Club pro shoots 103 during Web.com Tour event

[Joe Bausch]

I take back everything I said about this guy a few weeks back. After playing horribly in my club championship qualifier this weekend, I'm seriously contemplating taking up another hobby.

You can okay well in casual rounds, but there's something about competition, even at the club level, that just doesn't fit well for me.

+1

[Patrick_Mucci]

See, that's not the case for me, oh green one.
I'll smash 4-iron into the fairway and work my way back from there.

Under severe pressure, I have my doubts that you could reach and hit the fairway in a substantive competition with a 4-iron, leaving you in the rough and incapable of reaching the green.

When the wheels come off, they usually don't come off selectively, with a single club, but more often, systemically, in that your game represents a train wreck.

Have you a personal approach or, as the French say, a method, for lug-nutting the wheels back on?

The first rule is not to give up.
Give up and the downward spiral usually continues.

For me it's always been a mental and timing issue.

Certainly you try to reflect on what's going wrong and how to right the ship.
Is there a pattern to your problems ?  If so, what's the cause ?
If not, ....... Yikes, then it's probably not mechanical, but a timing issue and/or pure nerves.

Mechanics and timing are more easily corrected.
Nerves are another matter.

Each golfer has to wrestle with those demons

[Dane Hawker]

59 shot today by Will Wilcox. Misses out by 1 shot. Kiwi Steven Alker takes the win!

[Andy Troeger]

I was looking at the scores for the Web event this week. The HIGHEST score for a player that completed 36 holes was 147 (73-74). I've never seen that kind of score finish dead last! Of the guys that made the cut, the last place finisher was something like -5 for the week.

I've played Willow Creek--I don't recall it being THAT easy!

[John_Conley]

I've played Willow Creek--I don't recall it being THAT easy!

I have not played there.  During the telecast there was a comment that with warm weather and altitude it was playing at the equivalent of a 6,200 yard golf course.

Scores were very low.

[Pat Burke]

A couple of years ago, at the age of 49, a couple of members at my club
asked why I wasn't trying the Champions tour qualifying.
I had not played a competitive round of golf in 8+ years,
an had played MAYBE 10 rounds the whole year.
The entry was too expensive, would miss too much work, etc. etc.
Well, right at the deadline, I was convinced to enter, with a huge financial
assist from the same group of members.
I drove to Primm Valley to play a practice round, 2 weeks before the tourney.
Playing with new irons I just received (my old ones were groove illegal), I was actually
nervous in the practice round!!
When I teed it up for my first round, it literally took the entire front nine to get reasonably
confident that I wouldn't hit it sideways! 
I have a pretty extensive tournament background, but stepping up in those conditions takes
something very hard to explain.  You know your entire club will see your scores, people are
hoping you do well, and I was just hoping to hit the clubface!

As far as dealing with having no idea, in my head at least, I just force myself to pick the club
I know is correct, set up, and hit the damn thing!!  Rather miss being stupid than being a pu$$y

[John_Conley]

Pat, the club where I worked had a longtime head pro and a contemporary that was their teaching pro at the time.  Both were right around 50 years of age at the advent of the PGA Senior Tour (now Champions Tour).  Right around 1980 if memory serves?

The club pro was content to be a club pro.  He occasionally entered events, but he would only tee it up after working a few hours or a half-day.  Obviously not entering things far from home.

The teaching pro was a very good player at the time.  I believe he had a Top 10 finish in the US Senior Open.

The HP never understood why the TP was so excited about the possibility of getting a spot on the Tour.  (He never did, but I assume he attended whatever qualifying school there was.)  Then, as now, it was a pretty "closed shop".

"You know who's going to beat you when you are over 50?" he would say.  "The same guys that beat you before!"

With very few exceptions, that is true!

Thanks for sharing your story.  Your well-meaning friends were nice to encourage your entry.  That said, a part of you may have sensed what the HP believed.  On top of that, your Q-school attempt was complicated by years removed from competitive professional golf.

