League Play from the Middle of the Pack

[GregB135]

Thanks to everyone that has followed along. This season was an interesting journey.

I started off with one of my worst rounds in memory. That spurred a visit to GolfTec to investigate their lesson options. This led to a steady improvement in overall consistency, and a steady run of improved scores. Then, in the final regular event of the season, I wound up winning the B flight for my first league win.

Starting the season, I had 2 goals.

• Qualify for the end of season invitational tournament (Top 20 in best 6 standings)  - Done! with a 3rd place finish in Top 6
• Qualify (Top 20 overall) or be selected for the post season team cup event - Done! with 8th place overall to auto qualify

This Saturday is the invitational tournament at the Belleview CC in Clearwater Florida, one of the oldest courses in the US. It's short but very narrow, so it will take quality shot making to place well this week. It's a small field - only the top 20 plus 4 at large spots, with just the qualifiers playing for league end-of-season prizes.

Needless to say, my results on the year were way better than expected. Last year I was 27th place overall in both standings out of 43 members. To jump all the way up to 3rd and 8th out of 55 this year is an awesome feeling.

[GregB135]

Hey all,

The final regular event of the season is done! We got to play a fantastic, Donald Ross designed course in the Belleair CC West Course. I had a pretty average day all around, and wound up with a B-flight fourth place and overall fifth for the day. Two big-number holes on the score card meant that I couldn't overcome being the low capper in the B-flight and the podium spots went to guys that played well and avoided the 'others'. I did manage a close-to-pin honors on one of the par 3 holes, a 175 yarder. 

I went into this tournament a little more relaxed than some of the others as I knew there was going to be a take-home for my 3rd place finish in the season standings. I also tried to play more of the events all year with more of a 'relax and have fun' mindset than keying in on the competitive side of the league. As much as I could, I tried to verbalize and maintain the mindset of, "I can make par from there' after a poor shot rather than focus on the negative result of just a single shot. Even got a remark from my playing partner that he liked that mindset when I said it (more than once this week). It became contagious through the group as well, and we all had a good time, and a joke or two about 'not having par from THERE' after some penalty inducing strokes among us.

Next up for the league is the Team Cup event. Two days with 36 on Saturday; alternate shot followed by better ball, and singles match play on Sunday. We will be back at the Innisbrook resort again for that, playing all three courses with Sunday singles on Copperhead.

 

 

[GregB135]

Next up for the league is the team cup event. We will be playing all three courses at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor over two days.

36 holes on Saturday - morning is alternate shot with four ball in the afternoon. Sunday is singles on Copperhead. 

The good news is the A-game has started to make more frequent appearances. Shot 1 over on my back 9 today in a practice round (though not as tough a course as any of the Innisbrook options). Still, really happy with today's 81 and feeling a little more confident heading to the cup.

[GregB135]

So the team cup event is complete, and it was an absolute blast. This was my third year in the league, but my first selection to the team cup. I've never played an event like this before, and It was a lot more fun than what I expected.

Alas, my team did not prevail. We were sitting pretty after alternate shot, but fell flat in foursomes. We went into Sunday singles 3 points down, needing to win 8 of 12 matches to take the cup. We did split Sunday 6-6 to save a little face.

How did I play? The Saturday rounds I was pretty steady, and kept the same partner for both matches. We won our alternate shot match as the lead-off pairing 4 and 3. We started a little slow but stole a lot of momentum from our opponents by holing out a really touch bunker shot on the 3rd hole. 

Our 4-ball round was more of a challenge. Both my partner and I had some early struggles off the tee and we went down 2 early. We found a bit of a groove and clawed back to all square at the turn. Only to give away two holes early on the back 9, and repeat the front by getting back to all square at 16. A couple of clutch pars on the 17th, a par 3 playing into the wind) and we went to 18 all square. The match came down to each team having a 5 footer for par on 18 which neither made and we halved the match.

