2nd Tournament this weekend.

[mddubya]

Well my 2nd tournament is coming up this Saturday. The weather forecast is great temp wise but we've been having these howling winds all week long. I hope they die down by the weekend. This course is one I've played a couple of times at least, pretty tight fairways with a premium on the short game. Great, I finally start hitting my driver decent and I won't get to use it but a couple of times. Luckily I've been hitting my irons a lot better and have become good friends with the Heavenwood 3h in my bag. Now if only I could get along with my HiBore 3 wood. My putting is the main thing I'm worried about, if I can just hold it down to 2 putting each hole I'll be happy the way it's been going. Anyway, here is the course we'll be playing on this weekend.

Bay Pointe Country Club and Resort

[SiberianDVM]

Good Luck! I'll be playing in one as well this Saturday, assuming they get all the trees off the back nine fairways by then. We had 10 tornadoes come through 4 days ago!!!!

Midland Valley Country Club | Aiken Golf Courses | Augusta Golf Courses

[mddubya]

Hopefully they will have it cleared up by then. Best of luck to you also.

[twelvegage]

best of luck to you Mark!

[mddubya]

Let me begin with, thanks Twelvegage.

Now, unfreeking real, 2 practice days before my tournament and I undoubtedly just had the worst round I've played since I took the game back up. My drives were all either worm burners, or snap hooks, or both!! The only thing I was hitting even half a$$ed decent was my irons, and they were all either a pull or a draw, and I've never hit a draw consistently so I wasn't aiming for it.But at least they were getting up in the air nicely. I played 9 holes, 2 putted everyone except one and I 3 putted it. Add to that my Tin Cup moment when I worm burned my drive across and into the lake, well, I guess they were fish burners, 3 times in a row. So I naturally grab another ball and tee it up again, this one does the same thing, but it's skipping across the water so fast it's at least going to come out on the other side. But wait, it hits a freeking turtle sunbathing on the bank, ricochets straight up into the air and lands in the focking water too.

I have no idea what I shot, I ripped the score card to shreds on the 4th hole.

[DaGris]

got one tomorrow...on friday! no work for me tomorrow! got to be there by 8:30 and our tee time is 9:30.........71 degrees and sunny!

[SiberianDVM]

I was planning on going to the range last evening to practice: rained out.
Did situps, bench presses and swung the heavy clubs instead.

So I'm going to the range tonight and tomorrow night. Tourney is 0930 Saturday with a shotgun start. I hate shotgun starts. I want to start on #1 like you're supposed to, dammit.

[SilverUberXeno]

In all fairness, Tin Cup's shots carried about 240 yards before they hit the water

[mddubya]

Originally Posted by SilverUberXeno

In all fairness, Tin Cup's shots carried about 240 yards before they hit the water

, Good point, I meant the fact that instead of just taking my drop I fed 4 Bridgestone e6's to the lake monster.

[mddubya]

Well, I seriously didn't think it was possible to play worse than I did in the 1st tourny, but I proved myself wrong. I didn't hang around to see all the scores posted but when I left I had the highest one so far. I carded a 115 !!!!! And it would have been worse than that except they have a rule to worst you can take on any given hole is a triple bogey, to speed up play. The 4 some ahead of us was ridiculously slow, the course marshal went to them 3 times that I know of and told them to speed up play but they never did. It took just a little over 6 hours to play the course. I don't think it would have helped my score that much, but I could never get a rhythm going because it was taking so long between shots. Where to begin? I won't go into all the gory details, it hurts to much to even think about it. I hit 5 shots all day that I was proud of, 5 out of 115! What I can't understand is, I went to the driving range before hand to warm up and was hitting the ball good. My driver was almost reaching the 300yd marker with a pretty little draw. But when I got on the course I couldn't find my swing on my woods and almost all of my irons were coming up short of their target. Finally I started going up one club but still would come up short.

I know it was my nerves, but I don't know what to do about it, Christ, I even took one of my wife's Valiums beforehand and still felt like throwing up all day long I was so nervous. At this point I seriously doubt I'll be entering any more tournaments. I can get that embarrassed here at my home course for a whole lot cheaper.

[extremeVFT03]

maybe you are thinking to much and adding even more pressure to yourself. just go out and relax you can only get better i wish i could have got out this weekend but with all the family stuff going on for easter i had no time oh well theres always next weekend

[SiberianDVM]

mdw, all I can say is that eveybody plays like that in the beginning. Well, maybe not Tiger. Or any other pro. Or maybe not the really good amateurs.

I played like shit, too. The 3 guys I was with were fecking turtles. I kept telling them that we needed to speed up and sure enough we were the last group to finish. I told the tour director about it later and that I would not like to be paired with any of these guys again.

Plus, the other guy in my cart was smoking cigars all day. And he was an *******.

I was striping everything on the practice tee. Hit my driver well all day, but could not hit a decent fairway shot. Putted OK. I shot a 104 which is pretty bad. My friend Morgan shot a 90, which is pretty bad for him.

Yesterday we played a harder track and shot a 87 (me) and 84 (him) playing tourney rules. So it has to be tournament nerves. I wish I could give you siome advice on how to get rid of them, but I just don't know.

[mddubya]

I hear you Siberian, I know exactly what my problem is but I'm at a loss as to what to do about my nerves also. I've calmed down enough now that I will most likely play in the next tournament in 2 weeks. I contacted the Tour Director and complained about the 4 some ahead of us. He replied that I wasn't the 1st complaint he had received about them and assured me they would be given the last tee time of the day at the next tournament.

But I am considering hoing a FT-i driver, hey, when all else fails, buy more clubs, right?

[Eracer]

Originally Posted by mddubya

I hear you Siberian, I know exactly what my problem is but I'm at a loss as to what to do about my nerves also. I've calmed down enough now that I will most likely play in the next tournament in 2 weeks. I contacted the Tour Director and complained about the 4 some ahead of us. He replied that I wasn't the 1st complaint he had received about them and assured me they would be given the last tee time of the day at the next tournament.

But I am considering hoing a FT-i driver, hey, when all else fails, buy more clubs, right?

Tell your doctor that you have "situational hypertension". The only time your BP goes up to dangerous levels is when you're playing golf (trust me - he'll understand...)

Ask him for a scrip for generic Propanolol. It's a blood pressure medicine (beta-blocker) that has the added side benefit of reducing or elimination performance anxiety. Med school students eat the stuff like candy before oral exams. Calms them down. Golfers have used this stuff in the past. It's not currently prescribed much, since there a lot of better anti-hypertensives on the market, so you can get it cheap.

Note: I am not a doctor, and under no circumstances should any advice I give that sounds even vaguely diagnostic or clinical in nature be construed as such. I am reporting anecdotal evidence only!