On the road with Joseph Sykora: Back in the U.S.
By Joseph Sykora
Editor's note: Joseph Sykora is a rookie on the Nationwide Tour this year. This will be Sykora's first trip to Australia and New Zealand to participate in the three co-sanctioned events with the PGA Tour of Australasia. He will be blogging about his experiences traveling and playing Down Under for three weeks.
TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2009
TRAILS AND TRIALS: The last time I wrote, I mentioned that I'd probably go for a day hike in my remaining time in New Zealand. On Saturday afternoon, I left at about 1:00 p.m. from the hotel and hiked up a small mountain in Queenstown. I don't know how far the hike was, but it took about six hours to reach the top of the summit. The peak was a little over 4,000 feet above the town, so I got to see some awesome views of the area.
I went by myself, which gave me a chance to get out and think about my trip. I thought about golf, unfortunately, but also about how amazing my experience was and how awesome everything is that God created. When I got back to the hotel from my excursion, I saw several guys returning from the course and they wondered what I had been up to. I probably didn't look too good from that six-hour hike! It was a really steep climb and, although it was on a trail, I got very dirty.
I love to do that kind of stuff and have a look around, but it was also nice to bum around on Sunday. I didn't really do a whole lot on my last day and was looking forward to getting home.
A LONG TRIP HOME: We left the hotel on Monday around 1:00 p.m., which was roughly 7:00 p.m. CST on Sunday in the U.S. I didn't get back to Birmingham until about 2:30 p.m. CT on Tuesday. That's almost a two-day trip -- it was awful. The longest flight was obviously from Auckland to L.A., but my problem was that, when I got to L.A., they had changed my domestic flight. I worked that out and got another one that went through Denver, but had a problem again and wasn't able to get on it my connecting flight there. When I missed that one, I had to spend the night in Denver and didn't arrive in Alabama until today.
Needless to say, it was a long journey back. When I was going over to Australia and New Zealand, I was excited and looking forward to the trip. On the way back, I was just ready to get home. That ending to the trip, in a way, summed up my whole experience. I didn't play very well down there and had a lot of things come my way that weren't in my favor.
For instance -- I mentioned this earlier in the blog -- I found out during the first week that I couldn't listen to music, which is something I've done for about a year. It was little things like that, so the long return trip was a fitting end. To sum up the whole thing, it was really challenging. I didn't play very well and didn't have things go my way.
FAITH AND HOPE: With that being said, I'm still very hopeful at same time. As poorly as I played, I feel really good about playing golf in the United States. Now I'll be able to drive to tournaments and I have a friend caddying for me for the rest of the year. I'm not far from playing really good golf, so I'm excited about that.
Over the course of the trip, I learned that the guys that play out here are really, really good. I knew that going into it, of course, so that's nothing new. But I'm going to have to get better to compete out here. I welcome that challenge and am excited about competing on the Nationwide Tour for the rest of the year.
On a different, more personal level, the whole trip showed me -- and again, this is something that I was already well aware of -- that in golf, in any job and in life, you will go through periods of time where things don't go your way. It's a little frustrating, but it brought to mind a Bible verse from Romans 5 that basically says: in times of trial like this, it will lead to perseverance, build character and ultimately give us hope. Scripture like that is really encouraging in golf and life in general. I had a rough experience but a good one. It didn't make me any money, but it strengthened me as a player and hopefully will have a positive impact on the rest of the year.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE: This was the first time I've played three tournaments in a row. I'd never done that as an amateur or in college, and it will be an adjustment. From playing three in a row, I learned that I'll have to make a better effort to manage my time. The funny thing is, it's not that I'm running out of time but actually have too much time on my hands. I found myself bumming around without too much to do. I've got to put my mind to it and figure out what I want to do in my spare time, whether it's doing something on the side, studying to get certified in something else or possibly studying for another degree. It's an awful feeling to have so many hours where you're not doing anything. If I'm able to put my mind to something during those down periods, it will be a better use my time and will probably help me play better golf. That's one of the many things I learned on my three-week trip to Australia and New Zealand.
SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 2009
Sykora shot rounds of 74-78 and missed the cut in the Michael Hill New Zealand Open. He has gone 0-for-3 in cuts made on this three-week trip to Australia and New Zealand.
A LEAP OF FAITH: It's been a rough time. Golf can be pretty frustrating. My goal is to get back home and get something going in the right direction because I certainly have a lot of time to play well.
As far as things going on away from the course, on Wednesday I got a chance to go bungy jumping. I made it a point not to tell my Mom that I was going because I knew she'd be worried about me, and probably not happy with me. I sent her an e-mail to let her know I'd done it and sure enough, she responded like I thought she would. She's worried enough about me and playing golf down here, she doesn't need to worry about me throwing myself off a platform 440 feet in the air.
