This week I traveled 3 hours south for a week of tournaments run every year. I couldn’t play the first two events but then:
I took out the scratch two-man Ambrose/Scramble event with a 17 marker. Top pair of Footjoys thank you very much sponsor Coca Cola.
Next day came runner up in a 4-man progressive best-ball event. More goodies!
Then came the big one–the weekend 36 hole 4-man Scramble that I wasn’t planning in playing in but was asked to join in with two 26 markers and a 23. We thought we had no chance, nearly 250 in the field, contrived teams and traveling bandits. We shot 8 under off the stick, 18 under nett and took the lead into the second round!
The second round was a lot tougher for the afternoon session, the wind was everywhere and we feared what the morning groups could have shot. I completely lost my driving so we had long approaches in swirling wind. Yet we somehow to continue the bogey-free streak for the full 36 holes and card 6 birdies to win the event by a shot! Major $400 prizes for each of us!
Wohooo!
I really want to share this with everyone here at ABS because it’s the environment here and the sort of people it attracts that has finally kept me away from tinkering–just keeping it simple. It’s just pure golf here and that extends to more than just our desire to keep away from anything that buys us ability. It’s the way that we only care about the truth, the way we appreciate that the greats of the past didn’t need space-age fitting, psychologists, perfect physiques and science. Just keep it simple. Because no-one has ever proved all this other stuff means anything.
I know what I have to do and for the first time since I’ve been playing I’ve been able to ignore everything else. That allowed me to go into these tournaments confident, despite having hardly played at all in the last 6 months. No practice putts or chips, no warmup–why should non course golf activities put doubt in my mind minutes before tee off anyway?
Straight to the tee to rely on nothing but what module work has ingrained. That’s what I’m going to have to rely on out there when emotions take over after all.
And the sweetest thing–I hit an approach on 18 that looked all over the flag, but it backspun off the green and nearly into a creek. I was devastated. We already had a ball just off the green, much closer but a ton of break downhill. After persisting for many minutes, I finally managed to convince my team my chip was the easier one, and…
…I chipped it in, in front on a packed clubhouse verandah in party mode! My first ever Jarrod Lyle moment.
I haven’t had the time or resources to advance up through many modules yet and may have been lucky that the ones I have done were especially needed for my swing, but the reinforcing mindset here I’m getting every day is keeping me passionate about where I’m heading and subliminally training me in the interim.
Thanks for sharing that, Steb… great stuff!
My favourite part has to be trusting your gut on that chip, even though to anyone, that would’ve been the harder shot. That shows a real understanding of the game.
Well done.
Thanks for the congrats everyone. I hope I’ve inspired the same as I’ve been inspired by many posts here in the past.
No problem not spending winnings on golf equipment–give me $1000 and I’ll walk out of a golf store with a bag of tees and $998 change. Local club pro’s always pissed off I never buy anything off him.
Congratulations, but really - I can’t take any more than perhaps 30% of the credit for your solid play and only …say 20% of the swag. I’ll PM you with my contact info.
Steb–nicely done, you’ve really pumped me up. Those are the kinds of stories I really like. Well played and more great things for you in the future, no doubt.
An interesting situation actually arose on the 18th of the final round. The scramble event insisted that at least 3 tee shots be used from each of the four team members and we had trouble filling the quota for the 23 marker. At the 18th we had to use his tee shot, regardless of how poor it was. Scary considering the creek in front of the green, but we’d been trying to fill his quota for the last 5 holes but just couldn’t refuse birdie opportunities out there.
We’d all paid to go in a super-pin on the 115 yard 18th, a big prize for the nearest-the-pin, so even though the other three of us couldn’t use our tee-shots for the scramble event, we still wanted a go at the prize.
Ever teed up praying you didn’t get a hole-in-one? We knew we had a good chance of winning the event, but a hole-in-one by anyone but the 23 marker would have meant we were disqualified for not filling his 3-tee-shot quota.
Pretty astounding someone in your group (besides the 23 marker) DIDN’T make an ace on 18! It’s the 'perfect storm" sort of situation golf seems to produce and the worst possible result is normally achieved.
The “must-use drive quotas” go a long way to make scrambles more interesting and strategic imo. Another format we use here is called “3-and-1” in which the 4-some plays each hole recording 2 scores. One score is a 3-man scramble and the other score is the 4th man playing the hole on their own. The lone-ranger plays every 4th hole and is usually “feeling the heat” each time. Another twist on that format is that the lone-ranger plays a single orange ball assigned to the group. You MUST finish the round with the orange ball still in your posession or the team is DQ’d. Talk about pressure!!!
