I am writing this entry from my hotel room in San Luis Potosi Mexico, where we are playing our next event, and I must say that I am glad to be out of Cancun!  It was over 90 degrees out with 100% humidity every day.  I have never played in such tiring conditions.  I had to abbreviate my warm up routines because after about 5 minutes of hitting balls, I was completely drenched, tired, and overheated!  I am excited that this week the weather will be much cooler.  The course sits at just over 6000 ft which is the main reason for cooler weather, and the ball flies a mile!!! Anyways, about last week…  I opened the event well with a 69 and was tied for 9th place.  I hit lots of great shots but also hit several wayward shots that found some trouble.  However, although I made some mistakes from tee to green, my putter was on fire which was the main reason for my score of 3 under par.  Round two I played fairly solid most of the day but bogeyed two of my last 3 holes to shoot 73.  My putting was exceptional again!  My ball striking worsened as the day went on and crept into my third round.  This is the part of my mental game that I am working on improving at the moment.  That is to not let a poor shot be the reason to hit a second poor shot, then a third, etc.  This is exactly what happened to me in Cancun.  I gave too much attention to my bad shots throughout my round, and this led to more bad shots as my second round progressed.  Unfortunately I didn’t realize this until after my third round of 78 when I had a phone conversation with my Performance Coach Trevor Smith.  We have had similar conversations in the past about the same topic but I obviously have to work harder to implement it.  Anything that you give attention to, gives it life!  Just as you give attention to a plant, i.e.. water and light, you give it life.  Sorry about the cheesy analogy.  But the same thing happens when you give attention to bad shots, or bad results.  You give it life and it grows into more poor results.  So my goal is to give attention to all my great shots and great results which will in turn will produce more good results.  This is how I played most of my final round.  I bogeyed my first hole of the day, but gave it no attention whatsoever.  I then hit my next 14 greens in a row and made 5 birdies to get to 4 under par.  But on the 15th hole, my mind slipped.  I turned my focus to all the trouble that surrounded the hole, how I played in poorly the day before, how tough the tee shot was.  This focus created doubt that showed up in my swing. I tentatively flipped at the ball and pulled it left out of bounds.  One slip.  Double bogey!  I then played my remaining 3 holes even par to shoot 70 and tie for 38th for the event.  Definitely not the end result that I was hoping for, but I learned a few valuable lessons in the process!  I am more ready now than last week to play some great golf! Check out www.cantour.com for results.  Last week there was live scoring every 3 holes.  Not sure if this week will be the same but score are definitely posted each night. M

Well it was a very entertaining day on the links!  Not sure how else to describe my round.  I had a lot of fun playing today and I am pretty sure it would have been interesting to spectate as well. There was no rain today but the wind was blowing over 40 Km/H which made Pinnacle Golf Club extremely challenging.  It’s hard enough with perfect conditions.  I rattled the flag stick on the first hole and tapped it in for birdie to start my day.  Not sure how it didn’t go in.    Then I ripped a 3 iron dead into the wind on the 550 yard par 5 2nd to about 6 feet to a tucked pin!  Things are looking good!  I missed the putt but proceeded to make three 10 ft par putts on 3,4, and 5 after missing each of the greens.  Putter is on fire!  Hole 7 is a par 3 with  a very questionable hole location, tucked back right over a hazard on a serious slope from left to right.  I heard that more than 30% of the field putted the ball right off the green from pin high.  I left myself about 18 for birdie and hit an awesome putt that tracked online the whole way then cruised over the front lip and continued to roll out 15 ft down the hill.  No worries though, I was putting great and had 15 ft straight up the hill for par.  i couldn’t have an easier putt.  I read it straight and hit it right on my line. It was dead center with 6 inches left, then broke slightly left at the hole, it fell 3/4 of the way down then slingshotted out the front lip right back in my face. I dropped my putter in disbelief but had to pick it up quickly because my ball was rolling back to my feet.  I now had 14 ft left for bogey. WOW!  But this time I knew the read was right center and  knocked it to the bottom of the cup.  I then bogeyed 8, and rallied by making a 15 footer for bird on 9.  I opened my back side with a missed up and down bogey on 10 then hit it in the water on the par three 11th hole to make double.  Even par to 3 over just like that.  I attacked the back pin location on 12 but went long over the green.  Hit a great chip from the short side of the green that hit the hole once again but didn’t fall.  Grinded out a par on 13 then made a 10 footer for bird on 14 to get back to 2 over.  I missed the green again on 15, long left in the back end of a bunker on a steep downslope.  I was short sided again with the pin tucked next to the water.  I considered chipping out sideways because if I didn’t hit my shot PERFECTLY, my ball would no doubt run out into the water.  Decided to go for perfection and nearly knocked the shot in the cup.  Tap in par.  I missed the green on 16 as well and ran my chip right over the cup again.  Tap in par.  Then I hit the hole from 110 yards on 17 without it falling in.  I hit a good putt from 4 feet but lipped out!  OUch.  Had a look on 18 from about 10 feet but failed to convert.  I shot 74 and tied for 5th which got me into a playoff with 4 players for the final 3 spots to go to the US OPEN Sectional Qualifying.  We started on 10 and I was the only player to hit the green. One player made triple bogey and another made bogey.  My two putt par was more than good enough to advance me to Sectionals which will take place on June 2nd in Columbus, Ohio.  There I will play 36 holes against 144 players where the top 24 or so will play in the US OPEN at Torrey Pines. Now I am off to Cancun at 6:30 tomorrow morning for the next Canadian Tour event which begins on Thursday. M

I arrived in Ohio on Friday to prepare for the US OPEN Local Qualifying at Pinnacle Golf Club in Grove City.  I played my practice round on Saturday and the course is AWESOME!  I was planning on playing a second practice round today but thunder storms and tornado warnings made me reconsider.  I did get to practice a bit in between storm surges and feel very ready for the qualifier tomorrow!  The weather isn’t supposed to be very nice again tomorrow which is fine with me as I am comfortable playing in less than optimal conditions.  Playing 5 years in Oregon taught me practically everything there is to know about playing in the rain!  I hired the assistant pro to caddy for me which should help me with any local tricks to the course that I missed during my practice round.  There are 114 players competing for 8 spots.  I will post my results tomorrow… It’s been a while since I sent out an update about my progress so I will try to sum up my past few months here… March was an excellent month for me!  I put together my best series of events to date by placing in the top 10 in each of the 5 events I competed.  My highlight of the month has to be my 2nd place finish at the Hillcrest GC Gateway Tour Event.  I fired rounds of 67, 67, 65 to shoot 17 under par and tie for 2nd place.  I gave myself several opportunities in the final round to take a run at the lead but failed to execute.  I know I will have more opportunities to win golf tournaments in the future and would like to start by putting myself in that position tomorrow. The Canadian Tour season began in April with two events in Northern California.  Both events didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  I missed both cuts.  The Tour’s third stop was in Mazatlan Mexico.  I was feeling pretty good about my game going into the event but struggled to score for the third week in a row.  I missed the cut.  I had last week off so I decided to spend it in Corvallis, Oregon to practice and prepare for this week.  It was a very productive week and I was able to catch up with and practice with all my old teammates from OSU. More to come later… M