Recap | QLD PGA, NSW Open Qualifiers + Sunny Coast Boot Camp
Grasping to the Stonecutter's Creedo after a series of "Failed to Qualify" ...
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” - Jacob Riis
I first heard a modified version of the Stonecutter’s Creedo on a No Laying Up podcast where Max Homa described how the concept drove him to keep working despite not getting the results he thought he deserved. He talked at length about being content and staying positive because he was showing up and putting in the work every day. He knew those first 100 blows (day after day of practice) were all necessary to crack the rock and eventually win golf tournaments and he didn’t let the lack of visible progress deter him.
It’s hard to look at my record of 0 for 3 in prequalifying thus far this year and be happy about it. On the flip side, it is easy for me to look at my process for getting better in advance of those qualifiers and feel like I’m building the foundation for success down the road. And if I look REALLY closely, I can see some little mini-results (some very very small cracks in the rock) that portend good things to come if I have the drive to keep hammering away at the rock.
QLD PGA Qualifier at Nudgee Golf Club (72, T-15, missed playoff by a shot)
This one hurt a bit.
With Dom coming down from Sunny Coast to hop on my bag and guide me around a course he knows fairly well, I played one of the best stretches of golf this season on a course that is known for being relatively tricky both off the tee and with some of the internal contouring on the greens.
After a solid par on the first and good drive down the second hole, I got a bit unlucky with my approach shot into two and left myself a short sided bunker shot that I wasn’t able to get up and down. That would be my last bogey until the twelfth and only one of three over-par holes on the round.
After a good up and down on the third, I hit two really strong shots on the par-five fifth hole to set up a long eagle putt that I navigated nicely and left myself a tap-in birdie to get back to even par. I followed that birdie up with a par on the second of the back-to-back par-fives before sinking a long, downhill curler to save another par on the sixth hole (I had pulled my approach shot left and hit a very mediocre to poor pitch, but saved myself with the putter).
Even through six, I felt good (and a bit fortunate) about where I stood given how I had played up to that point. I knew I had holes in front of me where birdies were certainly attainable and I felt really good on the greens up to that point. What I didn’t realize was how quickly those birdies would come …
Laying up on the short par-four seventh hole left me a perfect 9-iron back into a slight breeze. One really good swing (five feet left of the hole) and a well-stroked putt gave me my second birdie of the day and got me under par. I followed that birdie up with an 8-iron that bounced up to three feet on the par-3 eighth for another birdie. And I completed the trifecta on the ninth with my third birdie in a row despite more or less chunking a 3-wood off the tee and having to hit my best shot of the day, a 2-hybrid into the wind from 220 yards, to set up a 20-footer that was never in danger of missing.
Making the turn at 3-under par, I felt like I was very comfortably in a qualifying position at that point if I were to just hold on and finish at that number. Despite having nine holes to play, I mentally retreated a bit into conservative Colin when I started thinking about the possibility of getting through to the main event. I was putting so well and had started to hit some decent shots, I felt pretty invincible standing on the tenth tee, but rather than using that to my advantage and seeking out more birdies, I turtled a bit and as you’ll see, it ultimately cost me.
I hit a shaky approach shot into the tenth green, ending up about 30-feet long of the hole, but hit another great putt that lipped out and left me a short putt for par. On the eleventh, I made what was probably my second best swing of the day with a 5-iron on the long par-3. When I hit it, I thought I had stuffed it but the ball landed into a bank on the green and didn’t roll out as far as I had hoped. Two putts later and I had made another par.
The next three holes were an adventure. I made my second bogey of the day on twelve after hitting a shitty wedge into the par-four and not getting up and down from a bad spot. I had miles of green left and short-sided myself off to the right of the green from where I was unable to get up and down. The next two holes were similar stories, but ended a bit better. I hit the fairway on the thirteenth and fourteenth holes. I hit wedges into both holes. I missed the green on both holes. And I got up and down to save par on both holes. The up and down on thirteen was thanks to a good chip. The save on fourteen was thanks to my hot putter and another made downhill ten-plus foot curler.