It was both awesome and terrifying at the same time. It was incredible. You are in this little building that is suspended on cables. They hook you up with something around your ankles and then a harness around your chest. There's loud music playing and it's a pretty cool environment. You then walk out onto this tiny, tiny platform which is barely big enough to stand on. It's literally big enough for your feet and that's it. From there, you count down and then you jump. The guy is there and holding on to you and then he says "3-2-1 and let's go." I wasn't sure I'd do it.
Ten seconds before I jumped, I still didn't know if I could jump. You get up there and the wind starts blowing and you start feeling a little pressure. I don't know if it's the adrenaline or what but you just go! No one hesitated, everyone jumped. They won't push you on this one, you have to go on your own. The whole thing is scary. Just standing in the building is scary. That was the main reason I wanted to go and do it -- because I knew I was afraid of it and I just didn't want to be afraid of it.
It was scary. Even after I've done it, it's still scary. It would be scary to do it again. It certainly wouldn't get any easier. It was so much fun but it happened so quickly. It seemed like you were done as soon as you started. It's not like going over a hill on a rollercoaster and you get that feeling in your chest as you're flying downhill. It's a lot of fun on the way down but it's over so fast. It's terrifying. After you bounce twice, you pull the foot release and it lets your feet go, leaving you just sitting in the chest harness. The bungy cable has a wire cable attached to it and they just reel you back up slowly. I just sat there and looked at the great scenery and looked at where I'd just been. Pretty cool!
When I got done, I found it was the third-highest bungy jump in the world, so I don't have much to go to beat that. I've never done anything like this in my life. Never been skydiving. The biggest thing I've ever done is jump off a 30-foot bridge into some water. I just wanted to do it because I didn't want to have to say that I was afraid of it.
TIME ON MY HANDS: I guess for the rest of my time here I'm just going to walk around and sightsee and clear my head. There are some great day hikes in the area, so I'll probably try to do one of those. This is such a great area and there's plenty to do. I'm not scheduled to fly back until Monday. I looked into getting back earlier but there weren't a whole lot of options available to get back to the States and I might have trouble changing my domestic flight once I do get there. I'm definitely anxious to get home but changing the flights just didn't work out for me. It's just how it is.
I'll be here for a couple of days but I don't look at it as vacation. It's hard for this to be a vacation for me when I didn't play very well. Everything I've done on this trip, even the fun I've had, is tainted against the background of playing really poorly. It's frustrating and I'm not over it and I'm not going to get over it. I'm going to get home and figure out a way to fix it. I don't consider any of this a vacation. The whole thing has been work. It's business and it's what we do.
When you're not successful, it's really frustrating. It's really hard to deal with, especially being so far away. I've had a good time and done some fun things and enjoyed being with the guys out here but it's still about the golf and when you don't play well you get frustrated. But I trust that God has me out here for a reason and I trust there is a reason for all of this. I'm going to go back and continue to work hard and figure it out. Unfortunately the trip didn't go as planned.
REFLECTING BACK: As for the golf itself, my putting has just been rock bottom. I've played really poorly this whole trip and, if you don't have that to rely on, it gets really difficult to do other things.
I'm learning that the quality of play out here is really high. Not that I can't hang with them, it's just that when you're not playing well everyone passes you by. Having learned that and not having putting to fall back puts on a lot of pressure on your game. It's not that I felt a lot of pressure. I didn't have my putting to help me and then when other things start to get off a bit, it gets tough.
It was a grind out there because I couldn't get anything going my way. I've played golf long enough to know that it doesn't have to be a long-term trend. You can do this for a couple weeks and then have a few great weeks, or vice versa. You can win and then not make cuts. It's very frustrating but it's not hopeless by any means. When the putter gets going bad it gets to be more of a mental thing. When you get a mental block it's hard to overcome that.
I think one of the best things that I can use to overcome it is time. I'm glad I have next week off to clear things out of my mind about not making putts. I was close to doing some good things. I was close yesterday and then it started heading in the wrong direction and you get to a point where you know it's not going to happen for you. I can come up with a list of 100 things that didn't go right on this trip but they'd be nothing but excuses.
In golf, you're never too far from playing good or bad. I'll take that and try to give myself some hope for the coming few weeks. I'll take some days off from the game and probably won't practice 'til I get home. I don't necessarily want to take days off. I just think I need to. When you're out of sync, sometimes a lot of practice can be counterproductive.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2009
FINISHING UP: I practiced Saturday and Sunday for a little bit after missing the cut last week in Christchurch. I worked on my putting, mainly. I'm still trying to get a little more comfortable with it going into this week. I didn't do a whole lot after Friday's bad round, just hung out.
I did go out with my caddie's family for dinner last week. They took me to dinner in Christchurch on Sunday night before I left. They were great people. My caddie had my email address and he sent me a note after I missed the cut and asked about having dinner. I enjoyed hanging out with them. Dinner was good. I really like the family and we've got one other's email addresses now. I'm sure I'll keep in touch with them down the road and let them know how I'm doing out here on Tour.
