What a difference a day or two makes. v2.0

Good grief! Just when you think it is time to pull up the tent stakes....

Sean competed in the USGA Jr Am qualifier yesterday. He shot a 75 in the first round, earning a shot at competing in the full 36 hole qualifier. Which was something of a major goal in and of itself. Baby steps.

He then ended the day with a tidy 72.

His 147 total was unfortunately 6 strokes back of the playoff for the 5 qualifying spots.

But it was still a solid performance. He finished T17 in a 83 player field. Many of the competitors in this qualifier were the same boys who played in the state junior amateur, where he did not play so well.

This result is an affirmation that he can play with these kids, providing a good boost to his confidence. It helps prove to his mom and I that he belongs out here. I guess this puts us on top of the roller coaster again.

On a side note, I can't help but remark on how grueling a test these USGA events are. Sean was out of bed at 5:15 am, and at the course by 6:45 for a 7:30 tee time. The day was hot and humid and long, with two loops carrying a heavy load. He didn't complete his 2nd round until nearly 8 pm.

His first words when he got in the car were, "I can't believe how tired my brain is."

I came away completely impressed by the mental and physical challenge of a USGA event. High school golfers like Sean can take a lot of grief from their classmates about how golf is not a real sport. I invite them all to come out and grind out their best effort over a 12 to 13 hr middle of the summer day.

A come to Jesus moment

The state junior amateur tournament did NOT go well.

Sean began the event with a one-over par front side. Then proceeded to throw up on the backside with a 9 over par. Finishing the first round with a 10-over 80.

In retrospect, it was telling that he played poorly on the backside during his practice round on the course the week before, joined by three of his buddies from the club also competing in the event.

He dismissed the poor practice round as no big deal, "We just started to goof around and try a bunch of shots."

In hindsight, that was poor preparation. And lesson learned for me. In the future, if we are going through the trouble of taking days off to get him a practice round, he darn well is going to take that seriously.

His second round was only marginally better, he shot a 76, missing the 36 hole cut by a stroke.

His mom and I finally told him that playing like that was not acceptable. No histrionics. No yelling. No beating him down. Just a matter of fact, "If you want the privilege of running around to play in these things, you need to post the sort of scores that prove you belong out there."

I just feel like we tread this fine line. We don't want to steal the fun away or pop holes in his confidence.

On the other hand, we now find it necessary to impose expectations, to make it clear to him this is not a free lunch. If he rises to our challenge, he earns his privilege.

The fact is he is good enough to be out there playing with the best juniors in the state. We've simply insisted that it is now time to prove it.

Milestone: Making the high school golf team

A bit over a year has passed since I began writing this blog, and with it another milestone. In March last year, at 14 Sean was playing what we suspected would be his last season of baseball.

In February this year, at 15, instead of daily treks to the batting cages to work on his hitting and catching to get ready for baseball tryouts, Sean stole hours after school and spent his weekends on the golf course, honing his game.

We had good, unseasonably warm weather for the better part of February and he was playing great, putting up a lot of mid-70's scores.

Still, he was extremely nervous about trying out for the golf team. And it showed.

Tryouts involved playing 3 nine hole rounds after school. His first round didn't go well at all, and he carded a shocking 50, including a score of 10 on one of the par 4's! He just wasn't comfortable with the process. But he shook it off and came in with rounds of 37 and 41 on his next two tryout days.

Recoveries that were good enough to secure that all important spot on the high school golf team.

This past weekend his school sent varsity and JV squads to Jekyll Island to play their first tournament of the season in the Johnny Paulk Invitational. Presumably on the basis of his Jekyll&Hyde tryouts, Sean was seated on his JV team for the event.

His attitude going in was very upbeat. He was mostly (99%) happy to be playing for his school and being with his teammates for a week, but also a tad bit miffed (1%) at not being placed on the varsity squad for the tournament. He took it in stride, which was very good.

But he understood he could have earned a spot with a better performance in his tryouts. We talked about how there is some long-term good that can come from having to shoot his way onto the varsity squad for events for the remainder of the high school season. It will provide several opportunities to work on his mental toughness, to hone his competitive mindset.

In the tournament, the best score posted on the team was a 71, by another freshman. Sean turned in a 77, which was the 2nd best score posted by anyone from his team in the event and good for a T10 in the 150 player field.

The next day, the team played an intrasquad event at the Seaside course on Sea Island, where Sean again posted the 2nd lowest score of the day, a 76, in very windy conditions.

So he is making statements, but with his scores. As long as he (and I) bears in mind that he will earn the spot in events that he deserves with his golf scores, nothing but good can come from the experience.

That's as solid a start to the high school golf career of a budding young golf star as you could hope to ask for!

Every stroke matters

On his 17th hole yesterday, Sean hit what he characterized as one of his best drives of the day. I had arrived at the course to pick him up just in time to see it, from a distance, and he was well up the middle of the fairway. I also saw his approach shot into the green, and could only tell from his pose that he had nailed it because on good shots, Sean invariably holds his pose until the ball stops. He later told me it left him a ~15 ft putt for birdie.

Then, it seems, the wheels sort of fell off and he made a bad decision. On the drive home he said that he felt like he needed to get something going, even though it was almost the last hole, so he hit a very aggressive putt that went well past the hole. He missed his comeback putt for par, saying he just wasn't committed to the putt. The result was a bogey, on the back of two mental errors and a failure to take advantage of two solid shots that put him on the green in good shape.

From a distance, I could tell he three-putted and from seemingly good position, wasting a good drive and approach. But I didn't know the details. From what he said, it appears he decided to press the pedal to the floor in a vain and pointless attempt to salvage what he felt was a poor round.

It turns out, that final bogey left him one shot out of 10th place, and so he failed to earn any points out of all his solid effort in the event. Had this been a qualifier event where finishing in the top 10 would have given him some extra status on this tour, or one of the higher tiered tours, the mistake would have been even more costly.

I bit my tongue and didn't start a lecture, only saying quickly that in these tournaments, "Every stroke matters."

I bet he could knock off a few strokes from his scoring average if he could find a way to take that as his motto in a positive way, and keep it in the forefront of his mind during these events. But it is also a fine line, because I wouldn't want to see him develop into a super-cautious golfer. Golf offers elements of risk and reward, and often times taking some calculated risk from time to time can yield tremendous dividend.

I suppose at this stage, him being only 14, that all you can ask is that he learns from something like this. In fact, as a father, the incident reminds me that learning is the ONLY thing that really matters at this stage of his golf development. I could tell him until I'm blue in the face that he needs to make sure he pars out from that sort of situation. But he'll have to learn it on his own, one lost stroke at a time.