Hi everyone!
It's been a week since I last wrote anything, so I figured I should give a little update on how things are going! It's been a tough week for practicing and playing, because we've had just tons of rain. We had a big storm on Monday, and then to make it worse, an even bigger storm on Thursday and into early Friday. I think I heard somewhere that we had over four inches of rain on Thursday. Obviously, there wasn't very much practicing going on!
I had a chance to play a bit, and I was fortunate enough to play one of the courses I will be playing in two weeks for my second event. The course was called April Sound Country Club, in Montgomery, TX, and it was good to see it early. I will play another practice round before the event, but it is a quirky little track, and it was very beneficial to get out there and learn some of the lines off the tees, and how the greens play! I played with a good friend of mine, Brandon Frankhouser, and the superintendent of April Sound, Justin Lonon, which was great. Both guys were a lot of fun, and knew the course very well, which helped me out a bunch!
It has been strange to be back in a situation where I have nothing but time to practice, play, and improve my golf game. The first few days I was here, I had a hard time practicing. I know that sounds funny, but it was difficult to remember how to spend six or eight hours of quality time working on my game, as opposed to just six or eight mindless hours on the range, short game area, or putting green. I could have gone to the driving range and just beat ball after ball for three or four hours, but I know that I would not have really benefited from that at all. It really took me a few days to get back into the "swing" (sorry for the bad pun) of things, and really make my practicing start to pay off in a positive way!
I have come to the realization that a lot of the practicing I have done in my life was not the most beneficial. I would hit lots of balls, video tape my swing a lot, constantly search for that "perfect" swing, whether it exists or not. Since I have been out here, I have focused more on practicing in an effort to improve my golf game. When I hit balls, I work much more on the flight of the ball, distance control, and making sure that the golf ball is starting on the correct line, more than I work on my swing itself. My tournaments start on Wednesday, so I don't think there will be any big swing changes made in the next five days! This has been a big change for me, because I think in the past, I have always spent more time trying to improve my golf swing.
In the past, I would go to the short game area, I might hit forty or fifty bunker shots, hit some pitches, some flop shots, some bump and runs, and then call it a day. That might take an hour or so, and I never felt like my short game improved. Sure, I would learn the odd new shot that might come in handy, but the fundamental short game shots that I always needed never seemed to get any better. Since I have been here, I have worked to focus more on how the ball is struck, and how and where it lands, as opposed to trying to make the shot, or chip it close to the pin I am targeting. Obviously I want to hit good shots, but while I am practicing, focusing on the things I can control is much more important. Every green will react differently, and you can never practice every shot you will need over your golf career, so I have found that spending more time focusing on the strike of the ball, and controlling where it lands, has benefited me far more than short game practice I have done in the past.
It has also been great to be able to spend a lot of time on the putting green. I have always felt that I am a good putter, but it seems that at the end of a round, I always feel like I missed a lot of very makeable putts. I am fortunate to be able to practice on a really great putting green at Augusta Pines, and while there is an extreme amount of slope on the green, this has given me a great opportunity to improve my speed control, as well as work on putts of all different breaks and lengths. I have a number of putting drills I do every day, some that work on my stroke, some that work on the strike of the ball, and some that work on my speed and distance control. I know that if I keep working on them, I won't just feel like a good putter, I will be a great putter!
I hope everyone is doing great wherever they are, as things are going great down here. Every morning I wake up I am realizing more and more how much I love being here, and that I made the right decision coming down here. My first tournament kicks off on Wednesday, at Cypress Lakes Golf Club, so this will be a very exciting week!
You can follow the scores once we start, as well as see information about the tour at the Adams Pro Golf Tour Winter Series website.
http://www.adamsgolfprotourseries.com/WinterSeries_%20Information.htm
Take care everyone!
Stew
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The First Week!
Hi Everyone,
For those of you that know me, you're probably wondering why someone who had a scoring average of about 76, didn't break par in a tournament this year, and barely even played much golf this summer, would turn professional. And, quite honestly, that is a fair question. After finishing college in the spring of 2008, I had thought that highly competitive golf was coming to an end for me. I wasn't enjoying myself on the golf course nearly as much as I should, and I didn't have the motivation to practice like I needed to. I assumed that I was moving on to other things, and I put golf on the back burner. I had been playing non-stop golf for almost five years, and I think I burned myself out a little. One winter in Winnipeg changed all of that!