My Sunday singles match was a total Jekyll/Hyde performance. I was the higher cap in the pairing so I was getting two strokes. We halved the first and then I went on really good run making 4 pars over the next 5 holes winning all 5. We started on the back 9 at Copperhead so that meant I went into the 'Snake Pit' run of final holes up 5. The stronger player showed it getting back 2, so we made the turn with me up 3. The 16th (our 7th) green is where things fell apart for me a little bit. I got wild off the tees and my short game was not making up for it and I wound up giving back the whole lead. We were back to all square after 13 holes. I made a couple of clutch putts to stay AS then made a par to win the 16th and went into the par 3 17th 1 up. I found the green with my tee shot, while my opponent missed wide right. His first pitch shot came up short, and when my lag putt settled in to 3 feet he conceded the hole and the match 2 and 1. 

Overall for the weekend I managed a no-loss 2-0-1 record and 2 1/2 points for the team. My Saturday partner matched that, so together we earned 5 of the team's 10 1/2 points. I actually managed to live up to our team captain's prediction that I wouldn't lose on the weekend. Of course, some of that was he chose a good partner for me and good match-ups. All in all it was a really fun weekend of golf and camaraderie

Thanks for reading along through the season. I've still got some improving to do but this season was my best yet in competition. Thanks to the Golftec lesson plan, coaching, and steady  play, my handicap has dropped through the season from 16 to 13. The downside to that is, if I get a couple of strokes better going into next season, I'll play the whole year as one of the "bubble boys" bouncing between the A and B flights on the cut-line. Well, that'll be fun too.

Cheers everybody!

[GregB135]

The 2020 Tampa Tour League season is about to start and I'm not sure I can claim 'Middle of the Pack' status getting ready for this year.

To recap, I got one win last season in the two-day major. Piling that on to pretty consistent play through the season netted me 8th place in the end-of-season overall standings, and 3rd place in the Top-6 team cup standings. That was enough to achieve my goals form the start of the year of qualifying for both.

3rd/8th might be tough to beat, so I'm struggling to identify goals for this year. I definitely want to repeat qualifying for the Invitational and Team Cup events on merit (that's top 20 in respective standings). I'm trying not to set a raw score based goal because we are playing some really tough courses as well as several new ones. Another factor is my handicap has come down over the last year to 12.1, which will tend to put me right in the middle of the cap stack each week. So where last year I played primarily in the B-flight, this year I'm likely to wind up one of the 'bubble boys' that plays both flights depending on the weekly fields. With that I'll go with the more ambiguous play to net par or better in 1/4 of my events.

I feel like I've made good strides swing-wise by continuing with lessons and practice (thanks Golftec) and I am doing better at curtailing my competitive nature and maintaining a 'relax and have fun' attitude. If I can bring more good swings than bad, and keep the relaxed mindset I think I can look forward to having a good season again.

Cheers and I welcome your thoughts and encouragement. 

[GregB135]

I've been on the road for a couple of weeks for work but I have been able to get in some practice rounds. The course is not fantastic but I did have the ability to play from blue tees at 6700 yards and white tees at 6200 to get a feel for my A flight vs B flight games. Keep in mine the blue tee slope of 115 is nowhere close to some of the slope ratings the league plays on. I had one really bad practice round in the mix but for the most part feel pretty good. Included in the 5 or 6 rounds was a 77 from the whites and an 83 from the blues. I would certainly not be disappointed in those kinds of results in league play.

We get underway next Saturday so here we go!

[GregB135]

Pairings for our first event of the season (The Tampa Tour) are posted. The A/B flight cut-off line was at 12 this week, so my number of 12.7 put me in the B flight this week. 

Our venue for this event, Eastlake Woodlands CC North, will play 5800 yards for the B flight with a slope of 131. Per the previous post, I carded a 77 in a practice round at similar yardage albeit on a wide open track with a slope of 112. With the 131 slope and greens reported as FASSSSSST we will see what we get.

