Recap: 2024 CKB WA PGA Championship
Battling more than just the kangaroos ...
There aren’t a lot of places I’ve been in my 35 years on this Earth that make me look around and ask “how in the world did I get here”? Kalgoorlie, Western Australia (very much part of the Outback) was most definitely one of those places.
I won’t rehash my observations from the preview post, but I can confirm that as the week went on, it all just become more and more surreal. Playing a sport, for money, at the highest level in this country … in the middle of absolutely freakin nowhere. Kinda crazy.
Unfortunately, I was only able to enjoy the Salvadore Dali painting for two days, missing the cut and heading back to Perth early Saturday morning to get a jumpstart on prep for the following week. I shot 76-78 and finished in the bottom ten again, although that score on the second day was misleading and inflated as I pushed (too hard) to do something special on the back nine and just ran out of gas.
The theme of the week was “grind”. Very little came easily in Kalgoorlie. The golf course wasn’t overly difficult (though it was a proper big boy course), the conditions weren’t too bad (I got the worse side of the draw with the wind but really not the issue here), and my game was in a good spot early in the week (I made birdies galore in the practice rounds) … but once the lights came on, I was out of sync just enough to make things very challenging for myself.
For the life of me, I could not take advantage of the birdie looks I gave myself all week, making just one (!) birdie in the thirty six holes I played. I hit a lot of good putts from ten to twenty feet, I just couldn’t get them to drop. And most of the putts inside ten feet were for par unfortunately.
On the flip side, I grinded my ass off to keep myself in the tournament (or at least keep myself in sight of the cut line) for far longer than the state of my game would have suggested was possible. I made double digit five to ten footers on the week to save pars (more than what the statistics would expect me to make) and maintain some semblance of momentum here and there. I played long stretches of golf making par after par, losing a bit of energy every time I had to make another six footer to avoid dropping a shot.
I was six-over for the tournament going into the fifteenth hole of my second round. Thinking I could produce something magical and get back to within shouting distance of the cut with a short par-4 and a quasi-reachable par-5 in the last four holes, I got super aggressive and dropped four shots over the next three holes. It was a combination of pressing too hard to try shots I couldn’t hit and being exhausted from the self-inflicted struggle I put myself through over the previous thirty-two holes.
In the end, it was a disappointing result. But upon reflection, it was probably the most productive poor result I’ve had so far this year. There were two big learnings/observations in particular that are going to be important for me as I continue on this journey.
The first related to my ability to focus over each and every shot (well, for the first thirty-something holes at least) and generate a really good picture of what I wanted the ball to do. An underrated skill in golf is the ability to paint the picture of what you want the ball to do in your mind’s eye. Our bodies are really good at being reactive and that is no different in golf. Picture a golf shot and let your skill and training do the rest (that is the idea at least, doesn’t always work out). I managed to do the first part of that really well at the WA PGA. I didn’t hit a shot until I was committed to my desired outcome (defined as what the ball was going to do off the club face, in flight, and once it landed back on land).
Sure, the ball (clearly) didn’t always do what I had hoped it would as I pictured it during my pre-shot routine, but I proved to myself I could focus and execute on an integral part of the game that I’ve been working hard on in my practice sessions of late.
The second observation from being immersed amongst some of the best golfers in the southern hemisphere is that I am currently unable to hit some shots that other guys can execute fairly easily. And when you break it down, the margin between their ability to hit that shot and mine is the speed and spin some of those guys are capable of generating.
I need to get faster, period. That is part technique, part physical improvement, and part mental. Getting the ball in the hole as quickly as possible is always the goal on the course, but when I’m not competing, I have to be thinking of ways to raise the ceiling of my game so I can compete with the best. Right now, that means swinging the club faster.
Really good example of why this is important …
On Thursday and Friday, I played in the group behind Elvis Smylie. Elvis is an up and coming Aussie superstar who is going to play PGA Tour golf at some point. Elvis is not overly tall (he is probably six foot one) or jacked, but he can flat out MOVE the ball … and he makes it look easy. I watched from behind as he made THREE eagles in his first round … reaching three of the four par-5’s in two shots and making the eagle putts. He went on to finish third in the event, largely because of his play on the par-5’s (along with another eagle on a par 4 over the weekend).
Anyone want to guess how many of those par-5’s I hit in two shots in my two rounds?
Zero. In my eight attempts, I had pitching wedge, pitching wedge, nine-iron, gap wedge, pitching wedge, lob wedge, pitching wedge, and pitching wedge into those same holes. And nearly all of those were full swings.
Now, sure … I didn’t press the issue trying to get to those holes in two shots and instead played it safe and laid back quite a bit to comfortable numbers. I probably COULD have gotten closer to a lot of those greens but it introduced risk that wasn’t worth the reward. BUT not a single time did I feel like I could comfortably reach a par-5 in two shots to set up an eagle opportunity.
The good news is that I have a path forward to make this happen. It won’t happen overnight, but I’ll get there. In the short term, I need to get really good at the parts of the game where speed doesn’t matter as much (short game, putting, wedge play) and do THAT better than everyone else if I am going to compete.
What’s next?
I failed to qualify for the WA Open (held at Mandurah Country Club the week after the WA PGA and eventually won by Mr. Smylie … surprise surprise) and have been working hard over the last ten days getting ready to try and qualify for the Queensland PGA Championship in Brisbane.
I’ll play the Monday qualifier on the 28th and hope for the best. Regardless of outcome, I’m also going to spend some time with coach Dom up at his place near the Sunshine Coast and we are going to curate a detailed plan for the next phase of my improvement.
I’ll be back with updates from Queensland next week!
Keep climbing y’all.
Rooting for ya!