are some tight fairway shots, some severely sloped fairways and modest elevation changes that need contended with. But the key to Alcanada is twofold -- 1. attacking the par-5's...without a hostile wind, all four of them are absolutely reachable to give an eagle putt. You've got to cash in on these this week. 2. Keeping the ball out of the heavy rough. It's really fluffy on Alcanada and getting in it will not be good.

Aside from that, be aggressive -- while the official r/l course guide makes mention of creeks and OB, there's really not any hazards to realistically contend with unless you end up off the fairways and in the trees (which do appear dense in some locations...but you would really have to muck things up generally to find them. Having said that, I'll just wait to see how much I spray the ball around this week, because that's just how I roll once my thoughts go official in published print.

This is the first course in my time on tour where I really do think there's a significant difference in the difficulty of the pin sets. Set 3, to me, is be far the toughest set on the course with many of them located atop mounds or on breaks that get more severe inside the green reading box where they're located. I have had a number of what I thought were good tracking putts on this set that veered off sharply at the last second or flattened out abruptly to miss the cup. Playing an extra practice round or two on this set could pay some dividends. The wind could also come into play depending on direction and strength. Holes 2 & 3, for instance, have very specific shots that need carved off the tee and if the wind isn't conducive to those shot shapes...it could be interesting.

I have two favorite holes on this course. The first is hole 5, a par 4 that bends to the right with a fairly dense stand of trees down the right side. The tee-shot needs worked slightly to the right off the target bunker from the tee...the slope of the fairway will help somewhat in this regard. If the pin is tight on the right side (which it will be on 2 of the 4 sets), being in the left half of the fairway really helps with the angle, but I just love the way the approach works with the trees set tight to the right of the green (P.S. -- It should go without saying once you see it, but DON'T miss to the right...). My other favorite hole on the course is the par-3 14th. It's just a nice visual hole (that is probably even cooler in real life with the sea just below and to the left of the teeing area) with the green setting on a 4 o'clock-to 10 o'clock angle from the tee. There's a slope about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way from the left that will assist in taking the ball toward the left-most pin placements.

My practice rounds have been all over the place...from 10-under to 4-over (when I kicked the wind up and had pin set 3 in play). Every hole out here is a legit birdie opportunity with a good approach shot, so a good day of approach and putting will take your score low. I'm going to make my target for the week 22-under and hope that erases some of the bad memories from the last CC-C stop in my mind. Catch you on the links!

[rednu]

And just like that my little down mark vanishes because I got the green up arrow this week after firing a 71-67-70-68 at Alcanada. I didn't get near my target number, but that isn't surprising since the winds flared up on both Day 1 and Day 3 of the tournament. My biggest disappointment is the 68 on the final day, because that could and should have been so much lower. But my putting let me down in a big way and I grazed at least five birdie putts across the edges of cups. How do you turn a great day into a merely good one? Try not converting a putt of longer than 6.5 feet or something ridiculous like that. But on the bright side, my GIR for the week was in the Top 10 for the tournament field. Final damage total...the World Golf Ranking climbs 297 places to #2290...look out top 2,000, I'm coming for you!

This week it is on to Bastiaan Bluffs. I'm...not optimistic. I hadn't played the course before practicing this week and I'm not really a fan of it despite around 10 practice rounds on it. I had hoped that, like The Sidewinder, it would grow on me as I logged more rounds, but both on an eye level and a playability level it just misses me (which isn't to say it's a bad course...it just doesn't connect with what I personally look for in a course). It's an open design with thick rough everywhere, but that's not my issue. I think what swings and misses for me is that it seems there are only two types of holes on the course -- extreme target golf shots where landing areas are funneled into specific locations (barring extremely aggressive play) so that everyone is going to have essentially the same approach shot from distance, or very short holes that demand attacking for the sake of a low number. There's very little in the middle it seems. The greens roll nice at their 156 default and, after Alcanada, folks will be happy to know that with very few exceptions all the pin set positions break true.

