JULY 30 – AUGUST 5TH

TEXAS GOLF Association Stableford tournament in Kerrville @ Riverhill Country Club

I want to say first of all what a great facility and staff at Riverhill CC that made the tournament a great experience for me this past week. Everyone was so nice and helpful no matter what you asked for and your question was during the tournament.

I was asked to play from a friend that i have known for some time. He usually plays with someone else but i guess his past partner wasn’t available so I substituted for him. I didn’t play bad just not good for the entire week. I hit many greens in regulation and hit many fairways as well but once again the putting was the down fall of the score. I didn’t however make some nice putts so the work i have put in tis working when i trust enough to allow the putter to work for it self instead of me forcing it so much of the time.

I haven’t played on bent grass greens in some time and they were good but not quick because they were having to syringe them due to the heat and lack of rain. They were smooth and soft so you could hit the ball the exact yardage and not worry the ball would roll over the green. So wedges around the green were different since we work on rolling the ball to the hole all the time and these greens the ball would grab or stop because of the wetness of the green.

The course has been around for some time and the layout is very good and challenging. The tees we played from made it a bit short for me but the course is narrow and well lined by trees and hazards, and high grass which i was able to find a few times. The trees were not large in height but wide and thick. Not as easy to hit around as a pine tree and more like a weeping willow. Where the branches fall to the ground leaving you with no opportunity to go through them but have to go either over or around.

I got a few unfortunate bounces during round one that i was not able to recover from the first day. I did however putt better this week even though i have som three putts i putted better overall. I made quite a few 3-6 footers to save par from a poor reading or misjudged the speed a few times on long putts. And i was able to stand over a few birdie putts and feel confident to stroke them in the hole with out worry of a 3 putt. This all not bad for placing a new putter in the bag in the practice round and using it throughout the tournament. I went back to a small putter grip instead of the midsize grip I had had on the one before. It helps give me a better feel and we will see this weekend because i have another tournament this weekend to play in at Walden.

I worked hard on getting the ball to move right to left recently and since i have always hit a slight draw it was nice that it continued to be that way through out the tournament. I was able to eliminate one side of the hole and everything was hit with a draw. It was nice to do for a change since i have been missing the shot in both directions and therefore were not able to play a really good round of golf. Now that i have it going in one direction i look forward to playing a bit better going forward.

I hit some good shots and was able to maneuver some shots around trees knowing the ball would move right to left. I honestly don’t think i missed one shot to the right for 4 straight rounds unless I aimed the shot to far to the right for the shot i was trying to play.

One of the great things about playing in events like this is meeting new people. I was able to meet 6 new people that we actually played with not to mention various people that they were with so all in all i was able to meet close to 20 new people and some of them are actually coming to the event this weekend at walden.

I want to thank my host for asking me to play i just wish we would have played a stroke and a half better to squeak in and take second. However the two some we played with on Sunday played very ell on the back nine and had a multitude of birdies to beat us out.

Congratulations to all the winners and i will be back next year to try and get in the winners circle.