After two good and one okay shot on the par-5 fifteenth, I left my 18-foot birdie attempt a few roles short of the cup in fear of hitting it past the hole and down a little hill. I made a comment to Dom afterwards about not wanting to leave myself a five footer coming back so I intentionally played it safe on the putt. After the round, he told me that was when he knew we had an issue. Up until that point, my conservative play on the back nine hadn’t really hurt me, but missing out on that good look because I was afraid of a little comebacker exposed my psyche in the moment.
The karma of that weakness manifested into something more sinister than a missed birdie chance on the sixteenth hole. Still two-under and in position to qualify, I hit a decent (but a little nervy) hybrid off the tee and left myself about 165 yards to the flag from the first cut of rough on the right side of the hole. I needed to just carry a big bunker in front of the green and let the ball simply roll out to the hole. We thought the wind was coming off the left more than it was into us, so we picked a 7-iron thinking a well-struck shot would have no issue covering the sand trap. At impact, I thought I had hit it perfect … but we both watched as the ball spun up into the wind (which suddenly switched and started blowing directly into us) and dropped a foot short of covering the bunker. When we arrived at the green, we saw the ball was plugged just under the lip, creating an extremely difficult shot that I haven’t practiced a whole lot recently. I got the ball out of the bunker, but didn’t quite reach the green and then proceeded to three putt from long range. The second of those three putts was a nervous, hopeful wave of the putter that was probably the least committed putt I hit all day. The double bogey six dropped me back to even par with two holes to play and took me out of a qualifying position.
I was unable to get those shots back on the seventeenth or eighteenth. On the par-5 seventeenth, I hit two decent shots but got quasi-fu*%ed when my layup came to rest on bare ground under a tree after a horrible bounce. Thankfully, I navigated the challenge fairly well and left myself a makeable putt for four. In another show of nerves, I left that putt short and walked off the green with a disappointing par.
On eighteen, one of the most intimidating holes I’ve played in a while (175 yard par-3 all over water with a green that looks like a ski slope), I hit a really nice seven-iron that gave me an outside look at a closing birdie. I cozied the putt up close but it never really threatened to go in. I settled for par and an even-par round of 72.
I walked into scoring hopeful that I still had an outside chance of qualifying, but found out quickly that the best I could do was an alternate position. Not long after that, I got bumped from the alternate playoff and was released to make the long drive back up to the Sunny Coast with Dom to get back to work on making me a better golfer.
Boot Camp
After a long debrief on the drive back to Dom’s, we came to the conclusion that I’m good enough to compete with these guys, but we have some clear fundamental issues with my golf swing and clubs that needed addressing.
After waiting out a small rain storm in the place where it supposedly never rains (eh, Dominic??), we got to work. We spent the afternoon going through every club in my bag to capture detailed ball and club data using his TrackMan. It didn’t take long for Dom to confirm the hypothesis he had worked out while caddying for me using the data coming out of TrackMan. We immediately noticed serious issues with attack angles and spin numbers that were dramatically reducing my ability to hit the ball consistent distances and produce enough spin to stop the ball on the much firmer greens we have here in Australia. Following that thread, we realized we likely had a major issue with the shafts I was playing in my irons (too heavy for my golf swing) plus a fundamental issues of me creating almost non-zero lag as I dropped the club towards the impact zone.
Over the next two days, we hit the angle of attack issue really hard. I hit ball after ball feeling like I was cocking my wrists double or even 3x more than what I had been producing before. It was an uncomfortable sensation but one that made an immediate impact on my ball flight and consistency. We also worked hard on hitting shorter wedge shots (doing it the proper way by shortening my swing and maintaining speed rather than decelerating a longer backswing), a bit of bunker play (which has made an immediate impact on my practice at home), and producing a bit more speed in my golf swing (just swing harder man!).
