Written: October 27, 2010
First round of the four-day tournament began this morning. 5:30am bus then arrived at the golf course at around 6:15am, enough time to eat and warm up for my 7:50 tee time on hole 1. I did a full warm up session with full swing, bunker, chipping, and putting included. When it was time to walk over to the first tee, I was sweating profusely not because I was tired in any way but because the Jakarta humid heat was intense. That weather would continue through the day without a cloud in the sky and very little wind.
Among the group, Tonight (his nick name), myself, and some Thailander, was first to play. It’s a 540 yard par 5 and I’d say there’s a lot of room off the tee despite having an out of bounds on the left and water lining the entire right side. After hearing my name called to tee off, there I was, staring off at the distance at the large red and white antenna I was aiming at. At the same time, I began to experience a slight numbing feeling. I couldn’t discount the fact that this moment was big for me, the beginning of a 72 hole tournament against a hand picked field of experienced Asian touring pros. As much as you would like to replicate that feeling in practice standing on the first tee of a meaningful tournament, it’s simply impossible. What you have to do instead is ‘own’ the situation when you get in it. Think of nothing else but the target and putting on a good smooth swing. You just have to trust that the swing you have will take that ball where you want it. And that I did. I flushed my drive straight at the antenna splitting the fairway. Off and running and I thought from that point, it’s go time!
However, things quickly turned the other way. 6 over through 6 holes in a flash including a wakeup double bogey on the par 5 first hole with just a 90 yard approach for my third shot. Both my doubles on hole 1 and 6 were a result of 3-putts from 6 feet away. Both downhill side hill putts in which I lipped out twice - once for par and once for bogey. In addition, the two other bogeys were two 5 iron overcooked draws that ended up left of the green in impossible up and down spots since both greens were tilted left to right. Yet through all that, I remained resilient, kept my head up and kept on going. Sometimes it’s difficult in those moments to stick with what you’ve got. You immediately feel like there’s something wrong and that there’s something that needs to be changed. But I kept playing on. Same routine, same swing thought. I figured, it can only get better from here. Good breaks are bound to come and putts can’t keep lipping out all the time. So I remained patient, but the over par streak kept rolling with another bogey on the long 215yard par 3 8th.
Things seemed to turn around on the 9th when I flushed a solid 7-iron 172yards from the rough dead on line with the pin to about 12 feet. Despite the miss, I knew I had something going. On 10, I hit a driver, then a pitching wedge to about 5 feet above the hole. Extremely quick downhill sidehill putt once again. The only chance you can make the putt is if you give it a good roll but risk running it by 10 feet or so. The greens were extremely quick. They were running at about 12.5 on the stimpmeter. So I stepped up and confidently rolled it in dead center. Back to 6 over. Made confident swings and two putt pars until a lip out bogey on 16. But what I remember most are the last two holes when I made a 10 foot downhill sidehill putt with 3 feet of break and the final hole when I got up and down from the greenside bunker and made a 6 footer for par for a 78.
I’m quite a ways back from the leader, but I hung in there. In the afternoon, I got a good practice session with Juvic Pagunsan who shot a low 64 8-under par round and is leading the tournament. Seeing the way he hits the ball is impressive, but not out of reach. We’d go back and forth after watching him hit a shot, I’d take a swing a one, and I realized, ‘hey, I’m doing the same stuff he’s doing’.
Just gotta keep plugging and we’ll see what happens the next 3 days. The confidence is still there, so don’t worry ya’ll!
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