MOVING ON: We flew over Monday morning on a pretty short flight to Queenstown. It was only 35 to 40 minutes or so but the neat thing was that I finally got a window seat. I'd been stuck in aisle seats on all the other flights. This was probably the best window seat of the whole trip because everyone had talked about what a great view it was coming over here. There is a lot of cool scenery. We came over the mountains, so I spent most of the flight just looking out the window. It was a terrific view with the high peaks and such.
THIS IS SUMMER? Since we got here, though, it's been pretty cold. It's a lot colder here than I expected. I guess they're transitioning into winter. We must be closer to the South Pole than I was thinking. I'm going to have to pile on a lot more clothes before I get out here (to the golf course) tomorrow morning. I guess I didn't do enough research about the weather here. I kept hearing and thinking it was summer, so I went with that. Apparently it's not quite summer anymore (laughing). It's cold! It's every bit of cold here. I heard it's been cold at home but maybe not this cold.
I managed to get in a couple of practice rounds on Monday and Tuesday. At times, I feel pretty good about it. It's the same situation as the other two (tournaments) in that conditions will dictate how hard the course turns out to be. If conditions are good, it won't be hard but if the wind picks up and it stays cold, it might be very hard to play well. Even though I've been struggling as much as I have, I felt pretty good about this week. I'm excited about playing and I think I got a good draw for tee times in that I'm late-early. I'm hoping the further we get into the week, the warmer it will get. I might not get a whole lot of work in today. The weather isn't good. Cold, windy and rain aren't the best conditions to try to get stuff done in. That, and I feel like I already got some good work in earlier this week. I'm hoping to get out and do something fun this afternoon.
EXPLORING THE COURSE: The golf course is good. It's got a couple of funky holes -- not bad ones, just different and you have to know how to play 'em. That's why it was even more important to play two practice rounds. Nos. 5 and 16 come to mind. The course has enough trouble to it and if the wind whips I think the scores will stay pretty neutral. If the wind dies down you can hit it where you want to. I like the golf course a lot and I'll like it even more if I can get a few putts to drop.
PLAYING TOURIST: On Tuesday afternoon I just walked around downtown. You can tell it's a real 'touristy' type of town. It looks like a ski-lodge town. I hear there is some pretty good skiing close to here. They have this place called The Remarkables, which is the place to go. There's a lot to do around town like jet boating, bungy jumping and skydiving. I'm looking forward to doing some of that stuff if I can. Golf is still number one, though. I'm down here to play well and I need to have a good week. I'm definitely putting that number one.
WATCHING THE MARKET: I've been trying to keep my eye on the stock market but it's very tough to do when I'm here. We're way off on times and the market always seems to be closed . I've been doing some e-trading lately. Not a lot. I'm not that smart about it but I'm trying to learn. I'm probably no smarter than the next guy. The market is doing such crazy stuff right now that maybe the best thing I can do is just watch it. You think it's going to hit bottom soon and turn back up, and then, hopefully, you can make some money. I like messing with it and I've done alright so far. I go off on my own hunches but I'm not trading actively these days. Last year, before I made the Nationwide Tour, I was studying to take the CFA exam to become a financial analyst. I've put that on hold now that I've made it this far. I studied for that exam for almost four months and the only reason I didn't take it was because it fell during the finals of (PGA TOUR) Q-school. I knew the test was at the same time but I was never sure I'd make it to finals. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I made it to the final stage. I'm putting the CFA thing on hold for now but it's still something I might want to do down the road.
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FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2009
Laundry troubles: There was a lot of cool stuff that's happened over the past couple of days. One thing that was a welcome sight was the laundry room at the hotel. It was kind of crucial because of last week. At Moonah Links there was a washer/dryer in every room. They were really, really small units. It was combined in one, which I'd never seen before. It was very small and so my roommate, Garrett Osborn, and I each did about four loads apiece. On the very last load, we realized we'd been doing it wrong. The dials were really confusing and it turns out we weren't washing everything, we'd just been drying the clothes! By then, it was too late to do anything.
When we got here I put on a shirt and it smelled absolutely terrible. Obviously, we'd done nothing right about washing the clothes. I guess we'd just put detergent in there and it was spinning around in a drying cycle. The clothes were useless. It was so good to see a laundry room here and we got some of it done. I'll probably be doing some more when I get back tonight. That was pretty convenient not to have to go searching around town for a place to do laundry.
Home cooking: I was assigned another young caddie this week. He is a 14-year-old who is a member here at Clearwater. I called Ragdav on Wednesday night to talk to him and tell him when we were going to tee off and he asked what I was doing that night. He invited me to come over to his house for dinner, which was very nice. He's got a really nice family. His dad is a local heart surgeon. His mom cooked a good dinner. It was really nice to have a home-cooked meal and talk to some nice people. It was great to meet them. They're a very nice family. They're from India and his mom cooked a fairly traditional meal, which I loved. I ate plenty and helped myself to seconds!
