Life in the B-Flight 2023

[GregB135]

Here we go again! It's The Tampa Tour 2023 season. For all whove followed along the last couple of years in the 'middle of the pack' threads, last season was a bit of a disappointment. I didn't have any REALLY bad rounds, but I didn't manage to finish in the money either. 

This season, I'm hoping to rejoin Top 20 so I can qualify for the post season events. 

Between taking lessons, lots of practice time, and playing once a week or so, I haven't seen much improvement in my scoring. Which is more than a little frustrating. I'm playing decently enough from tee to green. I am not seeing as many penalties or wild misses as past years which is good. The extremely frustrating bit is in short game. I dedicate more practice time than most to putting, chipping, and pitching. Most days I walk away from the short game practice area generally pleased. But when I get out on the course, I can only describe my short game performance as 'good enough but not good'. I'm hoping that will strat to trend toward better as the season rolls on.

We had a family event interfere with the season opener, so I've already missed one event on the calendar. I'm expecting to miss at lease one more, so I'll need to show well for most of my events. We've got some really good sites on the calendar this year with a couple of new venues that I'm really looking forward to. We will be at Champions Gate on the International course, as well as the Ritz Carlton Orlando. Some regular favorites are back in the rotation, like Juliette Falls and Southern Hills Plantation. Yes, I know, those are all quite a bit of a drive from Tampa, so the name "Tampa Tour" is more descriptive of where everyone lives rather than where we play most of our events. This season has two planned excursions up to the Jaxonville area, but I'm not sure a full field of 36-44 players will make that drive twice.

My opening event will be next weekend at Lake Jovita's South course. It's a course we play almost every year, so I know the layout and game plan. It should be a comfortable place for me to get started and hopefully post a good score so I'm not playing catch up for the remainder of the season.

Cheers Spies and wish me luck. Hope you enjoy reading along.

[GregB135]

Aaaannd... We're back!

Had some issues with browser connection hindering forum navigation. Now that that issue is resolved, we can get back to business.

For my first event of the season, I didn't fare too poorly. We played Lake Jovita's South Course, which is a challenging layout, with lots of doglegs and undulating fairways and greens. They like to keep the greens rolling pretty fast there, so it isn't uncommon for most of the field to struggle a bit on the greens. We had beautiful weather to play in and had a great time.

We had an afternoon tee time, so I did what I (and many of you for that matter) would normally consider a risky thing. I had a lesson in the morning before a competition round. Not only that, but with an entirely new coach who I had previously only worked with in group clinics at my home course. We talked before hand though about it being a competition day, and he did a great job of not breaking down anything major. We made one small adjustment to my grip, and connected that to a feel adjustment in my takeaway. Then made one very small adjustment to my setup and ball position. The lesson ended with me making some really good swings, and making pretty consistent contact with good ball flights.

How did that translate into the round? Pretty darn well. I focused on those three little keys while warming up before the round and then went on to have a pretty good day on the course. 7/10 FIR and 10  GIR! On my missed fairways, 4 of those were close misses and didn't keep me from playing normally into the green. So I was only really out of position off the tee 3 times, unfortunately those all netted me double bogeys. I also had a couple of short game errors that were costly. My putting was a little inconsistent, and even though I had some really good two putts, I 3-putted three times as well to total out to 38 putts. 

At round's end I had a fairly average 91, to net 75. Good enough for B-flight 3rd, and a T-11 overall in a field of 44 players. That earned me enough points to be just above the middle of the pack in the overall standings after missing the first event. Not a thing to be unhappy about and I'm hoping I can build from there and make another good showing in the next event.

Next event up is the week after Easter so I'll have a chance to get back with my coach and work on where I felt like I gave away strokes and improving from here.

Cheers Spies!

[GregB135]

Realizing I got started a bit late in creating a thread for this season, I'll provide the 'intro' now for any new readers/followers to help paint the picture better.

This is my 5th year competing in a league called The Tampa Tour. It's a group of now about 65 members who compete in the summer mostly in or near the Tampa Bay area. There are usually 14 regular season events followed by an Invitational Tournament and a team event called The Tampa Cup. Points are assigned based on each week's finish, with the three Major events offering significantly more points. Qualifying for the Invitational Tournament is based on the Top 6 scores for each player through the season to determine the field with the season's 'best' players. Tampa Cup qualifying rewards the most active players and is based on the overall standings; total points for all events played. The Cup captains are the top 2 players, who choose their teams from the top 20 on the leaderboard plus two captain's picks each from the rest of the field.

