GregB135

Standings have been updated, and as I thought, I moved up a few spots in both. With 4 regular season events remaining I'm 7th in the overall standings, and 5th in the Top-6. That means it will be really tough for me to get knocked out of the end of season invitational. Also, unless I have four straight outlier bad rounds, I'm looking solid to be a Tampa Cup qualifier. Both goals I set at the beginning of the season. With a week of vacation with the fam, I won't have any practice more than maybe a range session the day before our next event. It's on the Innisbrook Island course, a relatively tough track. The good news is I'm playing stress free and don't have to sweat it too much if I don't post a good round.

Still waiting for the leaderboards to be updated, but I'm coming off a good result in the latest event. I started the round REALLY well, going FIR/GIR two-putt par through the first four holes. Then I went on a run of poor/bad tee shots, but got away with only bogeys, but ended the front nine with a par for 40. Then I got to the par 5 10th hole. Poor tee shot to a 1/2 blocked angle in really fluffy rough. The fluffy rough got me and my hybrid slid mostly under the ball and it only went about 20 yards further up in the rough. Didn't do much better with the third shot, even though I wasn't playing too aggressive, just made another bad swing. That left me with about 160 to the green with still a poor angle between a large oak that sits 100 yards from the green splitting the fairway, and a red lined wetland area right of the fairway. Faded that one into the hazard, but managed to put the provisional/6th shot on the green. Then we got hit with a downpour of rain at the green, so rushed a little bit to three putt for a league-max quad bogey 9. Fortunately, that was my only hole of the day worse than bogey. The back nine was pretty solid after that, including a better-than-good fairway bunker approach shot and I made four more pars on the way in. The only frustration through the end was missing two short putts for par. That gave me a 40-44: 84 and a net 71. Good enough for B-flight 2nd place money. We should see the leaderboards post in the next day or two. I went into this event solidly in the top 10 on both. I expect my Top-6 position to improve some because this round kicks out a 14 point score, and I expect a bump of at least 15 points from there. A second place always helps the overall leaderboard positioning, but this late in the season it will make it difficult to get caught from behind and drop out of the top 20. So from here, it looks like I've got a good shot at qualifying for the Invitational Tourney to play for the big prize after the regular season. I should also auto qualify for the team cup that follows, where last year I got included as a captains pick. Weather and and being a little under it has kept me from practicing this week. We are also leaving for a week of vacation so I won't get much chance to practice before the next event. Either way, being in such a strong position going into it, I don't have to worry if I post a poor round, and that lets me play a little more relaxed anyway.

Time for this year's mid-season update. We got through the mid-point of the season so we now have both the total points and top-6 leaderboards active. Even without a 'wow what a good round' kind of round so far, I've managed to be in 8th place and 7th place respectively. I was very briefly 4/5th, but a poor showing in the 2-man event this past weekend brought me back down a bit. How have I managed to get there? All I've done is play pretty consistently close to my number, and about 50/50 split on rounds over or under net even par. Let that sink in a moment for the other competitive golfers out there. By keeping my handicap accurate, and fortunately playing with some good consistency, I'm sitting a top-10 position in a league of almost 60 golfers. I had one good round (sub-80 ) along the way that got me a 3rd place weekly finish. Also two or three rounds at net even par that got me a couple more weekly top-5s. I was really disappointed this past week at the 2-man event. It was unfortunately an "A-Flight's Revenge" kind of week. All the top 5 teams in the event were A/A teams. Not a single one of the A/B or B/B teams managed to break par in the Modified Chapman format. (look it up, it's fun). It may have been a mental block for me. My partner and I were a B/B pairing, and I was the longer/more consistent hitter of the pairing. Knowing we were playing ChampionsGate International; a fairly long, very difficult course; I knew we were a longshot (pun) to finish in the money. Then my partner unintentionally arrived only minutes before our tee time and only got about 3 swings worth of warmup prior to teeing off. Either way, I wound up having a very inconsistent, and ineffective round. My tee game was way off, which cost my partner some second shot opportunites, and either my iron distances or the GPS yardages were off because I was missing a lot of approach shot yardages long. End of the day we wound up 3rd from the bottom. We did have a good time with our playing partners though, and took home a few standings points. Moving forward. With 5 regular season events to go, I'm in really good shape for meeting my goal of qualifying for both post season events. I missed the mark by one position qualifying for the big money invitational last year. My 7th place in the top-6 standings has me reasonable secure there. I still have a chance to knock out one or two scores with decent finishes in the final events, and it will be tough for those behind me knock me out of the top 20 positions there. As far as the overall standings go, I'm not expecting to miss any events so I'll get points each week. Sitting in a top-10 spot right now means I don't have to press for or worry about having a good round and I feel like I can play a bit more relaxed. As long as I stay steady on and don't have more than one really off week on the way in I'm looking pretty solid for the post season. Next up on the calendar is Lake Jovita's North course. It's a regular stop for the league, and a course I know pretty well and have played decently on before. A good chance for me to solidify my position. Cheers and wish us luck.