Other than my first round, which was high as I became acquainted with the course, all my practice rounds have clustered in the 2 to 4-under realm, so my target for the week is 12-under or better. I'm not sure what I expect from the field this week. Part of it will depend on the wind speeds and direction combinations.

Favorite holes this week include hole 3, a par 3 that evokes images of the third or 16th at Torrey Pines (albeit on a shorter scale) or maybe the 8th at Kapalua Plantation (probably the closer parallel), and hole 11, a par 5 that will surrender some eagles this week and that just lays out a nice visual as you stand on the tee and then again in the landing area as you stare down to contemplate your shot at getting aboard in 2.

Best of luck to everyone. Catch you on the links!

[rednu]

Whoa! Plot change -- it's saying we're playing Stone Creek now...where the hell did I get Bastiaan as this week's course, because I don't see it anywhere on the weather report now!!

Okay, forget everything I wrote above and I'm hauling ass to practice on the new course!

[rednu]

A good beginning soured as I went 61-62-69-68 this week and appear destined for a mid-50s performance. While this is my best finish to date on the tour, it is a bit disappointing given that I spent the first half of it inside the top 10. The inflated day 3 score is a little understandable due to the higher winds, which played hell with my approach game. Only slipping back down to a 68 on Day 4 though is horrible as the course was absolutely attackable that day and another low-60s round should have been the result. Oh well, we head for Hessian and my World Ranking should continue to rise up the ranks.

Onward to Hessian. It is a fictional course that meets the eye test well. THere's no imagination needed to actually see this course being constructed somewhere in real life. Nothing about it really feels gimmick-y for e-gaming purposes. I have been on the road, so I'm expecting my scores this week to balloon. Let's aim for a finish somewhere between 8-under and 12-under and see where that puts us at the end of the week. Catch you on th elinks.

[ETA: finished 53rd...best finish on tour so far, but oh what could have been. World Ranking rises to #2,007...so close to top 2K. Maybe this week.]

[rednu]

This week's damage total was a 98th place finish (out of 147) after going 18-down with a 65-71-70-64 performance that I was quite happy about. Once again, I practiced the course from the tips instead of the actual tee boxes being used, which made a difference in the outcome for sure. Not that you can tell by the final placing or anything.

But, wait, what's that I hear? It sounds like a shrinking World Ranking!! Yes indeed, yours truly has crept over the threshold and is now ranked No. 1980 in the world! #missionaccomplished

Let the assault on the top 1500 begin this week as I head off to La Bombia Bluffs, a fantasy layout that course creator jchantres deserves some mad props for. Seriously, if you haven't loaded up this track yet and tried it out, you're missing out on a fun little risk-reward layout that really deserves to be in the favorited collection of any serious player imo. It isn't perfect (the placing bunkers in the middle of the fairway to divide it into two narrower landing tracks gimmick, for instance, appears 3 times in the first nine holes and may suffer from slight overuse, but not to the point of ruining the experience). This course is all about the approach shot to the green as several of them are extremely compartmentalized. Get the ball in the correct compartment and birdie is going to look pretty likely. Get in the wrong compartment and you could be in for an adventure. Thank goodness the weather forecast calls only for default conditions, because in a heavy wind, I suspect this course turns into an absolute monster!

It was once written that the test of a good golf course is whether or not a player, at the completion of a round, can recall each of its 18 holes. La Bombia comes extremely close to acing that test as after one play I think I recalled 13 of the 18 and was itching to play more rounds. It's hard to call a single favorite hole, but the 5-6-7 stretch is simply awesome. The 5th is an elevated tee shot down to a green with the ocean behind it. You don't need a lot of imagination to envision the 7th at Pebble Beach while you're up on the tee. The green is far more contoured than the 7th at Pebble though, so you better be accurate with your landing point. Annoyingly, I have yet to birdie this hole. The 6th is a par 5 with a long, slender banana of a green. You can get there in two, but there's danger in front and to the right. The 7th is a downhill par-4 that can be driven, but with a narrow green opening, your odds are better that you'll be chipping from rough or playing your second from sand. It's an awesome three-hole stretch that rightly would feel good as a closing sequence. For action, fans will want to watch the 14-16 stretch of the course. Here we break the unwritten tenet of design code by throwing out back-to-back par 5's, but who cares? Both can be reached in 2, but only by the bold. The 16th is another par-4 that can be driven...if you can ignore that cliff to the right of the green. It's a stretch that could yield eagle-eagle-eagle and make someone's day. Or it could totally wreck a round.

