First Round Finally Complete

After two days of patiently waiting we finally got onto the golf course and played. It was still a cold day and we got rained on throughout the day, but it was much better than what Thursday and Friday were like.

I played well on Saturday and shot a 71. I hit the ball great and only found myself in trouble a few times. I didn’t make as many putts as I would’ve liked, but I’ll remain patient and wait for them to start dropping. The last thing I want to do is start trying to force the putts into the hole.

The other two guys in my group played well too. We all fed off each other’s good shots. One of the guys I played with was Ian Hessels. He’s originally from Stillwater, MN and he shot a 69. The other guy, David Suggs, also shot a 69.

I tee off at 8:33 Sunday morning and that will be the final round. I’ll update tomorrow evening.

Neil

Round One Postponed Again

Still no golf played. The weather will not let up. It continues to rain, which gives the maintenance no time to get on the golf course and prepare it for tournament golf. Officials has said that they hope to begin Saturday morning at 7:30 so I'll be patient until then.

On another note I'm going to post my email address in case some of you want to get ahold of me. A few people have talked to me about wanting to get in touch with me, but not sure how to. If you are looking to talk to me you can do a few things:

1. Post a Comment. Comments are public and can be read by anybody so don't leave a comment if you want it to be private.


2. Signing my Guestbook. You can leave a simple message or more. You can also make the message private so only I can read it.

Neil

Round One Postponed

Round One was postoned because of weather. They didn't even begin play this morning. The course took on too much water throughout the night and with a forecast of "rain all-day" the officials didn't want to try and get started. Let's hope this bad weather blows through by Friday, but the forecast really didn't look good for the rest of the week. I don't mind the bad weather, but if the greens have standing water on them, then the course is not playable.

My first round is set to begin on Friday afternoon at about 1pm. I haven't officially heard if the tournament has been changed to a 54-hole event or if they are still going to try and get in 72 holes. The website says round one is "postponed" or "suspended" until Friday. One employee at the golf course told me round one has been "cancelled". Three different words to discribed one thing and they all mean something different in regards to rest of the weekend. That's enough semantics from me. I'm just here to play golf, not give an english lesson.

Enjoy this lovely May weather. I can see that it's not any warmer back home in River Falls or in the Twin Cities.

Neil

Indian Lakes Resort Classic

Link-O-Rama

1. My Tee Times on Thursday and Friday are 1:33 pm off of hole #10 and then 8:33 am off of hole #1.


2. Where am I?


3. Weekly weather forecast


4. Golf Course's scorecard and information


5. Player's in the field


6. Tournament's schedule of event
   

That's all for now. I'm playing in the Pro-Am Tuesday morning. Hopefully those thunderstorms miss us and we can play.

Neil

A Better Round

I'm sorry it's so late, but I'm back home after a long 2nd round and a drawn out drive home. Many of you probably saw my 2nd round score of 72, but in case you haven't you can click on the 72 to see my scorecard. It was a better round, especially the first 12 holes where I played a much more patient game. I just let the shots happen and didn't pressure myself on the putting greens. I struggled towards the end and finished with 2 bogies, but I was still happy with the round and glad I put together a better round.

My next tournament is in Bloomingdale, Illinois at Indian Lakes Resort.

Neil

Horrible Day

It was a rough day today. After a solid start, my game fell apart and I ended up shooting a terrible 80.

I hope tomorrow will yield a much better score. I won't update, but feel free to check. I tee off at 2:30 so I won't be done until 8pm (and that's if we don't have any weather delays).

Neil

Monday Qualifier a Success

Hello Everybody,

I'm writing from Augusta, Georgia with news that I successfully monday qualified into this week's event. I would have been exempt if I had played one more event, but since last week was my first one I had to earn my way into this tournament. It was actually good for me to play a round that meant something. If I didn't make it I would've had to decide whether or not to come home tonight or stick around until Thursday to see if I could sneak in as an alternate.

I shot a 76, and 79 was needed to qualify. Through 14 holes I was even par and then I finished bogey, bogey, par, double. Not a very good finish, but overall it was a really good day. I hit the tee ball great and had control of my iron play. It's too bad that I didn't make more putts through the first 14 holes because I could have had a better score.

This new course is totally different than last week's course. Last week, the bermuda grass was all dormant (which means dead) so there was no rough. This week has thick rough and fairways that aren't dormant, but quite healthy. Also, the greens this week are bent grass which is what we are all used to up North. I'll be working hard on the greens the next two days so I can putting can catch up with my ball striking.