Experiencing traditional New Zealand culture: Today was something else. I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Tataurangi. I didn't know this, but he is apparently very well known around here. He's a very good player and one of the better players ever to come out of New Zealand. He's a very big advocate and supporter of the country and always does his best to get the word out about what a great place this is. I guess he took a special interest in me when he found out I was writing about my experiences and he wanted to help out. He certainly did. Today, he set up a traditional Maori challenge where a member of the native people here does a series of really weird and pretty intimidating dances. This guy was very large and painted up and looked pretty mean.
The whole point of it is that this is to present you with a token, which he places at your feet. If you pick it up and accept the token, then you are saying that you are a friend of the people here in New Zealand and you come in peace. If you don't accept it, it means you oppose the Maori tribe and you have come to do battle. War.
Needless to say, I took it! The strange part was that after the ceremony, the warrior and I went in and had lunch. His name is Simon and he works here at the Resort. He's just a normal guy. It's hard to describe all the paint and such that he put on but the pictures will show it pretty good. It was a great experience but became even cooler when the general manager of the club told me how rare it was for such a ceremony to take place. I guess they don't do that for anyone. They do it for dignitaries, generals and other prominent people who come to the area. I was blown away that they would do it for me. That was a cool and humbling experience, even though I didn't understand everything that was going on. The fact that they did that and I had a chance to be a part of it was very cool and something I'll always remember.
The city: Christchurch is a pretty cool town. Lots of places to eat and lots of places to visit. They have a lot of parks and green spaces here. There are great places to hang out and relax and it makes for a very pretty city. It's a nice place to be. I took a couple afternoons and walked around. It was quite enjoyable. That's about it for non-golf stuff.
A couple days of bad golf: As far as golf goes, I'm a little shell-shocked. I really didn't know I was capable of playing like this. I had a pretty humbling week. I just couldn't get anything going my way. Mentally, I was just off. When I got done, a Bible verse came to mind. It essentially says that you just can't accept what is good from God. How can I accept what is good and not what is challenging? Not everything that comes our way is the way we want it. There's only one way to go from there and that's to try to take the positives out of it, even though there are almost none. All I can do is to learn and just thank God for the opportunity to be here and the chance to grow as a result of this. Now what do I do, ya know? I go on and convince myself I am a good player even though I played as bad as I know how to. I just need to forget about it. The good thing about next week is that it has nothing to do with this week. For anyone. For the winner or the person who finishes last. We start all over again from zero.
I had some negative things going on in my game and it led to a lot of negative thinking. If not negative, it was counter-productive. It got off and once it got off, it got out of hand. You get to a point where you know it's not going to happen this week. It's unfortunate, especially when you've come this far. There is just not a whole lot to say about it. It's one of those things where you try not to put more stock in it than it is. It's one week. Even though it's downright embarrassing to play like that, it's really no different than the guy who shot 2-under and missed the cut.
Looking on the bright side: I don't know what I'm going to do now. We might try to go to Queenstown a little early, we'll have to see. Sharon from PGA TOUR Travel has done a really good job of arranging things for us. I think we can go early without too much of a problem. I might leave Sunday and head down there. From what I hear, that's the place to do stuff. I want to do something fun so we'll probably head down. Even if I stay here, I might need to get away from golf. Who knows, maybe I need to practice more than anyone. It might be that I need to get away from it and get fresh. I think this is more of a mental thing that it is physical. It's one of those things where if I can get my mind right, I can see myself having a good week next week. Golf sucks right now.
One of the biggest challenges is doing this after not playing very well. It's downright frustrating. It'd be nice to do this when I'm in better spirits but it's more than just golf down here. There's a lot of other stuff going on; unfortunately golf is the part that matters and it's not going real well. There's a lot of fun things and good things going on and even if I play poorly next week, I think it will get my feet on the ground a little bit. It's a good experience. I think if I had taken this time off I might not have been as ready to play in the United States. Even coming over here and playing poorly might be better than not coming at all.
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TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009
Filling the empty hours: It was disappointing to miss the cut last week at Moonah Links. It makes it even more disappointing when you have to stay and hang around for a couple days and not be able to leave.
It's tough to watch everyone play. Missing the cut is really tough in that regard. There is always plenty of incentive to make the cut, but there's even more when you know you have to stick around for a couple of days and wait for the tournament to finish. You'd prefer to be playing.
