2023 Massachusetts Open | Recap
Good test, bad golf ...
This year’s Mass Open was a nice reminder of how poor golf will always catch up with you on a proper golf course. A place like TPC Boston (former host site of a long-running PGA Tour event) requires all elements of your game to be in good shape if you want to score well … and it’s penal enough in places where one small misstep can lead to big numbers in a heartbeat.
‘Big numbers’ turned out to be the theme of the tournament for me. Two rounds of golf saw me finish at ten-over par (76 - 78 on the par-72 golf course). In that span of 36 holes, I managed to make three double bogeys and one triple bogey (that is nine-over for four holes if math isn’t your strong suit). Even worse, two of those doubles came on par-5’s … and for the week I played the par-5’s in five-over par.
I could probably play the hypothetical revisionist game that all us golfers love (“hey, if I had just made par on those four holes, I would have shot one-over and made the cut!”), but that would be like putting lipstick on a pig in my case. Yeah, I played the other 32 holes in one-over, but I was FIGHTING it all tournament long. Outside of doing a good job of holing out from inside 10 feet on the greens (other than one very bad miss while rushing to clean up a shortie), no aspect of my game could be deemed good.
Two facets in particular were bad: 1) I battled a left miss with my driver and mid-to-long irons that made it nearly impossible to be confident standing over the ball getting ready to hit full shots and 2) my speed control on longer putts was pretty poor in general.
As I learned the day after the event when speaking with Dom, the left miss was due to an overactive lower body on the downswing that got me out in front of everything and essentially forced me to flip my hands at the ball to hit it somewhat straight. Nothing really good can happen in that scenario, especially when tempo is not absolutely perfect. The good news here is that it feels like I have that issue sorted out after working hard on some drills Dom gave me and I’m hopeful it wont be a problem going forward.
The poor speed control on the greens was likely a function of a couple of things. The first is a lack of experience putting on greens as fast as the ones at TPC Boston. These surfaces were absolutely perfect, and much quicker than anything I’ve played in a while. Given that information, you’d probably thing I was blowing putts past the hole all tournament long … but in reality the problem I faced was the opposite. I found myself far too tentative and timid, leaving myself short of the hole seemingly over and over.
To illustrate that point, consider the first nine holes I played on Monday. After JUST dripping in my first putt of the day (for birdie by the way … yes, I started one-under and still shot ten-over across the two days), I left my first putts on the second, third, fourth, sixth, and seventh holes short. Three of those were dead in the heart of the hole and just needed a bit more conviction and speed to drop.
The second cause of the poor speed control was simply a lack of practice. Because my golf swing had gotten bad over the last ten days or so, I had to prioritize trying to solve that puzzle over working on the finer points of the game like speed control on the greens. With my increased workload, these are decisions that I need to make to every time I go out to practice. I don’t regret the choice I made, but I can’t deny it was a factor.
I’m not going to do my normal hole by hole recap for this one. Sadly it would be a lot of “and then I hit my second shot to 50 feet and two-putted” or “I missed the green but my short game bailed me out to save par”. The interesting stuff was the holes where I made double or triple, primarily because of the various ways I orchestrated each of those train wrecks (truly, you’ve never seen four doubles or worse accomplished in such different ways). And while those may be interesting to YOU, my dear reader, I’m not terribly interested in revisiting them.
What I will spend some time on and ultimately conclude with is my learnings from this week. As hard as it is to revisit the shitty weeks like this, it IS important to ensure they mean something and contribute to long-term climb in some way. So without further ado, here is what we are going to take away from the 2023 Mass Open …
I am a REALLY good putter from inside ~7 feet. Probably as good as anyone out there. That fact is what makes it even more frustrating that I struggled to get longer putts past the hole because I know I’ll make the comebackers 99% of the time. I need to simply play with more confidence on the greens moving forward and it should pay huge dividends.
My short game in general has gotten really good over the past six to eight months. I had one messy moment on the 18th this week, but otherwise I was really solid around the greens. My bunker play in particular has improved dramatically.
There is such a thing as being too conservative (too safe) in the approach game. Too many times this week I aimed too far from flags in the name of safety and it left me with challenging two-putts. Now, a big reason for me choosing to do that this week was how bad my swing felt, but under normal swing conditions I need to do a better job of trusting numbers and my ability to hit shots.
When I’m hitting it bad and playing a course like TPC Boston where you just have to be in the fairway to have a chance, I need to do a better job of backing down and hitting clubs that I know I have more margin for error with to put myself in play. I hit driver pretty much everywhere this week despite dealing with that left miss, and it bit me in the ass a couple of times. It was probably the right play if I was hitting the driver straight, but given my swing in the moment, I really needed to play the tee shots differently.
On a related note, my strategy for playing a course has to be flexible enough in the moment to deal with the realities of how I’m hitting the ball. If I am missing everything left, I need to take the likelihood of missing left on any given shot into account on EVERY shot. I often find myself believing I will have figured it out on the next swing (magically) and play for a perfect shot. And while I love the faith I have in myself, it’s not a totally logical approach. The strategy has to change.
Last one … we were essentially ‘put on the clock’ at one point in the first round. We weren’t getting shots timed, but we did miss two pace of play checkpoints (through no real fault of anyone in our group … we had one long hole due to poor play and I guess one guy in my group wasn’t super fast, but not slow either) and they reprimanded and threatened us with a penalty stroke if we didn’t catch up. The moment that happened, the whole vibe in the group changed and I personally felt extremely rushed on every shot. Setting aside the fairness of the situation, I need to figure out a way to get more comfortable when something like that does happen because it likely won’t be the last time. I’m generally a quick player, but force me to speed up even faster and I lose a bit of focus on a shot by shot basis.
On the plus side of all this, I did really enjoy myself out there (bad golf aside). Getting a chance to play that course under true tournament conditions was a really nice look into what is required to compete at the highest levels. To have played as badly as I did and still have an outside chance of making the cut going into my final nine holes is a testament to how far my game has come. I probably shoot 80 - 83 at this same point last year (assuming I hit the ball like I did this year) so there’s that.
I also had good company in Trevor coming out to caddy for me in the first round and my wife walking alongside to watch during the second round. It is always nice to play in front of friends and family.
And the best part about golf? There is always another chance to do it better. In my case, that will be the New Hampshire Open at Bretwood Golf Club next week. I am feeling much more confident in my full swing after a couple of practice sessions later this week and that will hopefully translate to better scoring on a course I’ve never played (nor will I play in advance of the tournament). I’ll be back with a recap of that at some point after the event.
In the meantime, thanks for reading and keep climbing y’all!