So, obviously I'm loving this course pretty hardcore. My practice rounds have been from 4-under to 9-under, which means the winning score this week will have to be super-low. Get the ball in the fairway off the tee, be bold on approach shots and pray the putter is working for you this week. My goal is 25-under for the tournament. It should be a fun week of golf!

[rednu]

Another week, another mid-range finish. I have pretty much accepted that my fate is probably always going to be mid-table...I don't know how y'all are firing 10-under or better every round. But anyway, a 65-67-63-67 week of golf left me at 26-under, one better than my target for the week, and 91st in a field of 191. I really didn't think the whole field would go as low as it did on the course. The world rankings haven't updated yet, so I'm not sure if I managed to shave any additional placings off yet or if I've settled into my approximate place in the TGC golfing universe.

This week's CC-C tournament takes us to The Encarta Club, which is a nice little fantasy layout that requires very little imagination to think of as residing in the Texas hill country. The fairways are wide and forgiving for the most part. Green complexes feel larger than average on the whole with some well-placed level changes on a few holes to demand precision. Of the four pin sets, set 4 seems to be a little tougher than the others with more precarious positioning than the other three sets. I won't do a detailed breakdown, because Jimgem featured the course earlier this week, so if you want to get a preview of it, hop over to his YouTube channel and check out his play-through. For my personal impressions of the course, it absolutely aces the eye test...if I didn't know it was a fantasy course, there's absolutely nothing here that would tip off that it wasn't a real course. The look and feel are spot on and you can tell the designer put in a great deal of time into studying the bounces of his course as fairways bubble out at just the needed location in a couple places to prevent the ball running out into the rough off slopes and such. From hole 1 to hole 18, this is a good course that is well worth the time to play.

But that's also where my criticism of The Encarta Club comes in. It is a good course that I'm not sure ever really flirts with greatness. There's just not really a hole or a stretch of holes that I feel elevates the round to a whole additional new level or leaves one rushing to get back to the first tee to experience it all over again. In much the same as PGA Tour stops at places like Waialae or the TPC San Antonio feature good golf courses devoid of any real memorable or standout holes, so too was my impression of The Encarta Club. In fact, my feature hole for this week gets that distinction not because it really stands out, but because of a very specific feature. The 9th hole at The Encarta Club is a par 5 that plays just a smidge over 550 yards from the tips. It can be reached in two, but before you get to salivating and entertaining eagle thoughts, stop and take a look at that thing immediately in front of the green. Just like St. Andrews has the Hell bunker, just like Pine Valley has The Devil's A$$hol3, The Encarta Club's ninth features a gaping aperture of doom so severe that I feel obligated to name it The Pit of Despair. Fronting and blocking off the left-most 2/3 to 3/4 of the green, The Pit of Despair is a 17-foot deep (I ventured into it for research purposes...really...yeah, that's how I got there...) chasm of awfulness from which a 24-yard flop shot does not return one to the land of the living (more research, I swear!). If you're looking for the places you don't want to put a golf ball at The Encarta Club, this thing is the first big red X you draw in the yardage book after locating the OB and water hazards. If I go for this green in two (and I will, because I like pain and that's just how I roll...) and my ball stops anywhere on the putting surface rather than running off the green's back edge, that will be evidence that I hit my shot shorter than intended.