Weekly events are divided into A and B flights determined by the mid-point HCP of that week's field. Handicaps in the league this year range from +1 to 28 so it is a diverse group of players. With my number floating between 13 and 14 I have been solidly in the B flight for the past couple of seasons. My best performance was two years ago when I finished top-5 on both leaderboards and wound up winning the Invitational tournament. Last year I had a couple of missed events and didn't play as consistently close to my number and missed qualifying by a couple of spots.

My goal for this year is to remember to relax and have fun and try not to worry so much about the competitive side of the events. After all, we're out playing golf with a bunch of good dudes. After that, I just want to minimize the outlier rounds (at least the high score outliers) and qualify for the post season. Here's a look at the schedule, we've got some really good tracks to play again this year, and yes, the Committee is at least trying to have the Cup event at Pinehurst (the worry there being fielding full teams at that price point and extra days off work for travel).

 

We are getting ready for event #3 at this point and I'm feeling pretty good about where my game is at and where it is going after a first lesson with a new coach. I'm trying to set up lesson #2 right now and would like to get it in before the next event.

Cheers and happy reading Spies!

 

 

[GregB135]

One week away from the next league event, and I have to go into it feeling pretty positive.

Went on a weekend golf trip with 12 of my league competitors to the RTJ trail in Alabama. 27 Holes at Farmlinks on Thursday, 18 standard and the 18 hole short course at Grand National on Friday, then 36 at Cambrian Ridge to cap the weekend. My only bad round of the weekend was the last, but even that finished with two pars. Found a pretty reliable go-to tee shot and hit the ball well for the most part all weekend. 

Then I had a crazy practice round on Thursday. Trying to keep working on some tips from my first lesson with a new coach, and walking up right after a morning tourney I chose the North Course at MacDill AFB. It tends to be the less cared for and has inconsistent greens that range from okay but pretty slow, to burned out weed covered disasters. Since that course is older, they're also pretty small. So even though I had only 2 GIR, I was right around the greens with my misses the whole round. Somehow, I managed to chip really close and wound up with a 66% up-and down rate. I also totaled only 24 putts for the round with 6 straight 1 putts - from tap-in to about 9 feet, to finish the round.

Followed that up with another lesson and got some set-up and posture keys to work on going into this week. The change feels weird right now, but it worked well during the lesson and hitting balls for about 30 minutes after.

Fox Hollow has some tough, narrow holes so we'll see what happens on Saturday.

Cheers Spies

[GregB135]

Not my best outing this time. (Final results pending at time of this post)

Even though I didn't feel like I was hitting the ball poorly, I only carded a 92 for net 76 at the Par 71 Fox Hollow Colf Club between Tampa and Tarpon springs. Probably going to be near the middle of the pack today.

It was a complete Jekyll and Hyde round, where I did have some good holes - should take one of the par 3 CTP prizes, along with that birdie. I made 2 bad swings with the driver, and one bad swing with an iron. Other than those, my full swing game was pretty good from tee to green. Wedge play let me down today, so I know where my next lesson is going to focus. I also couldn't catch a break it seemed for the whole round. I had to take an unplayable for a ball that was only 5 paces off the fairway but came to rest between a tree trunk and an elevated root - basically inside the tree. After one of those bad swings I made a bad shot choice, and played from inside a penalty area (trying not to give away an unnecessary stroke), but my feet were kind of sunk in the soft mud, and I pulled a shot that needed to fade and wound up with a penalty anyway. I did make one other bad shot choice and attempted a shot at a green when my stance was half-in half-out of a fairway bunker with the ball on an embankment not quite at knee height. That didn't turn out well, so hindsight says I should have just punched that forward down the line and gone into the green from a better spot.

Altogether, 2 bad shot choices and 3 bad swings - I can usually get away with numbers like that. As frustrating as it was, I didn't let that knock me off stride too badly. It was the missed wedge shots that proved most costly. I'm trying to focus on the positive that I made a lot of good swings in the round, and more than a few very good. I just wasn't scoring from there.

Next step is definitely to get with the new coach for a short game session. For those who may not know, I also got selected for the OnCore ball test. Not expecting to put those in play for the next event, but there's a good chance I'll get some testing done in time to see what they can do in the following event.

Til then, Cheers Spies and happy golfing.