Also, since last post, I had a (yet another) coach change at GolfTec. First lesson with the new coach this week. He took a look at my previous lesson videos and my input prior to the lesson, keyed in on a minor adjustment to what they call 'shoulder bend', and I think we hit on a good swing feel key for me. I set up a practice bay session, and using the 'auto' putt feature on one of the practice courses managed 33.7 and 35.5 for two 9 hole scores, totaled 12 GIR and 10  fairways. If I play anywhere close to that on Saturday, I'll be declared a sandbagging ba$+rd.

Another practice session planned for today just to dial things in, but I'm optimistic.

[GregB135]

We got the season kicked off and had a good time, even with having to make some adjustments for early CV response. Watching a bunch of middle-agers try to figure out digital payment options was one of the highlights of the weekend.

My round felt mostly average. I didn't feel like I hit the ball exceptionally well. The course was as tough as advertised (131 slope from the white tees for B Flight). I only had 4 or 5 misses I would categorize as 'bad', but with the difficulty of the course, each of those netted me a double bogey. I'd have to look back at my scorecard history, but it was one of my few league rounds where double bogey was my worst score. The greens were rolling VERY fast but I was decent on the greens with 33 putts, despite missing a couple of good looks at birdie. 

My 90 gross / 78 net was good enough to tie for Overall 10th and B-Flight 4th and earn 25 league points. That is definitely my best season opener so far. 

We have another tough track in store for event #2 in Southern Hills Plantation. Provided the course is not closed for CV response restrictions the league is still planning to hold the event as scheduled. We are all taking as many precautions as we can and abiding by local guidance. All of us as golfers are feeling fortunate that most golf courses have been permitted to continue operating under social distance restrictions etc. We still have a few days before a final call on the next event can be made.

In the mean time, stay safe, stay well and stay tuned. 

[GregB135]

This week's league tournament was cancelled due to host site COVID restriction to member play only. We were scheduled to play Southern Hills Plantation, a favorite for many of the players in the league, so a lot of us were disappointed with the cancellation.

Our next event is three weeks away, so hopefully that is long enough for some of the local restrictions to be lessened.

in the mean time, I'll continue to work on some of the swing keys from my last couple of lessons. The local courses continue to operate, so practice should still be possible. 

Stay safe everyone.

[GregB135]

The next league event is still a go for this Saturday

We will be playing Juliette Falls GC in Dunellon FL, about a 2-hour drive for most of us.

I’ve been applying some guidance in a book I just read, “The Little Book if Breaking 80”, and have spent a lot of time practicing putting and short game, and less on full swing. After two weeks of that so far I’m feeling really confident on/around the green.

I haven’t been on the course for a full round in a couple of weeks but do plan to get a practice round in before Saturday.


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

[GregB135]

Didn't perform well at Juliette Falls. Which is a shame, because the course is fantastic and shouldn't play as difficult is my Jekyll and Hyde 96 made it look.

Warmup time had me feeling pretty confident. I hit about 15 balls, mostly right down the line. Stepped up to the first tee,, and.... smother hook.. So I had  bit of a rocky start with a couple of double bogeys, but then rallied for a front-9 43. Couldn't keep things on track though, and piled up a bunch of penalty strokes on the way to a back-9 53. 

Short game performance did not live up to the level of practice I put into it over the three weeks going into this round. So I'll have to adjust my practice sessions to include a little more full swing while still prioritizing short game.

Finishing in the bottom 5 of 40 players is going to drop me down the standings a good bit. The good news is it's only the 2nd recorded event, so there's a good chance that point total will get dropped out of my top-6 for the season standings. Still frustrating after playing pretty consistent mid-80's golf for a pretty good while.

The next event is in flux. The planned venue backed out on us just a few days prior to event date (5/2). The committee is trying to get us a reschedule from one of the early cancelled events and adding it in on 5/9. In the mean time... practice, practice, practice.

[GregB135]

Here's another situation to chalk up to the Covid-19 situation. 

