andrew scott jensen

Here it is!  After a long year spent traveling and competing, the only constant companion I had was music.  2008 was a phenomenal year for music.  The amount of amazing albums that came out this year has restored my belief in the art of music.  As my list will show, there is a lot of great music coming from all over the globe and covering all sorts of styles.  It’s no wonder that these 10 albums are the albums that grabbed my ears for most of the year.  If you haven’t listened to some of these albums I highly suggest you venture into these gems in 2009.

Enjoy!

10. Augustana – Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt

9. Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death and all of His Friends

8. Girl Talk – Feed The Animals

7. MGMT – Oracular Spectalur

6. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours

5. Anberlin – New Surrender

4. Kanye West – 808’s & Heartbreak

3. The Myriad – With Arrows, With Poise

2. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

1. M83 – Saturdays = Youth

Im happy to say that I finished my South American swing on a higher note.  I played better in Costa Rica, and it translated to another cut made and my highest finish to date out on tour.  It felt great to play four rounds, and it felt even better to not move backwards over the weekend.  All that being said, I finished 51st, so I still have a lot of work to do to get competitive in 2009.

I have to say that these past 3 weeks were much better for me than the entire summer of 08.  Ultimately, the reason these weeks were better was because I cared again and worked hard and didn’t let results get me down.  You could sum it up that I found my confidence again and I re-dedicated myself to this pursuit.

Re-dedicating myself like this has brought many of my flaws to my attention and has given me many things to work on over the off season:
I have a lot of work to do with my strength and conditioning.  I have lost some of my power over the year and it is crucial to regain it out here.
I also have lots of work to do with my swing.  I have some flaws that I have been working on and intend to really correct over the winter months.
My mental game is always a work in progress, and thanks to Adam Kingsbury(my new head doctor) I feel that some real breakthroughs are in the future.

All of the work aside.  I’m truly on a high right now.  I can’t really express the shift that’s taken place within me, but it’s a really good one.  Things are really turning around in the wake of the hard summer.  I have more positives than negatives to take away from the past 3 weeks, and that’s a far cry form the mess of negativity that took place this summer.

I plan on taking 6 weeks off in the new year to really line things up for 2009.  There’s a lot on my plate but I’m not intimidated at all.  Things will be great next year and I believe South America was just a taste of things to come.

I find myself in Costa Rica this week.  This place is paradise!  It’s so beautiful here I am so impressed.  I’m very excited to tee it up this week and stay as relaxed on the golf course as I am on the rest of the resort.

It’s a great change of pace this week coming off last week in Buenos Aires.  Last week was very stressful.  That stress really locked me up on the course and made it difficult to play well.

I hit it better than the previous week in Chile, but still didn’t have what it took to get into the weekend.  I used the free time to my advantage very well and worked on the stuff I felt was lacking for me to play solid golf.

I need to stay relaxed and stay focused on one major playing focus during the round.  The last two weeks I have been tight and full of tension.  I have also been very broad in my focus, allowing my poor shots to affect what I would think on and stay focused on the target…I would start thinking too much.

I’m hoping that the relaxing vibes from the resort life will influence me on the course and allow me to stay relaxed and focused this week.  It will be a great end of the year to play to the potential I know I have inside me.

I now find myself in Buenos Aires, Argentina to play in the Argentine Masters.

This is not just any event.  I feel very lucky yo be playing this tournament.  This is a very prestigious event in international golf.  Past winners of this event are Roberto Di Vencenzo(who edged out Billy Casper and Gary Player in 1970), Bernhard Langer(who triumphed over the late Payne Stewart), and 4 time champion Angel Cabrera.  It is truly an honor to play this week.

The golf course is beautiful!  Very difficult to go along with it’s beauty.  There are some great names playing this week, and having the chance to compete along side them is again an honor. It would be great come Sunday to be playing along side a US open champion vying for this title.

My game feels much better after some long hours of practice.  I hope to carry the good vibes onto the course this week and justify the hard work being put into my game.

I hope to give myself the best chance at having four good rounds this week.