[GregB135]

This week was the league's first Major Tournament of the season. We played at Juliette Falls in Dunnellon Florida. If you are looking for a really fun golf course that's always in really good shape, that not many know about, JF is the ticket. We always love playing there and it never disappoints. 

I've been a bit distracted from keeping the thread going since I was selected for the OnCore ball test. Interestingly, I put those in play this week after only trying them out on the practice green for about 30 minutes. The balls performed pretty well for me, I just didn't have my swing dialed in until the back 9. The front side was a struggle where I didn't feel like I was hitting the ball badly, I just wasn't hitting 'good enough' shots, and I never found average it was pars and doubles with a triple tossed in for fun. I got on a good run on the back nine though, and was only +3 at 17 tee, but had a bogey put lip out there, and then a bad tee shot and missed short putt at 18 got me a double to finish as well.

The good news was even though I was bottom 1/3 finish this week, the points boost for the Major moved me up into the Top 20 on the leader board. I actually started another discussion thread about what to do about a sandbagger in your league. Ours has struck again this week. He's played 3 of 4 events. Finished flight 1st or 2nd each time. And 2 of 3 posted tournament rounds were net 69 or better with the other being a 73. I was not the only one to mention this to the committee after the round. The committee chair was at least forthright in saying he did a deep dive into this individuals posted non-league scores for this exact reason last year, and couldn't find anything overtly shady. It's frustrating the rest of us though that this player finished last season as a 14, but show up to start this season as an 18 and posts 'outlier' rounds to be in the money every week.

We have a bit of a break until our next event, so I'll have some time to work on a thing or two with my coach. We attacked intermediate wedges last time out, and I was a lot better with those shots this week. I'm still working on one setup key from my previous lesson as well. I'll probably give it another week and see what he thinks we might want to work on next. 

Keep an eye on the OnCore VeroX1 test for what I'm up to over the next couple of weeks. The next league event is May 20 at Orange County National's Crooked Cat, the same track LIV played for their Orlando event. 

 

 

[GregB135]

Hey everybody!

Hope you've been reading along in the OnCore VeroX1 testing thread. The break in the league schedule has given me a chance to really put that ball through its paces, and it WILL be in play at this weekend's league event. Aside from doing the ball testing, I had a pretty good lesson with my swing coach where we worked on shortening my backswing which helps me keep my left arm from breaking down and maintain better depth in the takeaway. With my focus on that, I was able to notch an 83 in this week's practice round, albeit on a course that is a bit more forgiving than Orange County National's Panther Lake where we will be on Saturday. I realize I posted Crooked Cat earlier, but rest easy. The league is going to play that course in a few weeks for our 2-man event. 

Going into this week, I feel pretty good about where my swing is. I got into a groove with the irons with an easy to remember swing feel/thought/key and it got me 11 GIR even though I only managed 2 FIR. That was on the heels of playing in a scramble on Monday where I hit the ball reasonably well from tee to green. My partner and I just needed to make a few more putts to be in contention.

Panther Lake is going to play pretty long for most of the B-flighters. It's a smidgen over 6400 yards. I'm not uncomfortable with that length. It's teeth are 3 long par 3 holes and it will penalize poor course managers if they choose the wrong shot. 

As long as I can keep my cool and take it one shot at a time, I feel like I should be alright.

 

[GregB135]

Well,

The round at Panther Lake was just okay. I wound up with a top 15 finish, and earned some points. Then, I went on vacation for a week, and when I came back it was like I'd never swung a club before. Played a discouraging practice round during the week, then rolled right into a league event at the Ritz Carlton Grande Lakes Course. It was a penalty ridden disaster of a 100. 

I'm going to rail against the RC property for a moment. First, we were scheduled on Saturday afternoon after a recent aeration of the greens. The property staff assured our committee that the condition of the greens would not affect our event. When we showed up though, the greens were still dimpled and top dressed with sand. But for that, and several cart path only holes, the course conditions were fine. Then, with 40 players coming off the course planning to meet in the clubhouse bar/grill, they closed the kitchen before our final groups could get in. Yep, a dining room full of customers, and they were closing the kitchen at 4:00 with nothing visibly posted suggesting that would be the case. Clearly they are not interested in taking care of players who aren't staying at the resort. (never mind the bar menu included $25 hamburgers... just sayin) Good thing for the Ritz I wasn't planning on doing a full review of their facility this time around.