Our league uses a web-based RSVP system to sign up for each tournament. Using a combination of text messaging, social media, and email alerts, the player pool gets a notification that sign-up is open and available, and it's first come, first served from there. At some of the more popular venues the signup roster, understandably, fills up rather quickly. This week may have been a record.

This week's event was rescheduled from an earlier event to be played at Southern Hills Plantation Club in Brooksville (see the reviews in Florida League Course Reviews). It's a fantastic track and a league favorite. The first plan was for the original RSVP list to stand giving previously registered players the chance to drop out if they were not available for this Saturday. That changed. The course limited our field to 32 down from the original 40, so the committee decided to reopen the RSVP as a new event. Given the majority of us are staying at home thanks to 'stay at home' orders, the field of 32 filled up in less than 45 minutes. And since I happened to be taking care of some household chores, I got stuck on the waiting list.

I did make the signup for next week's event though. So there's that.

[GregB135]

So the good news: The committee was able to add an additional tee time at the last minute, so the field was 36 players rather than just 32, so I made the field.

The bad news: It took me 'til the 15th hole to hit a solid tee shot. With that, I had to do a lot of recovering back into play and scrambling to give myself chances for par or bogey. Add that to the challenging greens at Southern Hills and my 93 net 81 was only good for a bottom-5 finish (my second in a row).

I'm struggling right now with the long clubs and inconsistency. Not sure if that's a result of focusing more on short game practice or the temporary closure of my coaches facility meaning not having full access to the swing coach. But, like always for me, getting off the tee in play is my biggest determining factor in how well I score. One recent practice round was 57-39 for 96 with the only difference being driving the ball in play on the back nine versus wild tee shots and penalties on the front.

We have another league favorite course this weekend in Southern Dunes. I will definitely have to figure something out with the tee balls to avoid another low finish. I'll spend some extra practice time with the long clubs this week and see how it goes.

Reviews of both courses are included in the Florida League Course Review thread.

[GregB135]

Southern Dunes was next on the league schedule. A really fun and quality course. Unfortunately I didn't take my A putting game into this round.

After a couple of bottom-5 finishes struggling with my long club game, I was looking forward to The Dunes since I played well there on my last visit. While I played significantly better tee to green (10 FIR and 7 GIR), but, I blew it on the greens. I did shoot an even 90 but I got there with 40 putts. My putting average is a fraction above 31. For perspective, my 90 net 76 putt me bottom 1/3 of the standings for 10.5 league points. Had I had just an average putting day, that would have given me a low 80's gross and a top-10 finish. So it was both encouraging and frustrating at the same time.

That does leave me with some work to do over the remaining events to build some points and move up the standings. Once we get past 6 events I'll get a chance to knock out some of those lower point finishes to qualify for the end of season invitational and team cup.

My local GolfTec shop re-opened so I was able to get back in for a full swing lesson with my coach, which went pretty well. I followed that up with a good range session and indoor practice session working on the lesson drills. I got out on the course yesterday and was frustratingly inconsistent again. Only 3 GIR for the round but still managed to break 90. 

League play continues to be a work in progress. I'm trying to maintain the mindset of just playing the course and not worrying about the competition side of it. It's my 4th season in the league now, and I still can't seem to get past the 'first hole jitters' and settle my nerves down until well into the round.

Our next event is 2 weeks away at Orange County National's Crooked Cat course. I'm looking forward to that one.

 

[GregB135]

It continues to be an up and down, inconsistent season. This week was no different. While I played much better in the short game - an average day of 31 putts including 7 1 putt greens. I was plagued by poor tee shots all day. Only 3 fairways hit, meaning lots of recovery shots rather than playing for GIR. A grand total of 1 GIR and even that was not from the fairway off the tee. All that said, 94 was not a disaster of a score. 