I practiced both days on the weekend, mainly my putting because it was so poor last week. I didn't do a whole lot on Saturday. My roommate (Garrett Osborn) and I went down to Sorrento, one of the little towns near the golf course, and hung out a bit. It's a nice place near the water. It was a quaint little town that reminded me of Fairhope (Ala.), a small town adjacent to where I live in Daphne. In addition to walking around, we saw a movie -- The International. It was about some bank that was trying to take over as the main bank of terrorism. Something like that. It was OK I guess. All the films that were showing were American films, stuff I've seen advertised in the U.S. I guess it's kind of lame to see a movie when you're in Australia, but our driver was going to pick us up around 7, and we'd already walked around and seen all that we wanted to see and didn't have a whole lot else to do.
Sunday I went down and hung out by myself. I went to Portsea Point and hiked around for a while. Not far from Sorrento was the point area, where the strait and the bay come together. It was pretty cool. I hiked around there. There was a lighthouse opposite the point on the other side. On the Portsea side were a couple of forts, which were manned, I think, during World War II. Plenty of cliffs near the water, which was pretty cool.
I practiced about three hours a day over the weekend and then went into the towns. Like I said, not a whole lot to do, wish I'd been playing, but I was trying to make the best of it and trying to get better.
On to New Zealand: We had an early morning Monday. The bus was leaving the hotel at 5 a.m., so we couldn't miss that. It was pretty easy. I'd been up before 6 almost every day, so it wasn't a big deal to get up at 4:30 and take a shower. I was pretty much packed Sunday night. It was about an hour and a half drive to the Melbourne airport. Lot of guys on the bus. The line at the airport was a little long, so that took some time to get the bags checked.
We had a good two hours to wait in the airport once we got through security and such. Not a big deal, it's just the same time you burn at every airport waiting. I just hung out and read my book and chatted with the guys. Almost all of us were all on the same flight, so we kind of had the plane to ourselves. I had another aisle seat. I don't know what it is about aisle seats, I guess I must have checked that on my preferences. It's got to be more than a coincidence at this point to get that many aisle seats. The flight was good, just watched another movie. The movies on the international flights are awesome.
When we were on the plane, they made an announcement that a bunch of the clubs were left behind. I guess they aren't used to carrying that many clubs. They had to leave them behind because of weight. Sometimes you just expect that to happen. I don't know when it became standard practice for airlines to leave bags behind. I guess they didn't plan on having that many guys with two bags that weighed that much. My clubs didn't make it. No big deal. I got them later that night; they delivered them to the hotel, which is cool. You just get in this mindset where you almost expect them to get left behind. I guess I've been lucky to get my luggage right away both times, and I need those more than I need my clubs right away. I can wait on the clubs, as long as they get there eventually. It all turned out fine.
We got to the hotel and checked in then to walk around town. We're staying at the Crowne Plaza, pretty nice place downtown. Pretty big hotel. It's the host hotel, but there are a bunch in the area. I'm looking forward to going back and seeing what's going on. I don't know a whole lot about Christchurch. It seems to be a pretty normal town. I think it's about a 25-minute commute to the course every day. The course is in a different area of town. The downtown seems pretty typical -- plenty of places to eat, lots of places to see. I don't think it's as much of an "outdoorsy" type of place as Queenstown is supposed to be next week. I haven't been to either, so I really don't know for sure.
Time to get back to work: I got to play a practice round this morning. The course is just night-and-day different from the one we played last week. Maybe I'll play better! Last week was a week to avoid bunkers. I don't think you had to hit great golf shots last week. I think you just had to avoid where you couldn't hit it. It wasn't a bad course at all; it was just a links-style course. This week is more of a course that will reward good shots and hitting fairways and greens. I think if you do that, you'll play well. The rough is pretty bad this week, and the course isn't too, too long. I don't know what the yardage is, but if you can keep it in the fairway, you'll have a bunch of 7-, 8- and 9-irons into the greens and hopefully make some birdies. I don't hit it real long, so I can't really reach the par 5s, but there is one here I can get to.
The key for me this week will be putting. I've worked on it but still don't feel really confident with it. You get to the point where you have to take what you've got and forget about whether you're confident or not. You just have to go do it. I worked on it Saturday and Sunday for the better part of my practice. I didn't hit many balls. I drill a lot of the time. I know what the problem is. For some reason, my stroke is a little bit off path, and it's gotten so habitual that it's hard to break. It's one of those things that I drill and drill and drill, and then when it's time to go, you just forget about it. You just try to make putts. Unfortunately, that didn't happen last week. You can't keep drilling all the time. You just work with what you have. It wasn't very good last week, but hopefully it will be better this week.
The reality of being away from home: One of the biggest adjustments for me is just getting used to everything. It's compounded a bit by being in a different country where everything is pretty new to me. It's going to be a challenge for me. All of these courses are new for me every week. Some of these guys have been here before, so it isn't as tough for them. It's everything, from finding your hotel, to knowing where the lockerroom is, to knowing where the players eat every day or even where the driving range is. It seems simple, but if you haven't done it before, you feel lost at times. At breakfast this morning, I just followed the guys into the clubhouse. It was a bit of a maze, so I'm sure I would have taken a wrong turn had I been on my own.
