andrew scott jensen

It’s Thursday morning and I am passing the time before my 1:25 tee time today.

I feel really good going into this event.  One week of experience under my belt has done a great deal for my head.  My mind has calmed down a great deal from last week and I am better adapting to the changes from amateur to professional golf.

I really like the course this week.  The shape of the holes really fit my eye, so I hope to translate that into low scores.  It’s a course where people will go low.  It’s a great driving course, and if you stay out of the gnarly rough you will have a wedge in your hand on almost every par 4.  There are 5 pars 5’s and each one is reachable, if your drive finds the fairway.  The greens will be the hardest test, the poa grass is so inconsistent that you really have to be patient with all the bounces.  If the wind doesn’t blow too hard, a score close to 20 under will win.  I certainly have a good challenge in front of me if I want to compete this week

What I am looking forward to is the test for precise iron play.  This is what was lacking last week, and I have done lots of work to hit it closer with the short irons.  This part of the game will be make or break on whether or not I am in the hunt this week.  It’s much harder to compete when you have 20-25 feet for birdie instead of 10-12 feet.

There’s my prediction for the week.  If I can keep the irons under control, I think it will be a good week.

Today will be my day to see if I am up to the challenge.  It’s nice knowing that there is one part of the game that is the make or break, not a few things.  I will play todays round very aggressively.  There is no sense trying to just get by on trying to make the cut, I have to try to go low and get as close to the top of the leader-board as possible.  We will be cutting 100 people after 2 rounds, so I must be aggressive to play this weekend.

As I write this, my confidence is increasing.  It’s doing a lot for me; writing out my expectations for the round.  Seeing them in front of my face is much different from having them in my head.  I have inadvertently written out my playing focus.  This is something from the Vision 54 school.  I must have a playing focus for each round, and then work backwards on how to accomplish it.  My playing focus for today is precise iron play.  This is what I will focus my energy on out there today.  Wow, this blog really does help, haha!

I play at 8:50 tomorrow morning, so I might squeeze in some time before the round to write something about todays round and then figure out tomorrow’s playing focus.

Check out my round as it happens here.