League standings-wise though I've taken a step backwards. Where last season I was able to post consistent mid-80s and finish each week in the top 1/2, this year I've got 3 bottom 10 finishes out of 6 events so far, with only one top 10. I'm going to need to post some better rounds to move up the standings and qualify again for the post season events. That remains my goal, just like last season, to qualify and play in the post season events. 

I will include a moment of venting. We've had one player with a '24' handicap post event winning rounds of net 62 and 61. While another this week won with net 64. Needless to say the league committee is investigating.

[GregB135]

Hi fellow spies.

No, I have not abandoned this thread. Unfortunately, I've been forced to self quarantine over the last week +, and as a result have had to w/d from a couple of league events.

That is going to leave me in a pretty deep hole on the overall leaderboard (all scores), especially since last week's event was the first of our three "majors" that are worth double points. There are still enough events remaining on the schedule that I can make up some ground on the Top-6 leaderboard but I'm going to need to post decent scores from here on out.

I have a couple of weeks to finish getting healthy and get some swings in again before the next event. It's the next major and will be on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook. A tough one for us and site of the PGA Tour's Valspar Championship.

 

[GregB135]

I was back in action this weekend after a temporary layoff due to C-19. (Thankful to be fully recovered and healthy).

We were at the Innisbrook Copperhead course again for our 2nd major (2x points) of the season. I had a bit of an up-and-down round that included its share of everything from really good shots to a few bad ones, though only one truly gross miss. I had a good round on the greens totalling 30 putts (7 1-putt greens). I got off to a bad start with a wild tee shot and two poor recovery shots earning me a triple bogey 8 on the first. It took be a while to settle in and I didn't have a par at all on the front 9. I carded a birdie at the  par 5 11th after a poor tee shot so that was really encouraging, and kind of jump started me to a better back 9. 

Though I was very disappointed looking at the statistics (3 FIR, 1 GIR) at the end of the day I shot a 91 net 73 and finished in the top 1/3 of the standings for the week. Taking encouragement where I can find it, that shows me I CAN get away with less than 'A game' and I don't need to get all worked up over missing a shot here and there during a round. I do need a couple of similar showings in the last few events to boost my points in the standings. It will be a challenge to still qualify for the invitational tournament after having to skip two events. I'm going to try not to put pressure on myself by thinking I NEED to finish top-5 every week from here on out. 

Approaching next week's event with cautious optimism as I will most likely be playing with brand new irons which, if I'm lucky, will have one practice round in before getting on the course in competition with them. (Relax spy-verse, they were fitted - twice actually, but that would be for a different thread)

Wish me luck.

[GregB135]

Had a decent showing at Copperhead , at least in the standings. 

I had a miserable time tee to green. Only 3 FIR and 1 GIR. Though I did convert that one opportunity into a birdie. Having to play lots of recovery shots and accounting for 3 penalties, my putting carried the day and salvaged my round. My 91 (73) was good enough for a 14th overall and B-flight (t)4th. This event was also a "major" so a decent showing got me some much needed extra points. Not enough to make a significant jump in the standings, but I was able to knock one of the missed event zeroes out of my top-6 score count.

This weekend we are going back to the Lake Jovita North course. I've struggled there in the past, but I'm hoping having the recently fit new irons in the bag will help minimize wild misses on approach shots. 

It's been a while since this last review. I'll get it updated with C-19 context considerations after the weekend.

[GregB135]

I did manage a practice round this week with the new T300/T200 irons in the bag. Only a couple of growing pains shots during the round, but all in all, very happy with the switch. My greens targeted to greens hit ratio was pretty good. So now I just need to put myself in better positions off the tee and see what I get. 

[GregB135]

As a fun side note. This weekend's league round will be a Spy vs. Spy match up with GolfSpy Megah1tz in my foursome and each of us playing brand new irons. My Titleist T300/200 set vs. his Sub70 699 pros.  OEM vs DTC in competition. Bring it on!!

[GregB135]

Well, the Spy vs. Spy new iron challenge went to my competitor GolfSpy Megah1tz. His 87 (67) was actually the B-flight winning score.