It's just something where every Tuesday will be a challenge just to get in, find where to go, where to be, things like that and get settled down. After that, I'm hoping I can just focus on golf stuff. It's been different every week, and it will stay that way for me. I just need to get in and get my bearings. It compounds it when you don't have a car and you have to wait on a shuttle and you're not sure what time it is. It's all normal stuff. It won't be that much different in the States, but I might be more familiar with some of the hotels, and having a car will help a lot.
I haven't had too many chances to chat with my family since I got here. The internet has been spotty at times, and that's a disappointment for me. I don't even know if my phone works here. I've tried to send them text messages, but I'm not sure those are making it home. We changed time zones to get here, and we're even closer to the real time back home. We're almost at the same time now, only a different day. I think we're about five hours different now. I'm really a homebody, and I like keeping up with family and friends and when the contact is limited, it's tough.
They're all such an amazing group. I haven't gotten to talk to them nearly enough. They've been so supportive of me. They've been so encouraging of me and what I'm doing. They mean the world to me. I know they've been reading these and watching scores and doing their best to keep up with what's going on. Hopefully I can give them a little more positive stuff to keep up with this week. They're a very supportive group, and that is such a big help when you're so far away. It's a great feeling to know they're back home cheering for you."
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FRIDAY, FEB. 27, 2009
Finding wonder in the little things: It's been pretty eventful the past couple of days. I was able to get out on Wednesday and see some of the scenery around here. Fortunately, we're only 5 miles from the ocean. I undertook the interesting task of driving over. I was able to borrow a car to get over there. Driving here takes some careful concentration at first but after a while you get the hang of it. Driving on the other side of the road is interesting for sure.
I went down to the ocean and hiked around for 2-3 hours and got some great looks at things down there. It's interesting here because the beach is bordered by high cliffs, and that makes for some dramatic views. It was neat to hike up those and look around. It's always interesting to see God's creation in other parts of the world. It's awesome. I really enjoyed that. I was glad I was able to say I did something while I was here.
A missed cut: Unfortunately, I'll have more time than I wanted to do stuff this weekend. I didn't play too well. That was it as far as seeing stuff. Other than that, I had the challenge of finding a caddie for Thursday. The caddie who was set up for me didn't show up. I was half expecting to have to carry my bag, which is no big deal. I didn't even know if that was allowed. Anyway, the man in charge of caddies was able to find somebody for me, a guy named Adrian who works here at the club in the external operations. He did a good job. Very nice guy. I enjoyed being with him.
This morning (Friday) they found me somebody else for today, a young guy, maybe 14 years old who had never caddied before. He was very nice kid who did a real good job despite the fact that he'd never done it before. That worked out real well despite the problems. I guess that's one of the problems you face when you go away and don't have a regular caddie with you, and you don't know what's going on. I'm looking forward to getting back to the States and having my friend Jason Moore with me full time. It turned out OK this week. I certainly can't blame any of my poor play on that.
I actually hit the ball pretty well, considering the conditions and how windy it is. I was pretty pleased with the way I hit it. I can say I don't think I can putt any worse than that. I just didn't make any putts. I've said it before, it's a process out here. I can't be any madder that I missed the cut, but you try to learn what you can from it and grow from it.
I had a lot of positives for as poorly as I scored. You have to accept the way it went, but you just have to go week in and week out. You take it for what it is and try to improve on things you didn't do well the week before. I'm definitely not discouraged, and I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. I think I can still have some success before we go back to the United States. It will be good to get some practice in and then travel on Monday and start all over again.
Learning some lessons: For about a year now, through college and mini-tours and q-school and now, I've been listening to music while I play golf. I don't see too many others who do it. I enjoy it; it helps me and puts me in a good frame of mind. It's well within the rules. I've drawn some attention, good or bad, for doing it. Not a big deal. I was informed during my round Thursday that I couldn't do it. I assumed it was an Australasian rule or something. After the round, one of the PGA TOUR officials said it was a rule that was going to be changed for 2010. They said that this year they were going to make it a disciplinary action. If you did that, you'd be fined. It was a little surprise when they approached me during the round and told me I couldn't do that. It's not a big deal. Golf's golf. That's just something I enjoy doing. It's an adjustment I'm going to have to make, but it was a bit of a surprise, and I want to get a little more clarification on that. So that was something that was kind of out of the ordinary.
I guess it was a little more of an adjustment for me playing this kind of golf course. I saw a lot of really good players not play well this week. I didn't play very well this week either. You do see a lot of players playing really well. It looks like the lead will be at least 8 under, and that shows that this is a different style of golf course and some people handle it better. It reaffirms the fact that I still have a long way to go. I have a lot of work to do. I have a lot of getting better to do. It's never fun to learn that at the expense of missing a cut. That's the way it is sometimes.