As I said before, I'm writing from Augusta, Georgia. The main reason for that is because I don't have access to the internet in McCormick, South Carolina. I don't even get cell phone service there so it's kind of like a black hole for technology. I don't know how I will be updating throughout the week, but I'll figure something out. If you want to know where McCormick, South Carolina is look on a map at the Georgia-South Carolina border. North of Augusta (Georgia), but South of Greenville (South Carolina) is where I'm at. All around me are State Parks and Strom Thurmand Lake. Gorgeous area to visit if you want to fish or spend time on a lake. It isn't crowded at all, very quiet.

The reason I traveled to Augusta today was to 1) get something to eat (my only choices in McCormick are Subway and Hardees) 2) find internet service (I found some in a hotel's parking lot: Thank you Augusta Suites Inn) and 3) drive past Augusta National Golf Club. It was cool to see Magnolia Lane. It is right off the road and despite a strong urge to pull in there, I did not.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll post again later this week.

Neil
This Week's Field (my name will be added soon)

36 Holes.......1 Birdie......2 Eagles!?!?

Yes, that's true. It's sad, but somehow I made more eagles than I did birdies. I like the 2 eagles, but only 1 birdie in 36 holes is horrible. Especially since I had plenty of chances. I never felt comfortable on the greens and never took advantage of my good shots by making putts longer than 10 feet. I was too worried about the speed of the green (or lack there of) and the bumpiness of them. That prevented me from making solid strokes. One good thing about my putting was that on the greens that were smooth, I made putts. Just goes to show you how your mind can get in the way of making a good putting stroke.

Besides the putting I struggled with my tee shots today. I needed to hit my 3 wood and Driver better to day if I wanted to score better. When I did find the fairway, I hit good approach shots and had opportunities to make birdies.

The score was better than yesterday so I hope to take the positives from today and this week and use them next week.

I will talk to you next from McCormick, South Carolina. Until then, have a nice weekend.

Neil
My Scorecard

A Good Day (despite what the score was)

Hello All,

Looking at the score, you might not think today was a good day, but it was. I hit a lot of good shots. It's just unfortunate that my bad shots and my mistakes blew up into really big mistakes. I did struggle with putting today, not making many putts. Overall I felt very cautious on the greens. The greens are slow and bumpy and my putting stroke isn't quite in mid-season form. I didn't make anything over 15 feet so despite feeling good about hitting the ball, I wasn't rewarded or able to take advantage of the good shots.

I saved my round on number 17 when I holed my shot from 110 yards. My second shot actually flew right into the hole and stayed there. It destroyed part of the cup and made me feel much better about my round. The next hole, 18, I hit my drive through the fairway and into a hazard. It was a dried up creek so I hacked my next shot through some branches, under a tree, and up onto the green. I two-putted from 25 feet to finish with a 77.

I play late on Friday so I won't update until after 9pm. You can wait until I update, or check the scores here.

Thanks for all the emails and phone calls. I appreciate all of my friends and family cheering me on.

Neil
Scorecard for Round 1
Leaderboard for entire Tournament

A Friend in Need

Hello Family and Friends,

On a sad note, one of my friends from Gustavus had an accident and was seriously injured last week. Thankfully he's been improving each day and he is responsive and alert.

Jake was a teammate of mine on the golf team at Gustavus. He is one year older and works down in Arizona as an Assistant Golf Pro. Jake was a great teammate. He worked his butt of to make the varsity team his senior year and helped us have one of the best spring season's in school history. Jake was always helpful and supportive. I can't even count all of the times that he gave me a ride to the golf course. Last fall, while in Arizona Jake helped me out of a jam and let me play golf at the golf course he works at.

For those of you reading this that know Jake, you probably already knew what happened. In case you weren't notified about his website, here is a link. Keep Jake in your thoughts and prayers so that his health continues to improve and that he makes a full recovery.

As for me, I've played the course the past two days and really like it. It's a great layout. It isn't in very good shape, but overall it's a really nice golf course. It's has everything: a short par 3, 4, and 5, and a long par 3, 4, and 5. Tomorrow will be more practice. There is a pro-am so I won't play until late afternoon.

Final Thing:

For those of you who have subscribed to my website, have you received any emails notifiying you that my website's changed? There may be a problem with the subscriptions so let me know if you've gotten the emails.

Neil
Jake Sand's Website