Sleeping close to a lead

Sean had a great start today in an AJGA tournament. He carded a 3-under par 69 to finish tied for 2nd place, only one stroke back.

Two more rounds and a lot of golf remain to be played.

And lessons to be learned.

I think tonight's lesson will be on how to so close to the lead in an event. He's been there once before in a smaller tournament, and it didn't go so well.

One thing that is different this time is that Sean isn't denying he is nervous. He now understands he will be playing nervous tomorrow. So the question is, how do you play nervous? How do you deal with it.

He made three calls as soon as he got into the car. One was to Bobby, with whom he had a lesson just before heading out of town. He wanted Bobby to know that things are working well. Indeed. I think Bobby just gave him a congrats.

The 2nd call was to his mom. Who no doubt is very excited and happy for him.

The third call was to his mentor at the club, Michael. After Sean told him where he was and what he had accomplished, Michael knew exactly what to say. He told Sean to accept the fact that he'll be nervous, and to focus on his targets and on his tempo.

I guess the idea is that if you need to focus on something other than your nerves, you might as well focus on something important and useful! Duh.

Today's round included a couple of milestones. Sean's first tournament round under par, and his first tournament round in the 60's.

We've seen this day coming for a while and so it really doesn't come as much of a surprise. He's been scoring really well leading up to today's round, even when not really playing well.

And after arriving at the course, he found he really liked it. The course sets up to his eye, and he recognized that some good scoring could be had if he just kept the ball in front of him.

Taken together, he's playing with a lot of confidence. He expects to get his pars and to score some birdies. Today, it was three birdies and an eagle.

When you are playing like that, things can be very, very easy.

We're happy for him because he has worked so hard to get to this point and has dealt with his share of disappointments and setbacks.

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.

The big picture and the long view

I've been remiss. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since my last post. Sean's US Jr Am qualifying experience turned out to be the start of a rough patch of water, and I guess it took a bit of wind out of my sails.

Going through it, there didn't seem much to celebrate just as there didn't seem much to grow despondent about.

In fact, seven tournaments worth of water has passed with seven rounds 80 and above, seven rounds in the seventies, but no round better than a 76. You could say that Sean's game hit a plateau while I pretty much just got into the grind of getting him to all of his events.

But I'm back after taking some time to graph things out to get some perspective.
The big picture is that after 13 tournaments this season, Sean's scoring and his game has improved measurably. His tournament scoring average this season is 7.4 strokes improved over last season, and is now pretty much going to stay in the 70's, a Mendoza line of sorts.

There are all sorts of other measures of success. He finished higher in his fields this season compared to the year before. Where last year he was pretty much bringing up the rear, this year he is somewhere in the top third to top half of players in his age group. He has 8 top 10 finishes on the season. Last year he had one score in the 70's, this season scored below 80 in 13 rounds! Last year, a 157 for two rounds was his best effort and had only one other tournament below 170. This year he had 8 tournaments in the 150's, with a 150 marking his best effort. He had a propensity all season to shoot a better 2nd round than his first round, by a margin of 3 strokes on average. His ranking in the Junior Golf Scoreboard has improved from somewhere in the 5000's to somewhere around 2800.

Overall, there is no question that Sean is on the right trajectory.

But to be honest, things fell short of our expectations...of my hopes for him and his plans for himself. We talked about it over last winter and set a goal of a scoring average of 75 and maybe taking home some bling.

But was this even a reasonable expectation? How do you know what is reasonable? I guess we came up with that 75 on the basis of how well he was hitting the ball, how much he was taking to his coaches instruction, and how committed he seemed to improve this year. He just looked like a really solid golfer.

The data indicate that 75 was a stretch, scoring that well in tournaments over a whole season involves being more than a great ball-striker. It looks as if Sean will have to continue to struggle to join the best golfers among his peers. But he is getting closer to them then they are pulling away from him.

As much as I want him to win and be a top golfer as a 13, 14 and 15 year old, I'm convinced Sean wants it a lot more. What most impresses me about Sean is how he bounced back time after time from a disappointing round or tournament, to get out there and do it again. There is absolutely no quit in the kid. And he has incredible focus. I don't mind all the travel and expense for one reason only: I am absolutely convinced that Sean is giving it all his very best effort, an effort that more than earns the privilege of playing the junior tours.

