Quick Recap | NZ PGA & Heritage Classic Qualifier
Stunning settings, less than stunning golf ...
I’m in a good mood so I’m going to start positive here … New Zealand is one of the coolest places on the planet and I’m not sure there is any single place that has moved me visually/aesthetically as the North Island did earlier this month. My jaw was exhausted from having to lift it off the floor every four minutes. The mountains, the ocean, the animals … it was all unreal. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend a few hours minutes looking at real estate.
Sadly, the golf was not quite so alluring.
81-77, missed cut, last place. Only one birdie for the tournament and it came on my very last hole of the event (don’t let me get hot!). It was an abject disaster and I’m not going to provide nightmare fuel for all my readers with a shot by shot recounting of the horrors.
As I mentioned in the preview, I was coming off an injury that had sidelined me for about two weeks. Thankfully the intercostal strain I suffered had zero physical impact on me during the event and I was pain-free throughout the week. But the layoff probably hurt me more than I anticipated. Less on-course reps in the weeks leading up to the event meant a little less comfort in my ability to fix myself when things started to go bad.
In hindsight, the issue was clear. The crux of the bad shotmaking, chipping, and putting (yes, all of it was bad) was extremely poor rhythm and sequencing that stemmed from anxiety and getting sped up out there on the golf course. There was very little wrong with me fundamentally to start the week … I just did it all too fast. And then when things started to go wrong, I looked for answers in the fundamentals of the swing or the putting stroke and made changes rather than just doing the same things but slower.
It sucked. It sucked I made that mistake again. It sucked that I set my expectations really high for a good week and completely f*cked things up again.
That said, it’s not the end of the world and I’ve moved on. In fact, I moved on so quickly that after two days off I went out to my home club and shot seven-under with eight birdies and one bogey in the Tuesday comp. The putts that didn’t go in at the NZ PGA went in at home. The swing that led me to miss a billion fairways and greens slowed down a bit and produced double-digit quality birdie opportunities. The only difference? A lack of anxiety and a proper pace to my game. Stupid sport, eh?
I tried to bring that same mindset and pace to the following week’s Monday qualifier for the Heritage Classic here in Melbourne. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived early that morning. With no chance to play a practice round and knowing almost nothing about the golf course, I was flying blind both on course layout and conditions (e.g. green speeds).
What ensued was really good tee to green golf combined with a really poor job of getting the ball to go in the hole. I missed one green in regulation the entire day but had 37 putts (more than two per hole thanks to multiple three-putts) to shoot a two-over par 74 and finish 17th out of the sixty-ish guys in the field. With tough(ish) conditions and really inconsistent greens, the scores were a bit higher than I would have expected and I beat a handful of really good players, but it was another “FTQ” (failure to qualify) and the culmination of a truly unsuccessful season of trying to pre-qualify into events.
78 - 72 - 72 - 75 - 76 - 82 - 74 - 71 - 74 - 74
Ten qualifiers, ten FTQs. After Q-school, I’ll do a bit of a deep dive into those ten rounds to see if I can find the common denominators to my poor play but the general theme was bad swing, good putting early in the year and good swing, bad putting later in the year (with a truly horrible bad swing, bad putting round smack dab in the middle at the VIC PGA qualifier). I do feel like I’m a far better player today than I was in October, but you’d have to really squint your eyes to see that if you were just looking at the results.
The fickle-ness of the sport once again came to the forefront just two days ago. The day after shooting 74 at Heritage and missing every putt I looked at, I went down to Moonah Links (where Aussie Tour Q-School will be held in three weeks) and shot seven-under again on the Legends course from the championship tees. I started my round eagle-par-birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie before cooling off and playing the final twelve holes in one-under par.
I only missed two greens in regulation and had twenty-nine putts on the round. Add up my greens in regulation over the last three rounds (66 at Commonwealth, 74, at Heritage, 64 at Moonah) and I have hit 50 of 54 greens in a variety of conditions. That is really good … but also really frustrating after only hitting 18 of 36 greens at the NZ Open.
I wish I had the answers. Dom and I have our hypotheses and we have a game plan for Q-School, but bottom line is I need figure out a way to perform (in all facets of my game) when it matters. Until I do that, none of the other sh*t matters.
Looking ahead, I have three weeks before Q-School kicks off on April 9th. You likely won’t hear from me until after that. 100% of my focus is going into getting through first stage and giving myself at a full Tour card for next year at second stage. I’m trying to limit distractions or anything that will take my energy away from getting that job done. I’m working my a*s off to get better physically and mentally in advance of that event and at the very least I’ll walk off that course on April 11th knowing I gave it my all.
I’ll be back with updates in April. In the meantime, keep climbing y’all.
Cheering you on, Colin!!! 😊