I had too much of an up and down day with some missed recovery shot opportunities that put too many big numbers on my score card. My 93 (77) did put me in the middle of the pack though, so I did earn enough points to knock a low round out of my top-six for the standings. I did have some good holes mixed in and played, in general, a pretty good round tee to green. I got away with what I would call misses on a few tee shots. Just about everyone struggled putting on the undulating greens that were rolling very fast. Even 3x three-putts only pushed my total putts up to 35, when I average 31. I was really just a couple of recovery shots away from a decent round.

With 3 events left on the schedule, including the two-day major, I still stand a chance to make the top 20 and qualify for the end of season invitational. It will take rounds at least as good as this one though, and maybe a little help from my fellow competitors slipping a bit. Things are not looking so good to be an auto-qualifier into the Team Cup event. I'm confident though that another couple of decent showings will give me a decent chance to be a captain's pick and join the fun.

The course we played this week should be a lot of fun to play but some of the conditions made it not so much this time out. You can see the review at the thread link below.

 

 

 

 

[GregB135]

So, I've been a little lazy about keeping this thread up to date. Apologies to anyone who has been following along.

The regular season wrapped up with our 2-day event at Hammock Beach, then the Black Diamond Ranch Quarry course, and the finale at Bella Colina.

The 2-day was a complete Jekyll/Hyde weekend for me. Unfortunately Hyde played the first 5 holes. After having a decent, and really fun practice round on the Ocean Course on Friday, and a good warm up on the range, my first 5 holes on Saturday totalled +12, including an 8 on a par 3. I honestly felt like zipping up the bag and turning in a DNF at that point. Integrity and perseverance won out though and I rallied a bit mid round and played some decent golf, then another big # hit on 16. Given the 17 over 6 hole total I suppose I shouldn't feel awful about the 103. Having had all the care whupped out of me on Saturday, the Sunday round on the Conservatory course was a joy. I carded only one double bogey on the day, and even that required two penalty strokes. I hit 10/14 fairways and 9 GIRs, including 2 close-to-pin shots on the par 3s. It felt good to put a nice round together like that and claw my way up to the middle of the pack from last place with an 84. Points for the 2-day event were doubled so I managed to move up the standings a few spots with this showing.

Moving on to Black Diamond Ranch, I didn't go in with high expectations because I knew it was going to take some really good play on my part, and some help from my competitors to reach the top 20 in either standings race. I'll get to posting my course reviews later, but the Quarry course was set up with some VERY deep rough, it was wet already from recent rain, and even from the B-flight's forward tees two of the par 3s measured 190+.  I played really well off the tees, hitting 10 fairways. I made a couple of really nice up and downs to save par on the shorter par 3s, and putted about average with 32 total for the day. Apparently hitting the fairways was the key because my 82 (69) was the low net for the day (only one other net under par for the day from 40 players). That was only my 2nd event win in 4 seasons with the league. That also pushed me a few more spots up the standings.

That put me in a very interesting position going into the finale. A repeat performance, and a little help from my friends, would give me an outside chance at qualifying for the end of season invitational (top 20 players based on best 6 point rounds). I was pretty much mathematically eliminated from being an auto qualifier into the team cup, so was holding out hope to be a captain's pick.

The finale had all players from both flights playing at just under 6,600 yards, which is about the limit for me to get around comfortably. Bella Colina is a great course, and has a good mix of hole lengths, but requires good strategy. The fairways are pretty generous, but there are LOTS of bunkers and waste areas, and elevation changes make proper club selection a must. I turned in a decent round, carding 89 for net even par. I gave away a few strokes, but unlike the Ocean Course, I was able to get away with all my misses. End of the day, it was good enough for a top-10 finish. 

That left me in 27th place on both standings boards. Yup, with 56 players in the league this year, that was dead middle of the pack. Thanks again for following. I'll plan to wrap this thread and start a new one for the beginning of next season.