I made the cut in Panama and actually feel like I played better here this week when I missed the cut. That's how it is. Hopefully I can make some putts next week. I feel pretty good about playing.
Today was actually a pretty frustrating day. I had another unfortunate incident on the course. First, our group got put on the clock. The group in front of us was playing pretty slow, and they got put on the clock, and once that happened they just took off. Then we got put on the clock because we were behind them, but we caught up and things were fine after that. That's always unnerving, to be timed, especially on a tough golf course when the wind is blowing, but that was just standard procedure. You'd like to take a little more time once in a while.
Then on the 13th hole, I had to mark my ball off the green because one of the guys in my group needed to come up. When you mark your ball off the green, you're not allowed to clean it. Apparently a form of cleaning it is putting it in your pocket, which is what I did. I wasn't aware of that rule. It's not something you run across much.
So, I put my ball back, made par and when I was walking off the green, the scorer there said 'Excuse me, sir, you need to check the rules on marking your ball off the green. You did it incorrectly by putting the ball in your pocket.' That really, really shook me up. It unnerved me a lot. Here I am assuming I've done something wrong and going to get slapped with a penalty.
At the time, I wasn't playing very well and was near the cut line. I played the remaining five holes with that hanging over my head. I knew I had to get in and sort that out and knew I'd probably be hit with a penalty. We called an official, who said that it was a correct call on the rule, but it didn't necessarily apply this week because the conditions are so dry that there was no way that putting a ball in my pocket would be considered cleaning it. It could be cleaning it if it was really muddy. It was unfortunate. I was thinking that I'd be hit with a penalty, whether you are or not, certainly disrupted my thinking a bit. It certainly wasn't a reason that I missed the cut or didn't play well. That had nothing to do with it. Any added tension is unwelcome. It wasn't ideal, but I learned a lesson. I won't do it again.
I've never been real good with the rules and honestly maybe it's something I need to be more attentive to. It seems like you run across the same rules every day, whether it's a water hazard or a drop from a cart path, you know what to do. It's some of the things that you run across once a year or things you don't think about that you should get a Rules Official over there. I guess one way to learn is to learn by messing up. Fortunately, it didn't cost me any strokes.
On to the next thing: You never want to have free time because you miss a cut, even in a nice place like this where there is plenty to do. I've just never been placed in a situation where you miss the cut, and you had to stick around. Usually at this point I'd be in a car and out of here. One of my buddies has a car, and we're going to go look around a bit the next couple of days.
I'll definitely get some practice in on Saturday and Sunday -- nothing over the top, work on my putting and square some things away. It's one of those things that if I can get some practice in, I can do a lot better next week. It's nothing that beating balls for hours and hours is going to fix. Small adjustments and hope for a better week next week. We leave the hotel here at 5 o'clock Monday morning and head to New Zealand, and I'm looking forward to the trip. Hopefully the results will be better.
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TUESDAY, FEB. 24, 2009
Golf around the globe: I played in Japan before; there's a college tournament that I went to last year, and it was certainly an adjustment, so I thought I knew what to expect coming over here. This is even more of a time change and a lot further to come. The trip over was pretty extreme, but it didn't turn out too bad.
I left the Birmingham (Ala.) airport Friday at 11 in the morning, and I got to Melbourne on 9:30 on Sunday morning. I went through Dallas, Los Angeles and Auckland (New Zealand) to get to Melbourne. I think I was probably in the air for about 21 hours total. You count the layovers and time changes, it all adds up, and you've lost two days. Pretty long trip.
I was glad to see my bags. I checked them in Birmingham and checked them all the way through to Melbourne, and you just never know. I was glad to see them there. I wasn't totally expecting them. Some of the guys' bags didn't make it. Every time you fly, you have to think that your bags might not make the connections.
I was expecting center seats on the planes, and I got aisle seats the whole way, so that was a real bonus for me. That was nice to have those. I got some sleep on the planes, which is tough for me. I wound up taking some nighttime cold medicine, and that helped a lot. I think I slept for about seven hours on the long flight from Los Angeles, and that was big. It made the trip a lot shorter to be able to sleep like that. We had a TV screen with each seat, so I got to watch a bunch of movies, and that helped the time pass by quicker.
Customs was rougher than I thought. They cleaned my golf shoes because they had dirt on them. I guess they don't want you bringing any grasses or foreign soil into the country. They cleaned them up pretty good. I think they do it in New Zealand, too. It was nice to get a free cleaning. I think I'll keep them a little dirty for the trip over so they'll get cleaned up nice!
They checked for food and stuff in all of the bags. They let me keep all my stuff, which was nice. I brought a lot of food over here just in case. I brought a lot of protein bars and such, the stuff that will help get you through a round of golf. I brought enough for three weeks, and that would have been bad if I had to trash all those. I didn't know what they might have in the grocery stores or if they have what I like, so I packed 'em. I was very glad they let me keep 'em. I've never been here, so I didn't have any expectations of whether we'd be able to go anywhere and get around to finding stuff. I figured it was easier to just bring 'em with me.
