Hello from Augusta, Maine.  While I never envisioned playing golf in Augusta in a professional event outside the state of Georgia, I'm happy to be here.  I'm currently playing in the Maine State  Open.  I've been busy over the last month and a half since I left you last.  As I mentioned, I ventured up to Calgary to try my hand at the PGA Tour Canada's Monday qualifier for the ATB Financial Classic.  I successfully qualified!  It was the first qualifier I made it through in any level in FOUR years.  It felt so good to finally accomplish this, but it was quickly squashed when the event got rained out due to torrential downpours for consecutive days leading up to the event.  Lucky for me they rescheduled the event to next week, so I'm going to try it again up in Calgary. 

    My parents, who rarely get to see me play anymore, are going to accompany me up there as well.  We are going to make a family vacation out of it and visit Banff after the tournament is over.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I competed in four additional Monday qualifiers over the last 45 days and played well in the vast majority of them, but often times you need to play very well to get through.  The "highlight of the low lights" was missing the John Deere Classic by one agonizing shot.  I stood in the middle of the fairway on my 18th hole knowing a birdie would probably give me a decent shot.  I hit a great shot with a wedge that spun fractionally too much and left me a bit longer putt than I expected.  My birdie burned the edge and I had to settle for 68. 

    I played in a 3 day hometown event that I have played in over the last 5 years.  The Metropolitan Open was  a bit of a blip on the radar as I missed the cut by one shot.  Following that, I headed up to Waterloo, Iowa for the Waterloo Open.  I shot a great 66 in the first round to get me in the mix, but a 71 in the final round with poor putting left me well down the leaderboard.  The picture above indicates another of my highlights from Iowa.  I stopped by the Field of Dreams set in Dyersville.  I was fortunate to have the entire property to myself.  It was awesome to sit on the bench where James Earl Jones and Kevin Costner sat 25 years ago during the filming and take it all in.

To get you all the way caught up with the past month and a half, I shot a 72 today in the 1st round of the Maine Open to put me in 50th place heading into the last round.  It is a great course, where the front nine is designed by Stiles and Van Kleek.  These are the same guys that designed my home course,  Norwood Hills in Saint Louis, so I have no excuse for butchering those 9 holes today.  The back nine was designed by Donald Ross, so as you can tell it is an old classic golf course that has withstood the test of time.  I need a sneaky low one to scare the leaders tomorrow, but I'm more than ready to do it.
 
    I have been hitting the ball superbly this summer.  I need to continue to fine tune the scoring element of the game by holing more putts and finding ways to scratch out lower scores from around the greens.  My goal is to update this site once a month for the rest of the year with the highlights that present themselves through the course of my tournament play.  I updated my results section for the year in the right column, so feel free to examine my scores.  I will be playing the same Fall schedule as the previous 3 years with joint assaults of the European and US Q Schools.  I've mentioned it on here many times that everything I do all year points toward peaking for the Fall Qualifying Schools.  This is how a professional golfer advances his career to the next level.  I was very disciplined this year in really holding back the first 1/3 of the year so that I would be really fresh for the last 1/3 of the year.  I have been chomping at the bit to play competitively and that is the exact attitude and mentality I hoped to have come this time of the year.  Everything is pointed in the right direction, and I look forward to giving myself some opportunities to win here in the coming weeks to get some more momentum rolling into the Fall.  Stay with me as I continue to fight toward achieving my dreams.  I'm going to get there soon.