Don't Forget to Look Up
It might be a long way up, but it's there if you squint hard enough ...
I’m not sure who I’m writing this for tonight. Myself, probably. I’m disappointed, I’m frustrated … I’m struggling to deal with continually getting the absolute bare minimum out of my game every time I go out and keep score.
I shot 79 today, seven over par, in the easiest conditions we will have all week.
I’m in 27th place. And to make sure I don’t hurt the feelings of the prick guy who called me out for not mentioning my 30th place finish at DP World Tour Q-School two years ago was dead last, let’s be clear that I am in SECOND TO LAST place after the first round of Asian Tour Q-School.
Golf is a miserably hard game and has a way of beating you down a little extra when you aren’t playing well. When things are bad, the luck always seems to go the wrong way. Balls bounce left instead of right, you get bad lies instead of good ones, putts lip out instead of in. Or in one small example of my nightmare today, you get stymied behind what is essentially the only tree on the entire golf course after misjudging the wind just a tiny bit and ending up a few yards off the fairway..
I could also argue rationally that the better you play, the more luck you make for yourself. Hit the ball with more control and you take luck out of the equation, right? Putt better and you don’t have to worry about lip outs. Avoid the f*ckin tree and you won’t have to pitch out sideways. Bad luck? Sorry … your fault.
I COULD argue that … but I’m going to choose not to. I’m going to choose to believe that my game IS good enough and that I’m simply not getting anything out of it. I’m going to choose to believe that I’m one round from gaining the confidence I crave to return to scoring well.
I’m going to choose to ^LOOK UP^ the leaderboard and set my sight for those guys at the top. I may not find my way at the top this week … in fact it probably won’t be. But the breaks ARE going to start going my way. Combine those breaks with stacking day after day of hard work and learning to get better, and I’ll be just fine. I refuse to allow myself to either A) give up because I’m going through a bad stretch with a lot of bad luck or B) get comfortable scrolling down the leaderboard in search of my name.
I truly believe all it takes is ONE round to get me off and running.
If that one round is going to happen this week, it will be in the midst of heavy winds over the next three days. Back at it again at 940am AEST tomorrow with a smile on my face and hope overflowing frometh my cup.
Keep climbing y’all and don’t forget to look up …