Tournament Prerparation for West Florida

We begin this week preparing for our opening tournament in Pensicola which is in the North West of Florida. The tournament is hosted by the University of West Florida and will contain 8 of the top 10 Division II schools, ranked before the season. At Nova we are ranked 3rd in the Nation for Division II, If we were to win the first tournament beginning Monday we will go to the the number team in the USA, which is very exciting and motivates me to perform well.

As for preparation, I took my stats from the last 6 qualifying rounds. The stats proved how much i had improved in some key areas, my Driving Accuracy was averaging 70% of Fws hit which is a great bonus. The biggest improvement was seen in my short game, every round i was averaging at least 50 percent scrambling stats. The biggest improvements however must come from 3 areas, Iron play hitting more greens, Bunker play and Putting. If i do these things better at W Florida i will have a great tournament.

On the Mental side of things, Im currently trying to create a practice plan with my coach in order to get the most of my practice. I want to make practice as difficult as possible so then when i get out onto the course it seems easy. Other areas include my Pre Shot Routine, and acceptance of bad shots

I also had some advice with my swing coach Hugh Marr, iv added some videos of my swing below

Nova Southeastern

I arrived here at Nova on August the 19th. I chose Nova because its a great business school, blended with a great golf program. Since being here i have finished qualifying rounds for the first 2 tournaments which are at W Florida and Yale. The qualifying was over 6 rounds of golf at Grande Oaks golf club in Fort Lauderdale and Emerald Hills in South Florida. Grande Oaks is a great traditional course with tight fairways and a lot of water hazards. Emerald Hills is by far the toughest course i have ever played. It holds regional qualifying for the US Open and around par usually qualifies. Measuring 7450 yards of the tips, we play number 8 a par 4 at 520 yards into wind with no roll on these soft fairways, its safe to say if u make 4 it feels like an birdie. With the climate were getting at the moment Drives are more likely to get backspin than wedges.

Anyway my scores at grande oaks were 77 (6 over) and 68 (3 under) the second round i played decent but excelled with my short game converting 7/8 miss greens and having just 26 putts a HUGE step in the right direction. Now onto 4 rounds at Emerald Hills, the HARDEST Course in South Florida. I was buzzing and felt so confident after my 68. I fired a 77 (5 over) off the back tees in the rain. I played rubbish but put a steady score on the board. Emerald off the tips can make you feel like you played bad when you didn't.

Next onto more hell at Emerald next round i fired 77, then 76, then 75 a great finish placing me 4th overall with one round at PGA National which holds the Honda Classic.

I started just awful in the last qualifying round, ripping it 270 with a 3 wood off the first tee, i had 110 into the green, i chipped a sand wedge 30 yards long into the water, not the best start. Despite going to 4 over par through 5 holes, i played the last 13 holes in -1 which was great news and meant i qualified 3rd in the team. Some great play meant i was going to the first 2 tournaments.

PGA NATIONAL

This course holds the Honda Classic in March of the FL swing on the PGA. We are playing our Home tournament here on the 10th October which is very exciting.