The next event is our two-man team event. The format for the past couple of years has been modified chapman. So each player hits a tee ball. Then each player plays from his partners tee ball. From there it is scarmble through the hole. Our modification is par 3 holes are played as scramble. It's a really fun format. Just have to wait and see which tees we will play from on Orange County National's Crooked Cat Course. My partner this year is another B-flight player who doesn't quite have the same length I do off the tees. So if we're on the 6300 yard tees we ought to be okay. If they move everyone to the next distance, that puts us at 6700, which is a lot of course for my game, and is going to mean some long shots for both of us into the greens.

Anyway, I've gotten some good practice in since last weekend. I also hit up the swing clinic this morning, and have another tune up lesson with my coach (also the clinic coach) on Thursday. So, all things considered, I should be ready to hit the ball pretty well next Saturday.

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there in the interim.

Cheers

[GregB135]

Getting ready to go out for a practice round today. Coming off a good range session and the clinic over the weekend, I'm hoping those carry over to the course. 

Things or 'feels' that I've been working on: 1. One piece takeaway to keep arms extended and create width in the backswing. 2. Cover my hands with the club head 1/2 way back 3. Feeling like I'm pulling my left upper arm straight up, in front of/in line with my left leg through the ball. 

1 and 2 kind of go together so it's really trying to connect the feel of those two things with a fluid rhythm back and through.

One thing I've definitely noticed over time is I play my best when I've got good temp and rhythm in my swing. If I get out of synch or too quick/jerky with either the takeaway or transition, things get awfully bad awfully quick.

We'll see how it goes today.

[GregB135]

On 6/19/2023 at 8:24 AM, GregB135 said:

Getting ready to go out for a practice round today. Coming off a good range session and the clinic over the weekend, I'm hoping those carry over to the course. 

Things or 'feels' that I've been working on: 1. One piece takeaway to keep arms extended and create width in the backswing. 2. Cover my hands with the club head 1/2 way back 3. Feeling like I'm pulling my left upper arm straight up, in front of/in line with my left leg through the ball. 

1 and 2 kind of go together so it's really trying to connect the feel of those two things with a fluid rhythm back and through.

One thing I've definitely noticed over time is I play my best when I've got good temp and rhythm in my swing. If I get out of synch or too quick/jerky with either the takeaway or transition, things get awfully bad awfully quick.

We'll see how it goes today.

Conceding that I was playing as the youngest member of the foursome so opted for the 6000 yard tees, I cranked out one of my best rounds of the season so far. 11 FIR/8 GIR 33 putts en route to an 82 (that included three penalties)

Getting ready to go for a tune up lesson with my coach this morning. At last weekends clinic he had me focusing on more of a one piece takeaway, so I think we're going to  pick up there and see where we go.

[GregB135]

We just had our league's 2-man event over the weekend. My partner and I were  both B-flight players, and unfortunately the course really favored the longer hitters. All the par 3 holes were 170+ for even the forward tees, and the par 5s were reachable in 2 for the longer hitters as well. With the modified Chapman format, that meant hitting longer irons into the greens for me. Even with that, we managed four birdies and came in at gross +1 for a net 66. That put us in the middle of the pack.

So now that we are just past the 1/2 way mark of the season, I'm sitting in 21st place on both leaderboards. Having missed two events already, that's not too bad. I only need another good result or two to have a chance to move up the Top-6 board. If I can keep playing steady, and not post another outlier of a bad round I like my chances to qualify for both post season events from here.

We've got a couple of weeks off before the next event so I'll try to squeeze in another practice round or two and at least one more lesson with my coach. The last two lessons have really improved my ball striking, and I recalled a previous putting lesson that got me rolling the ball really well over the past couple of rounds. So, we'll see how it goes from here.

[GregB135]

We are getting set for the 2nd league major of the season. Major events start at 50 points to the winner vs the regular events' 36, so they factor into the standings a lot more. Major #2 was supposed to be the Ritz Carlton event, but course conditions caused the league committee to downgrade that event to a regular one. (good for me because I played lousy and only posted 4 points). The next event is now the major, and will be at ChampionsGate on the International course.

Lookign at the course, and building my strategy card, there are a number of holes that benefit not choosing driver off the tee. That usually works in my favor because I do a little more pre-round strategy building than most of my B flight counterparts. There are still a couple of holes that will be a challenge to the B flight - 400+ par 4s and one 200+ par 3. As long as I can avoid big numbers on those holes, I think I ought to be okay. My last couple of lessons have me feeling pretty confident with my iron ball striking. So as long as I can execute my tee shots without too many big misses I think I'll have a chance to move up the leaderboards.