The upside to the long haul: It's nice to have three events over here. If it were just one, I'm not sure too many guys would come because it's just too far to adjust for one event. This is good that we have a few to play.
Yesterday was just getting used to being here, and today was much better as far as trying to catch up and such. It's not so bad.
The trip was extreme, but it was not quite as bad as I was thinking it was going to be. I almost feel like I'm on a regular schedule again. I'm still waking up a little early and going to sleep a little earlier than normal, but I'm pretty normal right now -- still lacking a little energy, but by the time Thursday gets here, I'll be fine. That's why you get here early, to get adjusted.
Certainly the next few weeks I'll be ready to go. It wasn't so bad.
I'm really glad to be here though. I've been anxious to do this for a while. I've been talking about it with everyone, and now it's finally here. I'm not much for travel usually. I like being around my family and friends, but it's been something I was certainly anxious and nervous about. I'm really excited about the opportunity, not only to be here but to be playing this year on the Nationwide Tour right out of school.
When I thought about Australia before, all I could come up with was 'kangaroo.' Heck, we might have eaten kangaroo for lunch today; I'm not sure what it was. It looked like steak, but who knows.
I don't know what I expected to see, really. I really couldn't relate this to anything I've seen. I've only seen a small portion of what Australia really is. Hopefully, I'll be able to get out a little more and see some of the places around here. I saw the city of Melbourne when we were coming in, but I haven't gotten to see enough yet to make any judgements on that. Hopefully, if I'm fortunate enough to make the cut, I won't have too much time to do that.
When I came here, I knew Melbourne was in the southeast part of Australia, but it wasn't until I looked at a map that I saw where we actually were. I didn't realize until we got here that we were going to be about two hours from Melbourne. I thought we were playing in Melbourne, but that's not so. We're a couple hours away playing on a peninsula (Mornington Peninsula) apparently. I guess we're no more than about five miles from the ocean on one side and about the same distance to the bay. I guess I'm supposed to use kilometers here, but I'm not sure exactly how to convert from miles.
Getting the hang of Down Under: The weather is nice here. Somebody told me the other day that it was supposed to get up to 25 degrees. I'm thinking, '25 is cold!' I don't have a clue about Celsius. I don't know how hot that is.
This is a pretty cool part of the country, and if I can get a half-day or something, I might try to get out and see some of the stuff near here near the water.
When we played in Panama, and everyone was really nice, but not too many people spoke English, and my Spanish is a little spotty. Here, they're speak English and that helps. Being here has been pleasant and nice. The people are so nice, it's just a fantastic place. So far so good in understanding some of the words they use everyday that we don't.
The food has been good -- breakfast has been great. I get pumped every day for breakfast here. Lunch has been good, and today we might have had some of the local cuisine, though I'm not really sure. It was still pretty good, whatever it was.
Being as far away from home as I am and not being able to talk to family and friends as often as I'd like is a challenge for me because I'm pretty used to that. It's definitely a part of who I am. I cling close to my parents and family and friends. I'm rooming with Garrett Osborn down here for the whole three weeks. Before the year started, he was really one of the only people I knew out here. It's been great just trying to get meet and know the players out here. Every day you meet a couple more guys, and that's pretty cool. Garrett's been great, and I've learned a lot from him already. It's nice to have somebody to hang out with and not be 6,000 or 10,000 miles away from home and be by yourself.
They've got some computers here in the player area, so I can keep in touch with e-mails and stuff and hopefully I'll get a chance to talk with my parents later this week.
I played nine holes early this morning around 7:30. I played 15 holes on Monday, and I'll get in another nine on Wednesday and try to get a good feel for the course. After that, I'll just go to the range and work on some of the things that I've been struggling with. I'm not really playing as well as I'd like, but I've also come to the understanding that this is a year-long process, and so I don't expect everything to always be working right. You take what you have and do the best with it for that week. Some weeks it'll be pretty rough, and some weeks it may be good enough to win. I've come to see that this is more than just playing good and bad, it's an opportunity that God has given me. Maybe I'll win, maybe I won't play well, but more importantly, it's an opportunity to play for His glory, enjoy the opportunity and to administer those around and see what happens.
This is such a great opportunity for me, but it really is a year-long thing. If you miss a cut, that's all you see in the world. That's not what you're out here to do, but even the best players out here miss cuts. I don't look at stats much, but even Garrett told me he finished 38th on the money list last year and he missed 10 cuts. That's one of the best players out here, and that's 10 missed cuts. It's not all about playing great every week. It's about being patient and trying to learn from your mistakes and trying to get better every week. It's hard to do and hard to tell yourself to do that.
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