Winter could not have been more difficult for me. Not only was it FREEZING in Winnipeg, it was the first time in quite a while that the option of playing golf wasn't there. I had the golf dome, I had the hitting bay at Caddy Shed, where I worked, but it wasn't the same. I couldn't go play nine holes in the evening, and I couldn't just spend an afternoon beating balls on a driving range if the urge came. As the winter went on, I could feel that itch coming back. I had thought golf was going to take a step back in my life, but the winter proved to me that I wasn't ready for that. Once the spring hit, I was extremely excited to get back on the course.
Of course, Winnipeg's spring was awful! We were about a month behind in getting out to play, and the courses suffered from a very difficult winter. I was working a lot, both at Caddy Shed, and with Taylor Made/Adidas Golf, so I was busy, and didn't miss too many great days to play. I didn't even expect to want to play that much, so working two jobs was just fine with me! As the weather got nicer, and the courses got into better condition, I started to notice myself dying to be out on the course. No kidding, right? Who wouldn't want to leave work and play golf? This was very different for me though, because it was a complete 180 from the summer of 2008. Golf was fun again! Good shots were exciting, bad shots gave me a chance to hit a great one the next time. This is what it was all about! I couldn't wait to get to the golf course, and when I was there, I never wanted to leave.
As the summer went on, and even though I did not perform at the level I expected to, I knew that professional golf was still what I wanted to do. I started thinking about it more and more, and as the summer got closer to ending, I knew it was time to take the next step.
That leads me to right now, as I sit in my room in the Woodlands, Texas. I'm just down the road from where I went to college, in one of my favorite places in the world, and the dream has finally taken shape. I'm a professional golfer. I wake up in the morning, and I go to work at the beautiful Augusta Pines Golf Club. When I leave the course, I head to the gym, where I work to get myself into better shape. When I am done at the gym, it's back to my place, where I plan out how I'm going to get better tomorrow.
This is the life...I hope you guys are along for the ride!
Hit it straight!
Stew
For those of you that know me, you're probably wondering why someone who had a scoring average of about 76, didn't break par in a tournament this year, and barely even played much golf this summer, would turn professional. And, quite honestly, that is a fair question. After finishing college in the spring of 2008, I had thought that highly competitive golf was coming to an end for me. I wasn't enjoying myself on the golf course nearly as much as I should, and I didn't have the motivation to practice like I needed to. I assumed that I was moving on to other things, and I put golf on the back burner. I had been playing non-stop golf for almost five years, and I think I burned myself out a little. One winter in Winnipeg changed all of that!
Winter could not have been more difficult for me. Not only was it FREEZING in Winnipeg, it was the first time in quite a while that the option of playing golf wasn't there. I had the golf dome, I had the hitting bay at Caddy Shed, where I worked, but it wasn't the same. I couldn't go play nine holes in the evening, and I couldn't just spend an afternoon beating balls on a driving range if the urge came. As the winter went on, I could feel that itch coming back. I had thought golf was going to take a step back in my life, but the winter proved to me that I wasn't ready for that. Once the spring hit, I was extremely excited to get back on the course.
Of course, Winnipeg's spring was awful! We were about a month behind in getting out to play, and the courses suffered from a very difficult winter. I was working a lot, both at Caddy Shed, and with Taylor Made/Adidas Golf, so I was busy, and didn't miss too many great days to play. I didn't even expect to want to play that much, so working two jobs was just fine with me! As the weather got nicer, and the courses got into better condition, I started to notice myself dying to be out on the course. No kidding, right? Who wouldn't want to leave work and play golf? This was very different for me though, because it was a complete 180 from the summer of 2008. Golf was fun again! Good shots were exciting, bad shots gave me a chance to hit a great one the next time. This is what it was all about! I couldn't wait to get to the golf course, and when I was there, I never wanted to leave.
As the summer went on, and even though I did not perform at the level I expected to, I knew that professional golf was still what I wanted to do. I started thinking about it more and more, and as the summer got closer to ending, I knew it was time to take the next step.
That leads me to right now, as I sit in my room in the Woodlands, Texas. I'm just down the road from where I went to college, in one of my favorite places in the world, and the dream has finally taken shape. I'm a professional golfer. I wake up in the morning, and I go to work at the beautiful Augusta Pines Golf Club. When I leave the course, I head to the gym, where I work to get myself into better shape. When I am done at the gym, it's back to my place, where I plan out how I'm going to get better tomorrow.
This is the life...I hope you guys are along for the ride!
Hit it straight!
Stew
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