Plan is for a practice round mid week, and a lesson on Friday (day before, and yes I'm wary of that). With everything else feeling and working pretty well, I might ask for the lesson to focus on driver. With the other swing work, that now is the weak area as far as getting to the green.

Fingers crossed.

[GregB135]

Alright,

The last round was a mess. Managed to hit A, an, ah, one, singular GIR. Throw in a handful of penalties, and the inability to take advantage of several non-driver par 4's and we get a 24th place earning 97 net 83. Frustrating would be a major understatment.

Analyzing the round, I think I had a little too much of the day prior's lesson going through my head, and I was trying too hard to incorporate the new mechanics rather than just letting my swing flow.

Looking for bright spots in the round, it sounded like I was the only one in the field who didn't struggle with putting on the day. Even though I had two short game meltdown holes, I had two brilliant short game shots as well. I was well short of my normal number of pars though so that really elevated my score.

No lesson this week, just one practice session at the range and I'm gonna go with what I got and hopefully I can reel things back in and earn some points this week.

[GregB135]

Tried to keep the swing thoughts simple today, and it turned out a lot better than last time out. 11 FIR and 7 GIR for the round and I had an 86 for net 72. Most of the day was pretty average, with a mix of bloody brilliant, and bloody awful thrown in to round it all out. 

The bloody brilliant was a rediculous 40 foot putt with 6 feet of break that went in to save a par, and a near eagle on a 90 yard par-5 approach that got me my first competition birdie in quite a while. The bloody awful was one wild miss on a par-5 second that went OB to lead to a triple bogey, and at least two short game mis-steps that left me putts far too long to call reasonable for par save opportunities. At the end, I lost B-flight second place in a scorecard playoff. Big picture though, I earned top-10 points on the day (tied for 7th overall) which should move me up both standings boards. 

We've got a couple of weeks off now until our next event, so hopefully I can remember to keep it simple and relax and have fun.

[GregB135]

So the last two events haven't been so good. I had a really poor showing at the RItz Carlton event, then followed that up with another mediocre at best performance this past weekend at Countryside CC. The good news is, I basically stayed status quo in the standings. Sitting just outside the auto qualifying Top 20 on both boards. 

We have two weeks til our next event for me to try and figure out how to get off the tee in play again. That has been the real struggle lately. Saturday I hit only 2 FIR and had to play recovery golf all day on my way to a 93. On the bright side, I've made birdies in each of the last two competitive rounds, so I know if I can improve my play off the tee and give myself a chance to play normal iron shots into the greens I'm going to see much lower numbers than what I've posted lately.

[GregB135]

Getting ready for my final regular event of the season. I've had a couple of really good range sessions this week, so I'm feeling pretty good considering the quality of my play in the last two events.

I need to try not to focus on it, but I need a good showing this week to improve my position in the standings. I have to skip the last regular event to be there for Kiddo the Younger's dorm move in. The final event is the two-day major. Qualifying for post season may come down to earning a top-5 in that one. I'm in a decent position to be a captain's pick in the team cup event if I don't auto-qualify. I'm on the bubble to earn a spot in the end of season invitational.

Crossing fingers.

[GregB135]

I had a decent round this weekend. We had an afternoon start on one of the hottest days I can remember even as a Tampa native. Heat indexes were well over 100 and there was little relief from the sun either from cloud cover or breeze. It was a challenge to stay hydrated through the round.

My numbers were decent enough, and even though I didn't feel like I putted badly, I did hit a few bad putts and had 3 three putts and 38 total putts. The greens at Lake Jovita are known for being fast and challenging. Yesterday they were more just challenging. Many of them have deceptive slopes and undulations so you have to be really attentive in identifying the true down hill direction, and finding the fall line if you are above the hole. I dind't start very well. I wound up having one bad/big number hole early and that was followed almost immediately by a really bad break on a bunker lie. So my first four holes included two doubles and a penalty induced quad bogey. I did rally the remainder of the front, including a tap in birdie on the 9th to salvage a 45. All of us were struggling with the heat on the back nine, but I made one more birdie on my way to a 42 back nine. Unfortunately there were lots of low net scores on the day, so that all landed me in the lower middle of the field. Disappointingly, if I had managed to avoid that quad with only a double bogey, I would have been in a scorecard playoff for second in the flight. The field was that close on the day.