While I was up on the Sunny Coast, I also met Laura, the physio that Dom has been raving about, and spent time with her assessing my body as it relates to the ability to be in specific golf positions. Despite the effort I have been putting into mobility work and gaining strength at the gym, we recognized some serious flaws with my creaky 35-year old body and she has developed a fitness program for me that I’m now executing on six days a week (I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before because I don’t want to sound like a hardo, but my alarm clock has gone off at 445am six out of every seven days that I’m at home since arriving in Australia so I can get to the gym and be back at the house before the kids are awake). Laura is now part of team Andrade (really she is team Azzopardi and I have the privilege of leveraging her expertise) and we’ll be working together on an ongoing basis to make sure my body is capable of swinging the way I need to to compete.
NSW Open Qualifier at Barham Golf & Country Club (72, T-40, missed playoff by five shots)
I had about ten days post boot camp to start feeling confident about the changes we made. Not only was I trying to cram in comfort, but I also started testing completely new irons that were loaned to me by the PING club fitting guru here in Melbourne. The iron head didn’t matter nearly as much as getting lighter shafts in my hands … so he sent me home with a whole new set of clubs to play with and use at my next event if I felt comfortable. Because we had such a massive issue with my existing shafts, I took a “well it can’t get much worse approach” and committed to playing the new clubs.
The following Monday I made the drive up to the Victoria/NSW border and took a shot at qualifying for the NSW Open (which has one of the bigger prizes on the Aussie Tour schedule).
The summary of my round?
Eh … yuck. Not all 72’s are created equal. As competitive as I was at Nudgee for most of the day, I was equally as uncompetitive in Barham. Having played a practice round the day before, it was clear scores would be really low … so hope faded quickly after sitting at a couple over par two-thirds of the way through my round. A late birdie barrage salvaged a bit of pride but it was honestly just lipstick on a pig at that point.
I won’t go shot by shot here, but after making a long birdie on my first hole of the day, I proceeded to borderline shank a hybrid on my second shot into next hole, got stuck behind a tree, and made bogey. Another borderline shank on my third and we were uncomfortable VERY early in the round. I missed a couple of five footers over the first six holes but both were good putts, just misread how much break there would be (the core issue is where I left myself with my chips).
The lowlight of the day came on my eleventh hole when I sprayed a drive way right after being very explicit in my mind that I would not, under any circumstance, miss right. My frustration boiled over at that point and I slammed the club into the ground only to watch the driver head fly off the shaft and scamper into the woods next to the tee box.
While I don’t condone my attitude in that moment, there may have been something cathartic about the release of anger/frustration. I played the next seven holes in two-under hitting 3-wood off every tee and did a better job of just living with the results of each shot. It would have been two better as well but I hit a horrible bunker shot on the second of three par 5’s on the back nine that lost me a couple of shots.
In the end, a 72 that maybe could have been a 69 or 70 … but honestly I didn’t play well enough by any means for it to have been a really good round. The course was easy, the wind was down. Nearly half the field shot par or better. It was disappointing … not much more to say beyond that.
We are in Aussie Tour major season now.
The Aussie PGA and Aussie Open are the next two weeks. While I’m not in either field at the moment, I’ll have an opportunity to qualify for both. I fly up to Brisbane this weekend to go try and qualify for the PGA on Monday. And then I have a bit of a home game the following week for the Aussie Open where I’ll try to qualify on a course I’m familiar with back in Melbourne.
I’m not putting a lot of pressure on myself because these will be the hardest events of the year to qualify for given the talent pool playing in the events and those who didn’t get spots in the tournaments and need to qualify. But golf is golf and if I can put together my best round of the year just once, I have a legitimate chance of getting in.
I’ll be back with updates after those rounds … and I’ll let you know if I start to see any bigger cracks in that rock.
Keep climbing y’all.
After reading this recap, I feel a whole new wave of enthusiasm for your game! Go get em, Col!