For practice rounds, I've been anywhere from 1-under to 9-under. I'm going to throw my personal target at 22-under for the week and we'll see where that ranks me. My guess is the tournament champion will be somewhere in the low 40's under par as I think this course will play slightly more difficult for the field than did this past week's stop. [ETA: This prediction was made when I thought we were playing the back set of tees, not the gold ones...] Good luck to all!!

[rednu]

So there are bad days at the office. And there are BAD days at the office.

Teeing off from an elevated teebox into the teeth of a 15 mph wind with the pin set at the front of a green fronted by a pond and proceeding to misjudge the impact of the wind and see the ball fall into said pond. Well, that's bad. Reloading and doing it all over again? That's BAD. Doing that after already pulling bogeys on the two holes before it to start the day at +6 after 3....well that...that was my Round 3 start. Which largely explains why I now have 3 red marks and am in danger of going down to the CC-D ranks.

Oh the bad things that finishing 191 out of 199 does to a guy. But, hey, my world ranking only went down to 1968.

The sad thing is, it really wasn't THAT bad a week up to that point. I, like so many others, was enjoying my tickets to birdiefest and, while not threatening to win the event, certainly wasn't feeling too horrid about my performance. Then came Day 3 (and, let's face it, I didn't help myself by failing to let it go after sinking the putt for a juicy double-circle quad-bogey on hole 3. To my credit, I fought my way back to +2 at one stage, but mentally I was pretty much just done with life at that point. And that probably carried over into Day 4, which should easily have been another day of birdie fest but which, for whatever reason, saw my putting betray me and the scorecard only read 3-down at the end of the day.

So here I am...a man in danger of moving down rather than up on the tour. A wounded man. A broken man. A humbled man. A man...walking onto the hallowed grounds of Pebble Beach this week.

I absolutely LOVE Pebble Beach. When I was a kid and still entertaining dreams of playing on the Tour, obviously goal number one was to play Augusta National, because, hello, Masters! But only slightly behind that was to carry the sticks onto Pebble Beach and play a round. To say I revere this course is an understatement. It is a national treasure to the game like few others on the planet. It has had more written about it in far better prose than I will ever hope to compose, so I'm not even going to bother with a review of this week's course and a favorite hole. If you don't know about this course, that's on you and I have no idea how you got interested in a golf game. Now go, play, enjoy! Throw on the Bose surround sound and pipe in ocean sounds for the half hour or so that you play to create a mood.

I'm writing this after going 7-under on Day 1 of this week's event. Normally I'd be pretty stoked about 7-under, but it appears that's just not a good enough score as yet another birdie fest has broken out. I don't know if some secret hack has taken place in the last month or what, but the scores seem to have just slammed down lower over the past month to where even my "good" rounds aren't looking that good compared to the field. When 7-under isn't enough to get out of the bottom quartile...wow. Tough competition.

What an irony it will be when I get kicked down a tour spot, but see my World Ranking rise in that same week.

[rednu]

Pebble Beach may not have been everything the doctor ordered, but it definitely refreshed the batteries a little after I found myself questioning whether or not I would ever "get" this game. After an opening round 65 left me feeling pretty good until I realized that 3/4 of the field shot even better than that (!!), I managed a 63 on the super-windy Day 2 to really boost the confidence. Follow that with a round of 60 and, look mom -- I know what I'm doing!! And then came the 67 on Day 4 as I crashed backwards some 60 places on a day that was totally docile and conducive to amazing scores. Overall, it was a mid-table tie for 104th that did not take off any of me demotion marks and which drops my world ranking back to 1976, another 8-space slide.

I decided I really need to focus more on course management. To date, pretty much every shot I hit, I strike to try and lock in on the green. After this week's success on days 2 & 3 and trying to figure out what went wrong on Day 4, I am thinking that I'm not doing a good job ensuring that my missed shots miss in the proper location (aside from when water or obvious penalty is involved. I'm going to try and read situations better this week and see if it makes any difference.