Encouraged by hitting 9 greens in regulation, and that I only had one wild miss with the driver. That wild miss was fortunate to occur on a really open par 5 and I managed birdie behind it. Even though I was more consistently close to my lines off the tee, I did have to manage my way out of 4 fairway bunkers, and I was 3/4 getting back into play, and 1/4 GIR from those. I feel like my last lesson was good, and that got reinforced by watching a seperate online video to dial in some good iron striking. I had at least 3 first putts less than 10 feet on the day. So going forward I feel like I'm in a pretty solid place. Maybe a little more work on greenside play and I can have at least some false confidence.

[GregB135]

Hello Friends,

Sorry, I've been side tracked for a bit. I've you're following, I was selected to be a Forum Member Tester for the Titleist T Series irons, and we've been busy with starting up that testing process. 

As for Life in the B-Flight, here is where we stand. SWMBO and I are preparing to depart this morning for PGA National Resort where the league is having our final regular season event, the 2-day major. We are playing on the Fazio course Saturday morning, then the Champion on Sunday. I"m in a postion I don't really like. I'm sitting just outside the qualifying line for both post season events. In the Top-6 standings that set the field for the Invitational I'm at 23rd, and I will need to post a top-10 finish over the weekend to stand a chance to move up. In the overall standings for the team cup qualifying, I'm 25th and not sure I can earn enough points this weekend to move up 5  spots and auto qualify. I'm in a solid position in both golf and social standing to probably be a captain's pick so I'm still optimistic I'll wind up playing in this year's cup. What I need to avoid is having the mindset of 'I need to be top 5'. I'm going to do my best to have the mindset be 'just play this shot'.

I do feel like I'm swinging pretty well right now though. Swing feel has been pretty good with the irons (the T-200s in the bag may know they might get replaced and are fighting to stay alive). My last league round I had 9 GIRs but one big number hole and a poor putting day got me only an 87 from there. Next practice round was better and was an 81 from 8 GIR. In another short range session I hit about 20-25 8-irons and saw 3 of those bounce and hit the target post on the range. I'll take that percentage any day. That feel got some reinforcement with my coach this week, and we got the long clubs moving down and holding the line a little better with one small feel tweak. 

Regardless of how the golf turns out, I'm looking forward to this weekend being a lot of fun. Now, repeat after me - "Just play this shot", and "Relax, Have Fun"

[GregB135]

We wrapped up our regular season this past weekend with our 2-day major event at PGA National. The Saturday round was on the Fazio course, with Sunday played on the Champions course where they host the Honda Classic in the spring.

If this were a course review I'd say more, but.. If we were playing a local club I'd be calling the course conditions really good to great. However, for an elite golf resort (over $1000 for single room and 2 rounds), that displays the PGA of America badge about everywhere, and is an annual tour event host; the conditions, though good, were not quite up to expectations (especially bunkers). Rant complete. (The steak house on site though was phenomenal)

My Saturday round was only meh... I started strong with playbook pars on the first two holes, and five pars overall on the first nine. I was a bit under the self induced weather that morning though, and that plus the heat, caught up to me on the second nine. Even with that and never feelinlg like I had my A swing, it wasn't a disaster. I had one big number hole on each side and  carded a 93 net 80. That score put me in the lower 1/3 of the field, which was significantly smaller given the price of admission this time. Sunday was a bit more challenging as we had 10-15 mph breeze blowing all day long. I felt much better, but still never quite had my A swing rolling, but still managed an 88. I had one penalty induced triple bogey on an otherwise decent fron nine, but alas the Bear Trap... playing mostly straight into that breeze.

I started it off with a bogey on 15, par on 16, and then 17 bit me (hard) with two in the PA before making a 3rd guy par (that means quad bogey). Departing that tee I growled at my cart partner not to remind me where I was score-wise on the back nine (it was 2 over at that tee) because I didn't want to be that mad. A bit of a bad break/bounce on 18 and I finished with bogey for 88 net even par. That earned me a 7th place finish in a field of 21, so I had one of the better Sunday rounds in the group even though I was playing about equal to my foursome.