I promised more about our 2-man event. This is really a commentary on the idea that it's the committee that really makes or breaks a league, and we just had a complete changeover in ours. The 3 previous EC were all great guys, but they were all very low handicap A flight players, and the primary scheduler was a bit of a course snob. They also didn't like getting any negative feedback from the group. They insisted on never having A and B flight players in the same group at events, claiming it would slow play down (..further - most weeks we can be closer to 5 hours than 4 ((we know and we try)) As a result, we lost a lot of the social aspect of the league, and it sort of turned into two leagues that happened to play at the same time. Like any large group, some cliques emerge, but still, we ought to know just about everybody, there's only 66 players on the roster. The other factor with the previous EC was course snobbery. Though not entirely their fault, price per week went from an average of $60-75 up to $90-110 (thanks Covid), and we weren't necessarily the "Tampa Tour" based on the schedule with lots of 2 plus hour drives to play courses that were good mind you, but it felt more like a bucket list tour for the EC. Enter the new EC. Right off the bat they showed they listened to a lot of the feedback to the previous trio, and gave us a schedule that was a little more local and a little more wallet friendly. The few long drives on the scheule were to courses that have become league favorites, so nobody really minded. At this most recent event, there were several groups with a mix of A and B flight players, so I got a chance to play for the first time with someone who's been in the league now for 3 years. And we all had a great time on the golf course. Now to the 2-man event. The format we've had for the last few years is Modified Chapman, wherein: both players play a tee ball, each plays the second shot using their partner's tee ball, then after the second shot it is played as scramble through the hole. It's tough to explain but it's fun. Every year there is also a Calcutta auction that pays the owner of the 1st and 2nd place teams. The course for this year is the ChampionsGate International course. It wasn't until all the teams were established, and the Calcutta was complete that the EC revealed all teams were going to play from the blue tees. That meant over 6800 yards with a rating/slope of 74.1/137. Needless to say, they started getting a lot of feedback from the higher handicap teams. There aren't many in the B flight that have the game to cover 6800 yards worth of golf course. And, as it turned out, most of the guys in the league who do have that kind of game... were teammates for the event. After listening to the comments though, and working with a couple of the B-flight guys, the EC decided to adjust and put the teams with a team handicap over 10 on a combo set of tees at 6500 yards. Long enough to be a challenge without being an all day kick in the junk. If you play an an organized league elswhere out there, I hope committee is more like our latest group.

Yesterday was interesting to say the least. We played at Orlando's Orange County National, on the Panther Lake course. This was our final event before the two-man team event (more on that later). This was just one of those rounds for me. I started off terrible. Logging three penalties, two double bogeys and a triple bogey in the first three holes, I was pretty sure contending for the week was already a lost cause. Then I got into a bit of a groove with my irons, and played the next 9 holes at one over par. I didn't finish strong though with 6 over across the last 5 holes and it all earned me an 88 net 74. It was my worst tee-to-green round in a while, with only 4 FIR, though I did stay about average with 7 GIR. Two par 3 birdies in the middle of the round, including a near ace for a CTP, but I was saved by my putting. 5 one putt greens and a handfull of makes from beyond my 50/50 range of 6 feet. After putting it all together, it was a big pile of 'meh' and I was expecting no better than a middle of the pack finish. Here's another perspective though. This season we started using the Squabbit app for live scoring during events. It adds a bit of fun, but I don't like to pay attention to the leaderboard during the round. To contribute to my lack of optimism, another player in my group looked at the leaderboard on our 7th tee, and the B-flight leader in the group behind us was already at net -4. So I kinda stopped caring. Then when I walked into the post round gathering, I heard a buddy holler "there's the B-flight winner!", and I just laughed and said "Ha, did somebody walk in behind me?". Turns out, even my 'meh' round was only 2 strokes out of a tie for B first, and 10th place overall. That's going to be a boost in points on the leaderboard, especially since this was not a full field of 40 so a lot of guys will have a zero for the week on their overall board.