And over this season I've come to accept the long view that this struggle to improve is a very good thing. To get that scoring average down among the best won't come easy to him. He has all the athletic ability in the world. Although I have my pet theories, it is not at all clear to me what more he needs to do, other than knowing that HE needs to figure it out for himself.

As a parent, I can only be grateful for a son possessing the ambition to become an outstanding golfer. More than anything, what the season has taught me is patience, that he will have to learn how to do this on his own. I can hope he gets his game there sooner rather than later, but it will come when it comes, almost as if there is nothing that can be forced.

My role is not to demand better performance on some time table that I impose upon him, but to give him opportunities--from finding his swing coach to signing him up for tournaments to keeping my golf club membership so he has a place to play.

More than anything, I have to be sure not to not act like a moron and steal the fun away from it all.

Disappointment at a US Jr Amateur Qualifier

Not so good, but hopefully a great learning experience. Sean shot an 85...I think he was 10 or 11 over on his 1st nine holes. Most of the damage came as a reverberation from one swing on his 3rd hole of the day, a difficult par 3 where he carded an 8 before the smoke had cleared.

Presumably still reeling from the disappointment, he had double bogies on his next two holes. Nine over par in just 3 holes!!! Ouch.

I suppose there is something to learn from playing well, but I think this one gave Sean an almost invaluable lesson.

You see, he and I had gone up to the course several weeks ago to get in a practice round, but were thunderstormed off the course after the front nine. After returning home, I gave Sean the chance a couple of times to return to the course to finish the back nine practice round, but he insisted he was ready and didn't need it.

On the qualifier day, he started on the back nine and apparently things went pretty well until his third hole, which is a long (~200 yd) par three nestled onto a hill slope that falls from left to right into a lake. Sean said his playing partner had honors and had his tee shot, well struck with a hybrid, come up short into the bank just above the water.

Simply put, Sean was uncertain what to hit. After seeing his partner with that shot and having never played the hole before, he chose his hybrid worried that a 3 iron wouldn't be enough. But thinking it was too much club, he said he probably decelerated his swing and pulled it badly left, into the water. From there, according to his buddy who served as his caddy, things sort of spiraled out of control. Something about making a poor choice on his drop option, and a mistake that followed that.

Remarkably, that 8 was his first hole he scored worse than double bogey all summer long. In contrast, last summer he was averaging two holes worse than double bogey each round. Although, not surprisingly, the next two holes didn't fare well, he then pulled himself together and finished out the rest of the tournament holes at only 4 over par. I believe something right at par qualified for the event, and only a handful of kids made it.

The good to take away from something like this is to recognize that he is almost to that point where all that separates him from really, really solid scores is a swing or two, here and there. You can see his game tighten up almost on a weekly basis.

Besides, it is hard to see the downside of trying to qualify for a USGA event. My guess is that Sean will be eager to have another go at it next year, and probably will be focused to extract his measure of revenge from the event at that time.

It is all good at this stage. As long as he is playing a lot of golf at home and seeing some good competition in his events, it is all good.

A solid tournament and AJGA Status!!!

Sean played well in a tournament far from home a few weeks ago, the Pepsi Little Peoples in Quincy Illinois. He shot a 78-73 (par 71) to finish in 8th place, competing against ~30 players in the event.

The tournament result has much greater significance than playing another event with two solid rounds in the 70's, which is our main goal for his summer.

His top 10 finish in the 14-15 age group, in fact, gave him "Junior All Star" exempt status for the remainder of this year and for next year in the Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy Junior All Star Series of the American Junior Golf Association. JAS exempt status is just a notch below fully exempt status but, because so few kids seem to have fully exempt status, for all practical purposes JAS exempt makes him fully exempt, and will allow us to create a set schedule for next season centered around a handful of AJGA events. We won't need to worry about whether he will be accepted into the fields for these events, which is a really big deal, and can plan accordingly.

We are getting a running lesson through all of this on how competitive junior golf is structured.
To play AJGA events seems not only fairly important, but essential for someone with his aspirations. As a 14 year old, the most important reason to play AJGA is simply because their events have deeper fields. Competing in stronger fields will give him a better sense about how much he'll need to improve to continue on the path of playing golf at the collegiate level. Because he will only be 15 years old next summer and just finishing his freshman year of high school, I'm far more concerned that Sean uses these AJGA events for younger kids to learn how improve than as a way to impress college coaches.

