Advanced through Stage 1 of 2011 PGA Qualifying
I ADVANCED through stage 1 of PGA Tour Qualifying and will be playing in Stage 2 in Plantation Florida November 16-19.
Here is how stage 1 went:
I shifted a good portion of my fall schedule to direct my focus on making it though Q-school this year. I took some time at home (Arizona) to solidify a few fundamentals in my swing and switched to a belly putter to get some more consistency in my putting. Yes I jumped the bandwagon and I am totally OK with that, it has been working awesome! I saw an immediate improvement in my short range putts but its taking a bit more time to get my longer range putts rolling the way I want although it has been getting better day by day. I arrived at my stage 1 site a week early to prepare and played a 2-day Golden State Tour event onsite. I shot a pair of 74s and finished just outside of the money.
The first round of q-school played easy with no wind. That is something I have never seen at Oak Valley over the 12-14 rounds I have played there. It is always windy sitting amongst the wind turbines just west of Palm Springs. I didn’t handle the easy conditions very well to say the least. I struck the ball mediocre and didn’t make any putts. I shot 73 and found myself all the way back in 59th place. The top 23 players and ties advance to 2nd stage.
The great thing was that I was not fazed or let down by my opening round. I had confidence that I was playing solid and would make the climb back up inside the number. It was nice having 3 prior years experience at q-school so I know its a marathon rather than a sprint.
Sure enough, the high winds came up starting the 2nd round. And I struck the ball awesome! I hit 16 greens and shot 2 under par. I think that round pulled me from 59th to 19th. You can make up a lot of ground in a hurry by playing well in bad weather. I played a solid front 9 on my 3rd round as well shooting 1 under par in higher winds than round 2. I caught a cart path just left of the green on the par 3 11th hole and bounded into some bushes leading to a double bogey. I went on to three-putt the 12 hole and finished the round 2 over par. Not really how I wanted to finish my round but it actually moved me up a few spots to 15th place going into the final round.
The winds disappeared for the first 9 holes of the final round but I opened with two birdies on my first 4 holes. I gave one back with a bogey on the 9th and fired straight back with a birdie on 10 as the winds started to rip again. Then in the middle of my back 9 I made two back to back bogies without hitting a bad shot. On the par 5 13th hole, the pin was tucked down in a low bowl area, I flagged a wedge directly at the pin but instead of landing in the bottom on the flat and sticking next to the cup, I caught the last foot of the down slope and it kicked my ball over the back of the green leaving me a brutal chip.
I hit a good chip and a good putt but it broke over the lower side of the lip without dropping. The next hole was long par 3, I left myself with a putt I had in one of the practice rounds. This putt ran much faster than it looked so I tried to take off some speed. I hit my putt just the way I wanted but it still ran out 5 feet past the hole and I missed the comebacker. I knew at this point I was probably on the outside looking in and needed to make something happen. I attacked a tucked flag on the 14th that I normally would have strayed away from in most situations and I stuck it to 3 feet and rolled it in for birdie. I hit the last 3 greens in regulation and narrowly missed each of my 20 foot attempts. After my score posted, things didn’t look good. Fortunately, I got plenty of help from guys a head of me shooting high scores on the final 9 and I held on to 21st position. Good enough to get me to 2nd Stage.
After stage 1, I only had 1 day to get down to Tucson, Arizona for the National Pro Tour Championship. Fortunately for me, the winds were howling there as well. I played 4 pretty solid rounds shooting 1 over par for the week and finished in 14th place.
I took a couple of days to rest after Tucson and am now back at work getting ready for the trip to Florida. I leave Phoenix on Saturday the 12th which will give me 3 full days practice onsite before the event begins.
I will keep you posted as next week goes on.
Mitch
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One Response
Awesome job Mitch, Scott just informed me that you made it through the second stage, keep up the great work