I had a decent showing in the 2-day major held at the Reunion Resort in Kissimmee FL. We had triple occupancy in the 3-room villas, so the total package with that setup was a little over $300 and included both rounds of golf, a REALLY nice villa room, and breakfast on Sunday. The golf courses were fantastic to boot, and the Niklaus course is set to reopen later in the year. If you are looking for a place to hold a group golf trip event, I highly recommend Reunion. Now that the advertising is out of the way, back to golf. Through both rounds, I never felt like I hit a really great shot, and for the most part I got away with my misses. After an 86 on Saturday, I was in B-flight 3rd and 6th overall. It was more of the same on Sunday, but I didn't get away with as many misses so it was an 88. One of those costly misses came on the final hole, so I finished the weekend on a double bogey. End result was B-flight 5th and 13th overall. That earned me enough season points to move up another spot on the season leaderboard into 6th place. Now that we are past 6 events that should have me in pretty solid shape for the end of season invitational which is for the top 20 players on the best 6 leaderboard. My two low point rounds are 14 and 10 points. So a couple more upper half finishes in the last 8 events will only improve that position. Our team cup event uses the overall standings, and the top 20 players there auto qualify. I'm not expecting to miss any events, so I'll continue adding points. Having played well enough to be in the top 10 thus far should let me play a little more relaxed the rest of the way since I won't feel pressure to post a good score. The last several rounds, I've played really well tee to green. I'm hitting my proper share of fairways and greens, and I was penalty free in my last three competition rounds. Short game has been the frustrating part. I just can't seem to find average. I've been either 'bloody brilliant or bloody awful' with no middle ground. I'm seeing my coach this Friday and will try to focus on the short game to try to sort that out.

League standings were posted today, and with two straight top-5 finishes, I've moved up from 27th place to 8th place overall. With this weekend's two-day major worth extra points, another good showing and I'll be in really good postition at the mid point of the season. Hoping that will let me play the later events with a little less stress and pressure. A couple of good competition rounds in a row also means my GHIN number has moved from 12.5 to 11.1 over the past few weeks. At least for now that will have me usually in the B-flight, but I"m getting closer to being one of the "bubble boys" that wind up floating between flights depending on the field. I played most of one season doing that, and the A-flight yardages aren't usually THAT long, just in most cases a little longer than where I have felt good/comfortable yardage wise.

Apologies for missing an update along the way, but there have been two events since my last post. One of those was at the Vinoy resort in St Petersburg and replaced Orange County National's Crooked Cat on the schedule. Committee members played there two weeks prior and the greens were not up to standard. Hopefully they are in better shape in a few weeks when we are supposed to be back there. Anyway, after my top-5 finish in the major event at Juliette Falls, I posted another strong round and notched another top-10 finish at the Vinoy event. I had a really good round tee to green, but, had a few short game failures that cost me big numbers on a few holes. That finish pushed me up the season leaderboard into the top 10 overall. I realized I was letting the short game shots get a little too much in my head, in that I was worring too much about mechanics and positions and techniques while I was trying to play an on-course shot. So my goal for the next round was to just "see the shot/put, hit the shot/putt" when on the course, and let the practice take care of the mechanics etc. That worked pretty well during my practice round during the week although the greens on the practice course were very slow and inconsistent. Then yesterday in the league event at the ChampionsGate golf resort's National course, I went with that short game mindset. The short game wasn't perfect, but was definitley a lot better. Even though I had two bad short game shots, I recovered well from those. On chip type shots, I was able to see and hit good landing spots, and wound up holing out a chip to save a par. I also holed a putt from just off the green (after a duffed chip of course) to save another. I had another good round tee to green hitting 9 fairways and 7 greens in regulation. With that, no double bogeys on the card, and no penalties, I managed to post a 78. The only bad news with that, was another one of the B flight guys shot a career best 76 to blow away the field and I wound up B flight 3rd and overall 5th. That's going to have me securely in the top 10 on the leaderboard going into our two-day major this coming weekend. I'm feeling really good with my full swing right now. I got the putting back in shape (at least in this most recent round), and the chip shots have been solid. I still need to work on the higher flighted pitch shots in that 30-50 yard range. I managed to avoid having too many of those, but right now that is where my short game has been really letting me down. Short game green here I come.

The season's first major is in the books, and Greg With the Hat finally turned in a good performance. We played at Juliette Falls in Dunellon Florida, a really great track that is a bit off the beaten path, but worth the drive through horse country to get there. I struggled a little bit to get the feel on the greens, and had a really tough putting day. With 5 three putts (4 of those for bogey) and a total of 40 putts on the day it was easy for me to overlook the fact I had one of my best tee-to-green rounds in a long time. I drove the ball well, hitting 11/14 fairways and I was able to get away with my misses. I also hit 11/18 GIR, which is about double my average. Throw in that this was my first penalty free round in quite a while, and it all added up to 84. That was good enough for B-flight 3rd and T4 overall. It also earned me enough points to jump up 10 spots on the season leaderboard from 27th place up to 17th. With the poor putting it was definitley the 'round that could have been', but I was happy to post a decent score. I also took home one of the par 3 CTP payouts so there was a little bonus to boot.

