Location
Austin, TX
Dates
26-Oct to 29-Oct-2022
PDGA Link
https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/55901#MP40
Recap
This was the event I was working towards all year. I qualified 2 ways. First way, I won an NADGT event in my division. Second way, I was a points leader for the state of AZ. Truly, the points leader thing was just playing in every single NADGT event I could make it to.
The event was in Austin, TX, I booked an AirBnB in Southern Austin (Kyle, TX) and drove there and back. The drive there took 2 days, drive back only 1 day.
My Brother (Bob Halliday) was able to make it out to the event and caddied for me the entire event. This was super helpful in multiple ways but I can name the 2 most powerful ways.
- It was raining and wet almost every day. Not having to worry about wet and muddy discs and not having to carry around a super loaded bag, priceless.
- Mental game. Bob would remind me “pick your line”, “putt it hard into the chains”, “you got this”. This prevented me from mindlessly throwing and making amateur mistakes.
Scoring
The event was set up so that you played 3 days and then there was a cut. You then played 1 more day/round and the top 4 made it to the final 9 special event.
Scoring wise, each day, I played ok. I had 3-4 “dumb” strokes per round but other than that there wasn’t much going on. I just played steady.
I will say I made a ton of Par save putts, which is great, but when I had the same putts for Birdie, I didn’t convert.
Made the first cut and was on the 3rd or 4th card back. 4th round I was able to move my way up to 8th place, missing the top 4 cut. I think I just played steady and everyone else moved back to me.
3 Learnings
- Trees man. Need to practice throwing lines when I play. AZ courses tend to be wide open and I need to practice throwing low straight shots instead of hyzer bombs.
- Go tunnel vision on putts, do not worry what other golfers are thinking if you are taking an extra 10 seconds to putt (less than 30 still).
- Without a great forehand in my bag, getting really good control of my turn over shots (Discraft Meteor) was really helpful.
Bonus Learning : Have a caddy