First off good news.  I smoked out the Asian contingent that was deadset on smearing my blog with links to adult websites by posting them under my comments section.  If you want to post something, I just have to clear it first, so don't hesitate to throw something my way.  It has been awhile since I updated.  Let me catch you up to date.  Well Springfield was uneventful.  I shot an even par 70 where I couldn't get anything kickstarted due to a balky putter.  I wanted to get back in the field and prove again to myself I could get in contention, but I sputtered out at the qualifier.  I drove 600 miles with my tail between my legs down to Lagrange, Georgia to try my luck last week on the Hooters Tour.  I opened the event with an impressive 4 under par 67 that was highlighted by my 2nd career HOLE IN ONE which put me in 7th place.  Unfortunately as it has seemed as of late as soon as I get the momentum, the golfing gods want to spit right back in my face.  I had an early second round tee time and as I woke up to the sound of my alarm, it startled me and I twisted my neck and tweaked it.  It was Friday the 13th and I succumbed to it unfortunately.  How I gutted out a 1under par round in the second round was beyond me but I did.  Might as well have been a 59 in terms of mentally how good it was to some how block out the pain.  I went straight to the chiropractor where he realigned my neck.  It was really sore and tender for the weekend, but I had trouble really trusting it and when you lack trust, you lack staying in contention.  Each round after the 1st round was just a little bit worse and I wound up in 52nd place, but wondered what could have been given how well I played the first round w/ proper health.  The good news is I am back now to 100% and ready to move on from this fluke injury.  I have a week and a half to get ready for my next excursion.  I head tomorrow to Orlando for the day to work with my instructor Brian Mogg to get ready for 1st stage of European Qualifying School which begins August 29th.  I haven't been assigned my course, but I will be traveling to either London, England or Lisbon, Portugal where the top 25% of the players at my field will advance to 2nd stage.  I'm going into this ready to win, and realizing that getting to 2nd stage in Europe will definitely cut the tension of US PGA Qualifying 1st stage by having successfully navigated thru a stage of Q School in Europe.  So that is the goal and I am going to make it happen.  The work I put in the next week and a half is absolutely essential to my success and I am not overlooking anything.  It is an exciting time of year in my life and my game is getting better every day little by little.  I just am going to keep chipping away and getting better.  I can only control myself, and tomorrow I am going to do all that I can do to get better.  Always looking forward, ~JK.

Just what the Doctor ordered.  I came back after my poor 3rd round and put together a 4 under par 68 in the final round.  I actually had it to 6 under with 3 to play, but a bad break off a perfect drive on 16 where my drive bounced off the cartpath into the weeds allowed me to make a bogey rather than what would have been a simple birdie.  It may have held me back from really going low, but regardless I played solid.  Going into the last round with really nothing to gain from a position standpoint, I made it a point to come out with a personal goal that I could attain to keep my focus.  It just so happened me and Tiger Woods were both 11 over par thru 3 rounds.  I wanted to beat him in relation to par for the event.  I finished at 7 over after a solid final round and he struggled in the final round and finished at 18 over for his tournament.  Take that Tiger.  Nonetheless, it was good to get the game back on track after the one day derailment.  I made it into Springfield last night at 2:30am and got a full nights rest waking up at 11.  I'm going to head out to Millwood soon to prepare for tomorrow and get myself in the right frame of mind to go out and play to the best of my ability. 

85.  There I said it.  That's how many strokes it took me to get around today.  I have no one to blame but myself.  I took a quadruple bogey early and steadied the ship by making two birdies to close out my front nine and turn in two over par.  However, a triple bogey on my 10th hole derailed me.  For the first time in quite a long time I let the golf demons get to me and I more or less put my mental toughness in a blender.  Sure, I wasn't hitting it my best, but I could have grinded it out coming in and I didn't do that.  I am not mad about shooting 85, I am mad that I more or less lost it mentally.  I tried to put the blame on the fact that I was playing in a group today with 4 amateurs playing a scramble and it took us 5 hours to play.  I was back on a junior golf level with the way I acted on the course.  I didn't throw any clubs, or shout any obsenities, but I didn't have the swagger of a professional golfer.  I'm no psychologist, but I think I realized that I still haven't let the Turning Stone Monday Qualifier go in my head.  It just was totally uncharacteristic for me to fold it in like I did today, and the only thing I can rationalize is I am still held up on the ramifications of Monday.  Well this shocked my system the hard way back into reality and I can now move forward with no regrets.  This was my highest round of golf as a professional and it was embarrasing.  The good news is the sun will come up tomorrow and I have a final day tomorrow to play a solid round of golf and erase this 3rd round disaster from my memory forever.  I am playing great golf, I just slipped up today and for some reason flipped the switch off.  I'm going to flip the switch back on tomorrow rest assured.  I head from here to Springfield, MO for the Nationwide Monday qualifier.  You never want to make an event bigger than it is, but I really want this one on Monday.  It was last year that the Springfield Nationwide event left me 2 shots away from changing my life forever.  I need to play my way back into the tournament, so I can give myself that same chance.