Since this was a Major event for the league, it was worth 50 points to first place. My 44 points for solo 7th was enough to move me up into the Top-20 on the overall leaderboard and make me an auto qualifier for the upcoming Tampa Cup team event in the post season. Interesting that a 44 point score did not move me up as far in the Top-6 standings and I finished at 23rd there, 10 points below the last qualifying spot. Looking at the leaderboard, it took some consistently strong play to qualify for the end of season invitational. The final qualifier had 184 points, meaning their top six scores averaged just under 31 points. With regular events earning 36 for first, it took 6 top 10s to be in contention. Well done to those who earned their spots this year.

We got this last event in just ahead of Hurricane Isalda's arrival. My area east of Tampa wasn't hit very hard. Please send prayers for those in the storm's path north and west of us, and along the coast where the storm surge flooding is occuring.

 

[GregB135]

Rather than change the thread name and start again, I'm just goingt to pick up here where we left off.

I'm getting ready to start my 6th season playing on The Tampa Tour. It is a stroke play, full handicap, amateur league. We play usually 14-16 regular season events over the summer season, then there are two qualification based post season events. The field of 40 players in each event is divided into two flights based on the mid-point of the handicaps for that weeks players. Last season the cut line was usually around 10 or 11. 

After barely missing qualifying for both post-season events last year, my goal is to earn top-20 status on both leader boards and be an auto entry for both. I played in both last year thanks to being selected as a captain's pick for the Tampa Cup, where I was 2-0-1 for the weekend in match play. It may be a little harder this year as I am starting the season with my number at 11. If last year's pattern holds, that will make me one of the 'bubble boys', and I'll wind up bouncing between the A and B flights each week depending on who enters. The struggle for me will be playing back one set of tees when I'm in A flight. They tend to put the A's at about 6600 yards, while the B flight plays about 6200. 

I've been working on my game through the off season with lessons and practice rounds. I've seen scores get more consistently in the mid-80's range, even when it feels like I'm not hitting it well. I've putted pretty well so I'm a lot more confident once I reach the greens. 

We had some changeover on the league committee, and they did a great job setting up our schedule. I'll cue that up in another post and start working on my course review format for the year.

Hang on folks, and here we go - Life on the Bubble 2024!

[GregB135]

Here is the course lineup for the Tampa Tour 2024 Season -

If you are familiar with any of these, it feels a lot more like we are the "Tampa" tour again, after ranging out sometimes 3 hours drive or more over the last two seasons. We are back to playing a few member favorites, and there are a couple of new tracks for me in this years lineup.

Me personally, I'm excited to have the Innisbrook courses back this year. Copperhead gets more publicity for hosting the Valspar Championship each year (i've got my Friday tickets). IMO, and many agree, the Island course is the better/more challenging track. If is had more room to facilitate the spectators they would host the pros on that one.

Both of the Orange County National tracks are crowd pleasers. Juliette Falls is a hidden gem in Dunellon that quickly became a favorite among the league players. I'm looking forward to TPC Prestancia as a new site for me, I'll just have to qualify for that one.

Once we get the season rolling, I'll queue up the course reviews under 'Greg-with-the-hat's Tampa Course Reviews' or something similar.

[GregB135]

Season opener is this Sunday. Sounds like it's going to be a fun season again. Our new committe members have instituted some changes, so it will be interesting to see how those work out. They are always looking to improve our pace of play, yet, asked us all to try and use a live scoring app this year. Not sure if that won't slow us down some. 

Either way, I'm a little nervous going in because my work schedule and some weather kept me from practicing this week. My only opportunity to hit any balls is going to be in a scramble event on Saturday. 

[GregB135]

First event didn't go so well.

My very first tee shot of the season... cart path bounce into penalty area. Took a drop, played a recovery shot, then first full iron swing of the season... flag bomb to 3 feet, then yup, I missed that eason one and still made bogey.

The rest of the round was the full mixed bag of good shots, bad shots, a couple more penalties, and a couple of bad breaks and bounces just for fun. In the end it was a 92 net 80 to finish bottom third in the field and earn only 11 season points. 

Practice round today wasn't much better. I hit a bunch of wild shots early, but reined things back in enough to feel like I have a 'go-to" feel again for my swing.

Event #2 is this saturday at Lake Jovita's south course. Always a crowd pleaser, and a good track for me in the past. Fingers crossed I can earn a few more  points this time.

[GregB135]

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.

[GregB135]

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.

[GregB135]

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.

[GregB135]

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.

[GregB135]

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. 

Edited May 28 by GregB135

[GregB135]

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.

[GregB135]

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.