Speaking of this week...Broken Arrow. Honestly, I suspect this will be my last week in CC-C as this par 70 layout absolutely has defied my efforts to feel good about this week's tournament. It isn't a bad course, though I do feel it drifts and feels into the category of clearly artificial as sometimes angles and slopes just don't seem to align. The key to conquering the Arrow is mastering its greens. Due to slopes, it will be challenging to get the ball close to the pin. If you have the wrong angle of approach, it could be well nigh impossible. The greens default at 156. I haven't peeked to see what speeds they are at for the tournament this week, but if they go above about 165, we could be in for a real adventure on a few holes.

My clear favorite hole this week is Hole 7, a 508-yard Par 4 when played from the back. It has an annoying bunker in the landing area from the back...you can play left of the bunker, risking a miss into a ditch, or short, risking a long second shot. With a tail wind you can carry the bunker (which really isn't a bad place to hit your second from, honestly). The approach shot is downhill to a fairway with a sharp slope coming down from the right and the ditch immediately off fairway's left the entire distance. The green mostly slopes from the front to the back so play a few yards shorter than the posted distance, particularly on pins located on the back half of the green.

Risk-reward fans will like the 13th, a dogleg left par 4 that is drivable over the trees, even from the back tees with the right wind. But beware the river behind the green, which, again, slopes hard from front to back. The approach shot on the par 4 14th is also a visually strong point on the course.

After watching the scores just bottom out the last few weeks, I am so tentative to say anything other than it'll take a score in the upper 40s under par to win this thing. But I'm hoping my struggles on the course are indicative of what many will encounter this week. Like I said, I'm not expecting anything on my side. Heck, give me a 12-down right now and I'll take it and walk to next week smiling, because I am not sure that's a number I'll get close to on the leaderboard.

But we shall see! Catch you on the links!

[rednu]

What a crazy, messed up game we play. 

I was convinced last week was going to be my last on the CC-C tour. I was uncomfortable on the course all week in practice. I hated it. There were very few holes I even felt remotely comfortable with. I thought about not playing, but where's the fun in that? So I made a plan to attack certain holes and then play others for a sound par as part of my plan to emphasize course management. In short, I stopped thinking like a gamer and started thinking more like a golfer. 

And what do you know...65-65-64-73...87th place, world ranking rises to 1936. Instead of dropping off the CC-C tour, I am holding one less demotion mark this week compared to last. 

This week is a promo event. I totally forgot about it, so I'll be playing the course essentially blind. Which is fine because I already know I'm not going to play well enough to be promoted...I've seen what folks are doing in this game, and I'm not at that level yet. 

But the CC-C stop is at Keystone Heights, and this is going to be another go-low birdie festival. Keystone is an eye-candy thrill of design that manages to maintain a decent feel and playability. Sure, the roundabout fairways feel a little hokey, but overall this is a clearly fictional course that I have loved the hell out of playing practice rounds on. And I think a lot of folks will agree after they've sampled the goods this week. 

The general scouting report on Keystone is go low on the front 9 and try to add to it on the back 9, which I definitely feel plays 2-3 strokes tougher regardless of pin position. I have consistently been carding -5 to -7 on the front 9, which means some of y'all are going to have a field day on it with its 3 par-5's, all of which are within the realm of eagle depending on the wind conditions we get. 

My highlight hole for the week is the par-5, 4th hole, clocking in at just over 500 yards. This is an idyllic hole that features a creek bisecting almost the entire length of the fairway before cutting in front and along the left of the green. The rock work on the creek, like everything else on this course, is visually appealing. It's a beautiful hole that makes one think...to begin, do you want to be on the right or the left of the creek off the tee? Personally, I like the right side better for its angle to the green with the second shot, but this is also the easier side to have a ball run into the rough from, so I've taken to having the wind dictate which side I settle for. 

I expect the CC-C winner this week will have to be at least 50 under over the 4 days. Me? Heck, I'm just hoping to be in the 30+ under range by the end of Day 4. I'll be the guy attacking on the front 9 and trying to remind himself to get out of "go crazy" mode for holes 10-18. Enjoy the round and props to the course designer...this is a good one.