After two mediocre performances to open the season, we are about to have our first league Major of the year. I'm going into this one with limited expectations. I just went with several league players on a road trip to play in Alabama on the RTJ trail. We played 6 rounds over 4 days and had a great time. Our first course was Balantrae - not on the trail but a great course, fabulous conditions, fairly forgiving and not super long. I had several short game breakdowns and couldn't do better than 88. Then we went to Oxmoor Valley and I got more of the same. Drove the ball in the fairway all day, but could not score from there and wound up with 94. We had a great time the next day at Silver Lakes playing both the regular course and then the short course. I thought I got something dialed in on the short course making a few birdies and nearly a hole-in-one, but that didn't carry over to the final round on Saturday at Ross Bridge. I struggled with the irons again, and even though I spent most of the day in the fairways I wasn't hitting greens, couldn't catch a break anywhere when I did miss a shot, and threw up a 98 with only two pars. I'll need to work some magic somewhere if I'm going to move up the standings. Majors are worth more points, so even if I don't place well, I'll still gain something. I'm going to try not to concentrate on it, but a finish above the middle of the pack will be a good result for me this week. We are playing a a course that I like, and have played well on before, so I'm looking at that as a positive and can hopefully have a good round.

Loved both sets of my T200s. Prior to those I was playing the Hogan PTx Pro irons. Downside to those is, you must know your specs, and shaft/grip selection is limited. My set prior to those were Mizuno JPX850s. LOVED those irons, but eventually the shafts were too much for my swing. I would definitely consider the current JPX line.

Update to the post. Still going to have to wait nearly another month for my shoes to arrive, but their response to my last email was a shipping notice for a shoe bag and 3 pairs of socks. At least they are making an effort to compensate for the delay.

In at least two of my older pairs of Sqairz, there is noticeable wear inside the heel on the seam. They are still holding up, as in not torn, but the friction of walking and swinging over time has rubbed a 'hole' in the fabric along the seam at the base of the heel. Keep in mind, I'm practicing on the range once, sometimes twice a week and getting in a full round nearly once/week as well, so they've been worn quite a bit.

So event #2 didn't go much better than the opener. I played nice and relaxed through the entire round. And, truthfully, played relatively well tee to green hitting 9/14 FIR and 6 GIR. Numbers like that usually means my score is in the 80s. Full swing wise I felt like I only had 4 bad shots the entire round, unfortunatlely two of those were back to back (including a bad shot choice) and one other cost me my only penalty on the day. It was a true short game meltdown that got me a 94. I had two 2-chip greens, one semi-bladed bunker shot, NO one-putt greens, and 4 3-putts. That 40 putt total alone was enought to ruin the score, but along with the other poor short game play the number got REALLY big compared to how well I felt I was hitting the ball. For example, on a decently long, downhill par 5, a pretty good drive and pretty good second shot have me looking at the green from 45 yards, center fairway. Thin contact on the pitch goes over the green, one duffed chip, one not close enough, and a 3-putt from 12 feet. That's the answer to "how do you make a double bogey from 45 yards in the fairway." I didn't have time to hang out after the round, but it's going to be another bottom 1/3 finish, and not many points. I'm heading up to play the RTJ trail in Alabama with some of the fellas this week. Maybe playing a whole bunch of golf will get my swing rolling for the next couple of events and I can start moving up the season leader board.

At least it looks like the test is up and running. I was one of the testers in the original Sqairz shoe test. Since then, I've worn nothing but. Be aware, I recently ordered (or as it turns out 'pre-ordered') a pair of the ProS2 shoes on March 15. This order went in not long after ordering a pair of the Speed Mesh shoes for the upcoming season. The first order arrived pretty much on time. I really like the Speed Mesh shoes, but since my older pairs were starting to show some significant wear in the heel padding area, I was eager to get the ProS2s for another color option, and for potential wet weather play (summer in FL). The estimated delivery when I placed the order was March 25. That day came and went, and after a week I sent an email to inquire about the order status. Their original response was, after some shipping delays, the new models had arrived and would be shipping out in a few days and I would receive a shipping notice. Another week went by with nothing. Another email. Another response now saying they were experiencing back order, and I would receive a shipping notice. Another two weeks with nothing. Another email. This time the response is, 'expect them to ship some time next month'. I don't know what most of you would do or say at this point, but here was my response. "Since I've recently ordered another pair of shoes, I'm okay waiting for the delivery. Is there any kind of offer in the works for such an extended delay? I'll reiterate, this is far below the level of customer service I've come to expect as a long time customer. And I'll be honest, it has me thinking I may not order again. I hope you can use that feedback to make things better." Standing by for their response. For the testers, I hope your customer service experience has been up to their earlier standard.