I told y’all I would be as open and transparent as I possibly could throughout this process … mainly because I think it is valuable for my readers to get a true understanding of how difficult this game can be, but also because it’s a little cathartic for me.
Well, after a handful of good rounds in a row and not too much to be upset about, the reality of competitive golf reared its ugly head today in round 1 of the Mass Open. I ended up shooting 76 and am currently 4 shots off the cut line, but when you dive into the details of the round, it is pretty apparent that things could have been a lot worse.
It is late and I need to get some rest before another long day tomorrow (this time in the rain and wind), but I wanted to provide a quick overview of what went well, what was bad, and what was downright ugly.
The Good
Not much if we are being honest. On a day where the weather was better than expected and nineteen players shot under par, there really weren’t a whole lot of excuses to play poorly.
In the spirit of the exercise though, I can say that despite hitting the ball badly all day long, I kept myself in it with my short game … getting up and down from all over the place throughout the round. I left myself in some nasty spots and was able to limit the damage (no double bogeys today … just a bunch of regular ones).
I also made a handful of birdies, all of which came on putts from outside 15 feet. If you have been following along you’ll know that my short putting has been a major strength but I havn’t been making the longer ones so that was encouraging.
The Bad
It’s a long list, but I’ll touch on just the major points.
My golf swing was an absolute mess today. I was never able to get comfortable warming up and while my back felt WAY better today, there was still some lingering tentativeness that may or may not have caused some problems. More than anything though, I just kind of lost it and I was playing golf swing most of the day instead of playing golf. It was a lot of hit and hope out there.
My short putting also wasn’t nearly as good as it has been in previous rounds. I missed two or three putts from six to eight feet today and those are the ones I have been making consistently. These were more about my reads than my stroke though. Almost every putt I hit today started on line, but I did a really poor job of picking the correct targets and matching them with the right speed.
Lastly, distance control was a problem. I could not for the life of me hit the ball pin high. I had a ton of really awkward in-between yardages that forced me to either swing hard at something or take one more club and hit it easy, but I struggled in doing so (which stems from the swing issues).
The Ugly
Can I put my full swing in this category as well? No? … okay well I am going to be more specific and say my driving was TERRIBLE. Missed right on one, missed left on two, missed in a bad spot on eight, missed right on nine, missed right on ten, missed right on twelve … you get the picture. I actually hit 8 of 14 fairways which looks passable on the surface, but many of those were weak shots that were guided into the fairway more than anything and left me with long approaches. I need to clean that up tomorrow if I’m going to score better.
I had three three-putts today, which I have managed to avoid pretty much all year. The first one was not horrible … I left myself a 25 footer straight downhill that I totally misjudged and hit it 7 feet past. I hit what I thought was the perfect comebacker but I misread it slightly and lipped out.
The second one was also tricky, up and over a huge mound in the green and I misread the six footer I left myself. I had just birdied the hole before and was thinking I could make a little push coming into the clubhouse but the three putt killed the momentum.
Two holes later though was the coup de grace. I’m not particularly pleased to be admitting this, but after hitting my two best shots of the day on seventeen, I lagged my first putt up to two feet and then went to quickly brush it in for par … but in doing so I pulled it slightly and missed it. My first putt inside 5 feet missed all year was a dumbass, rookie mistake. I couldn’t believe it. I’m glad it happened in a round that was already in pretty rough shape, and god knows I won’t make that mistake again any time soon, but it still hurts (I did bounce back with a birdie on the eighteenth so that took a little of the pain out things).
Hoping for a bounceback round tomorrow to build some momentum going into the rest of the month. I’m in a great mental space and I’m encouraged by some hotel-room swing diagnoses I was able to perform. If I can put together a round in the 60’s tomorrow, I will definitely have a chance of making the cut.
I will likely recap day number two along with my thoughts on the tournament as a whole in a post coming out on Sunday night. In the meantime, feel free to follow along live scoring at this link here.