[Tom_Doak]

Not saying this guy isn't a great teacher. He very well may be. But what I am saying is that I can't imagine the notoriety is going to be good for business.

As a lawyer, I wouldn't generate a ton of business by losing a case. It may not have any bearing on whether I'm a good lawyer, but losing isn't good for business.

I read all of the posts on this topic, and this was by far the most disturbing.

[Jud_T]

Pat,

Thanks for posting.  This is the first post that has changed my mind on this guy taking a spot at the event after not picking up a club for almost a month.  As we all know when golf goes sideways at any level, it can have no mercy.

[BHoover]

Not saying this guy isn't a great teacher. He very well may be. But what I am saying is that I can't imagine the notoriety is going to be good for business.

As a lawyer, I wouldn't generate a ton of business by losing a case. It may not have any bearing on whether I'm a good lawyer, but losing isn't good for business.

I read all of the posts on this topic, and this was by far the most disturbing.

Okay, I said that I take back everything I said about this guy. My bad. After realizing how bad of a competitive golfer I am, I won't criticize anyone else again.

But to be fair, I never questioned whether he is a good teacher. I only questioned whether his showing might impact his teaching business. I hope it doesn't.

[Ronald Montesano]

substantive

This is the key word in our exchange, and it deserves expansion.

Substantive must mean an event where you feel challenged by all elements of the competition, giving the wheels a chance to come off. The assistant pro must have felt so challenged, so out of his element that he viewed the Web.Com event as substantive.

What none of us yet knows is whether he had set foot on VNGC before his practice round, or if he even had a practice round.

[Ted Sturges]

At a course I grew up near (Victoria National), a club pro shot 103 in the 2nd round today.  No, he did not make the cut.  I think I shot 103 in non-tournament conditions a few years back with two GolfClubAtlas guys.  

But the comments from the fellow are just awesome:

"I think it's important to lead by example and show the youth that no matter how bad you play, it's important to finish," he told Golf Channel. "No one likes to see a quitter. I know none of the members at my club or any students that I teach would want to see me quit."

And more:

"It's not much fun to shoot 103, but I still had fun," he said. "Everyone has their good days and their bad days; you just have to keep your head in it, just keep plugging away and trying to get better."

Joe,

Ward told me about this thread, and I thank you for launching it.  It is a very interesting story. 

First of all, Victoria National is that hard (especially if you start hitting it sideways).  In my years of officiating, I worked several USGA sectional events there, including US Amateur qualifiers and US Open qualifiers.  In EVERY event I worked there, we had players who did not break 100 (in addition to those who "No carded").  To get into those fields, a golfer had to have less than a 2 handicap...so lots of "good golfers" have had bad enough days at that course to shoot 100 or higher.

I don't know this young man, but the head pro at his club, Mr. Jack Barber is a good friend.  Jack is one of the best club professionals in the nation (he has in fact been recognized by the PGA of America as the National Golf Professional of the year).  Jack runs the best club pro training program I have ever seen.  If you play in a member guest at his club, all the members of his staff have studied the names in the field prior to the tournament are are trained to greet you by name ("hello Mr. Sturges, so glad you are playing at Meridian Hills again this year").  Jack has placed countless assistant pros into head pro positions over the years (they have his professional golf "family tree" posted proudly in the Meridian Hills clubhouse).  I don't know the young man who shot a bad score at this recent event at VN, but I plan to seek him out.  I know the young man can play well, as he has shot some very good scores in Indiana section events.  What I didn't know about him was what a poised person he is under extreme pressure (I'm quite sure Jack Barber knew this...which is probably one of the reasons he hired him).  Reading the above quotes he made reveal the character of the man (Tiger and Rory could learn a thing or two about how a "golf professional" is supposed to conduct himself when he's having a bad day).  I'd rather have my son take a lesson from this young man than watch Tiger swear on TV after a bad shot, or watch Rory walk off after a bad 9 holes.  Count me among those who think that this episode will HELP this young man's business and his career as a "golf professional".

TS
TS