No Wind @ Southwind

As the title of this post indicates, we had another eerily calm day on the course.  The name of the course is Southwind CC for crying out loud.  That name explains it all.  The course was very soft, and with the calm conditions it was a low score happy hour out there all day.  I struggled and never felt comfortable with an iron in my hand all day, but scrapped it around with pretty solid putting and put up a three under par 68 to make the cut on the number.  I made a 30 footer on 18 to play the weekend.  I'll tell you the strides I have made over the last couple years.  My first year as a professional, I think I made 1 out of my 10 cuts for the season on the Hooters Tour.  Today, on my final putt of the day the cut didn't even register in my mind.  I was trying to find a way to convert that putt to not make the cut, but to get one shot closer to the leader.  If you play to make the cut, you set yourself up for disaster.  You have to play to win, and that is one of many things I have learned that has helped me become a more polished professional.  I am taking nothing for granted these last two days, as I know the wind that usually reaks havoc here can come up at any time.  For my sake I need some wind, because a challenging course will allow me to gain some ground on the 9 shot margin that seperates me from the top of the board.

Alright, so I have had a few days to cool off from Monday and keep going with my life.  As they say, pardon the French, Shit happens.  I'm doing my best to look at the big picture, and realize a bad break in a one day qualifier barely registers as a blip on the radar.  I made it into Garden City, Kansas last night at 10pm.  I can't tell you how hard a process it is to get from rural New York to rural Kansas.  I had to fly home to Saint Louis, then bite the bullet and drive 10 hours to Garden City.  I played the first round this morning and was off my game all day.  Luckily, this week is a riding event, so energy wasn't the issue.  I shot an even par 72 on the easier of the two courses we play this week.  There were a bunch of bees out there today for whatever reason that kept interupting me during the course of play and it bothered me a bit.  Today was the day for scoring because the wind layed down as best it could for this part of the world.  As I mentioned in a blogpost back in 2009, Dodge City, Kansas is on record as the windiest city in America.  We are only about 20 miles from there this week.  My trip over to Scotland should very well help prepare me for the inevitability of playing in strong winds at some point the next three days.  Hopefully I have gotten my poor round out of the way early and can light it up the next 54 holes!  http://www.adamsgolfprotourseries.com/ for results.

I'm in Albany, New York in a Holiday Inn all by myself.  This is a story I don't want to tell, but I feel it is necessary for all of my supporters out here that take the time to read this.  For those that are sqeamish, I'd stop here.  Today @ the PGA Tour Turning Stone Monday Qualifier I missed in a 4 for 1 playoff to get in the event.  I shot a quality round of 4 under par 68 to put me in the playoff, but the hose job I received on my 9th hole today rivals the worst bad break in my 25 years of existance.  On my 9th hole of the day I was cruising along in 3 under par when I teed off with a driver.  The hole is a split fairway where you can go left or right.  There is a series of bunkers in between the two fairways that makes the player choose which side he is going to drive to.  I hit a solid drive down the left center of the fairway and as I went up to find my ball, it was nowhere to be found.  In golf under the USGA rules of golf that govern play you have exactly 5 minutes to look for your ball.  Well we searched for 5 minutes for my ball and mysteriously could not find it.  After that 5 minutes your ball is deemed lost, and I had to take a penalty stroke and retee from the tee box, which essentially makes it a 2 stroke penalty.  As I began my mystified walk back to the tee 5 minutes and 15 seconds after looking for my ball, low and behold I found my original drive just sitting fine 40 yards back from where we were looking.  Unfortunately even though I found my ball, I could not play that one because my 5 minutes were up.  So instead of making a routine par I made a double bogey.  My grandpa died some 7 years ago, and this was the first time I had tears in my eyes since then.  In my mind I qualified for the event today, but it was taken away from me from the cruel, strict rules that govern our sport.  I know I have to abide by these rules, it just so happened they hampered me from realizing a dream of mine today.  In the playoff I was proud of myself for recomposing myself.  I made birdie on the 1st hole by getting up and down greenside on the par 5 first hole.  It was one of the most crafty pitch shots I have hit in all of 2010 and my ball lipped out for eagle.  I tapped in for birdie.  Two of the other playoff contenders matched my birdie.  On the 2nd playoff hole, I had to get up and down for par to extend the playoff.  I had a relatively challenging pitch shot from the short side right of the pin.  My ball was sitting down just a hair and I decided to take out putter and be safe, rather that mishit a wedge and have no chance at par.  I hit the first putt to 7 feet, and just missed my par putt to extend the playoff.  Hindsight tells me I should have trusted the work with my pitching that I have put hundreds of hours into with my instructor Brian Mogg, but I think I made the prudent club selection with putter given the lie.  I need to gracefully salute 59 YEAR OLD Dick Mast for beating me in this playoff.  If I can take any solace, and help lick my wounds, I can walk away from today realizing I still can be competitive for 34 more years in this game if Mr. Mast can do it!  59 must be the new 29.  I am ready to qualify through Tour School this fall and putt Monday qualifying behind. me.  I have served my apprenticeship and know in my heart and soul I am ready to take it to the next level.  I head from here to Garden City, Kansas tomorrow for an Adams Tour event.  It is an event that I love, but it is a tough pill to swallow realizing what could have been.  Until next time. ~JK