We entered Sean in the Little Peoples tournament mostly because of the way they dangled generous AJGA exempt status for the top finishers. We looked at their tournament records from past years and felt that Sean would need to play solid, but that shooting a 150 was well within reason, that something around 150 had a good chance of earning him a top 10 finish. Playing in that tournament seemed like a much quicker route towards earning better AJGA status than grinding away in his regional tour events for 'performance stars.' We weren't sure how many regional events he would be able to enter for the rest of the summer, and even though very competitive, these events don't earn players too much in the way of AJGA status.

Sean started the Little Peoples tournament with the mindset of finishing in the top 10 as his primary goal. We thought the Westview Golf Course, a small town muni track, would be a fairly straightforward course. A practice round dissuaded us of that notion fairly quickly. It was a remarkably challenging test of golf, with thick rough, dog-legs, blind tee shots, well placed hazards and out of bounds, and very challenging greens, many with very significant back to front sloping. Add to this the fact that the course, already long playing at over 6800 yards, was pretty wet from record rains.

Sean's first round 78 was worse than he had expected of himself, but left him in 12th place and within touch of the leaders. His second round 73 was remarkable for a few reasons. He asked both myself and his mom to walk along with him to watch him play, which seemed to telegraph that he was growing in confidence. Second, it was just a fantastic round to watch. He really ground it out, sinking several good putts to save par on greens that played much faster the 2nd day. His game management was superb. He just played real steady all day, and only made what you might consider two mistakes. In the end, he was one of only 3 or 4 players among the top half of the field to improve his score on the 2nd day.

Something important was on the line, and he rose to the task. We were very proud of the way he played and stepped up to the challenge. And his reward: we signed him up for the AJGA so he should get one of those big red AJGA bag tags in the mail any day. These things seem to be the ultimate junior golf status symbol, and veritably shout out that a playa has just arrived onto the tee box!

Good stuff.

He is definitely better this year

Over the weekend I had a chance to find a bunch of Sean's numbers from last year and compare them to this year's performance.

Last year, as a 13 year old, his stroke average was 86.3, playing 24 rounds in 15 tournaments. He shot only one round below 80, and five rounds 90 and above.

This year, as a 14 year old, his stroke average is 75.2 over 4 rounds in two tournaments. He even managed to stay under 80 for his worse two rounds so far (79 and 77).

On a per round basis, Sean has reduced his bogeys and increased his pars. Compared to last year, he has cut his double bogeys in half, and (knock on wood) hasn't had a worse than double, yet. He has also more than doubled his birdies per round. Despite the latter, the big improvement in scoring is coming from eliminating all those mistakes that caused the bogeys, the doubles and worse.

When he gets to the point where the mistakes are even more rare, and while continuing to get a few birdies per round, he is going to become a heck of a golfer.

I don't think this improvement, though based on a limited number of rounds is an aberration. No doubt, tournament rounds in the 80's are an inevitable part of his future. But my suspicion is that those rounds, for him, will be like one of those days in baseball where he failed to get a hit over 3 or 4 at bats, or made some bone-headed plays in the field. Pretty rare.

I also think this year on year improvement is real because at home he is shooting under 80 for almost all of his practice rounds, which is evidence that his skills are improving at an accelerated pace. In fact, I can't remember when was the last time he told me he shot over 80 at home, but it has been several weeks now. He's just doing what we figured was going to eventually happen, and that is learning how to golf the ball.

Why is he so much better this year? The simple answer is because he has been working hard to get better. The motivation to improve comes from entirely within himself, and he really puts in the effort. His self-image is not just wrapped up, but completely cloaked, into becoming one of the better golfers out there. He wants to be at the club all day every day, where he practices and plays rounds from morning to evening.

I also really like how he puts more time into playing rounds than into banging balls on the range. I also like how he is putting more effort--though I think he can do a lot more-- into practicing his short game, when he practices.

And of course, he has a truly great swing coach in Bobby, who turns out to be more than just a swing guru, but offers Sean the whole package, particularly his encouragement and thoughts on how to play competitively. I will never understate the importance, for a junior, in getting not just any swing coach, but the right one.