I am home from Guatemala. I'm in a results oriented business and my results didn't make the grade. I missed  the cut by six shooting rounds of 76-75. The first day I was plotting along at even par with four holes to go and made a sloppy bogey with a sand wedge in my hand on 15. The following hole I didn't regain my composure and guided a hybrid shot off the tee out of bounds after not trusting my plan. I finished with a chunked chip on the last and tallied one more bogey to play my last four holes in a disappointing four over. The second day I hit a couple loose iron shots and had 3 three putts. So a combination of poor execution, putting, and a mental blunder cost me the weekend. These are the margins that separate poor golf from competitive golf. I did a heck of a lot well, but I have to be better start to finish. The aspect that was most disappointing was not dealing with the first wave of adversity the first day well. I got nervous and lost my focus.

What I was most excited about was that I for the most part was able to swing free and without mental clutter. I felt more athletic and reactionary out there as opposed to a mechanical robot. I am going to continue to hone in on being an athlete who reacts and trusts my game. This will give me more time to put into my chipping and putting the rest of the year. I finally have got my game out of the gutter and the final polish comes from scoring and confidence. I need to walk taller and with more swagger and turn a few more 5s into 4s and 4s into 3s. My next month entails an event this Sunday in Saint Louis in an 18 hole tourney, then the following weekend a 36 hole regional event. These will be two small scale events to really keep grinding in a competitive arena and build that confidence. After that, I have US Open local qualifying in St. Louis May 10th. I'm ready to go play great golf with consistency. Belief, trust, and hard work when nobody else is watching day in and day out is the formula to get there. Stay right here for some great results soon to come. I'm really excited about what I'm going to do on the golf course in 2016! 

I'm overdue for an update. I'm currently in route back home after a busy 3 weeks on the road during the last month. I have some results to share and motivation to get where I want to be. I competed in January in Bogota competing for my Latin America Tour card. I was undone by a couple high middle rounds and ended up missing the qualifying mark by a handful of shots. It was a frustrating week not to get what I wanted. I continued to push on and refine as I entered PGA Tour Canada Q School this past week in Florida. Once again I failed to get my card with lackluster play that resulted in an untimely withdrawal at week's end do to my inability to get my card and a flight to catch due to weather delays. This leaves me finishing off the first quarter of the year with nothing to show forth in terms of status moving into the heart of my golfing season.

This is where my negative post ends. In life we have a choice each day to be unhappy and dwell or look to the future with positivity and a great mindset. At the end of the day, I am privileged, lucky, and happy to do what I do for a living. I am also highly motivated and uber competitive. Sometimes the latter of which hinders what I'm trying to do. When I want something so badly, I often focus on results and get ahead of myself instead of sticking to my mantra of working my process to get there. A bag of unpleasant results early in the season had me really pressing for success. I tend to over analyze, work even more intensely and harder during struggles and forget about the simplicity of what yields results.

Moving forward, I am really focusing on having fun playing the GAME of golf. It's my job, but at it's heart it is a fun game. I am also working on day in and day out trusting what I am doing. This is most importantly so in tournament golf. It's so easy under the gun to be results focused and feel the tension of having to hit shots correctly in tournament play. My solution is fearless trust in my target and commiting to it routinely. I often say I'd rather have a poor swing with 100% trust than a beautiful swing with doubt.

After a busy past month competing on the Adams Tour, a Monday qualifier, and Canadian Q School, it will be nice to get some rest at home and to really put in some quality practice at simplifying the clutter I have accumulated the past stint on the road. I am a world class, elite golfer, and I am going to play on the PGA Tour for a long time. A wise man once said, " The strongest steel is made from the hottest fire". Adversity can either cause you to wither away or I can learn from my mistakes and come out on the other end stronger than ever.

I have a great opportunity in the middle of April to compete on the PGA Tour Latin America in Guatemala. The old me would have looked at this and said this is a golden chance to get some traction in my career and put undue pressure to succeed by zeroing in from a results standpoint. The new me is excited to go out and hit shots by being 100% committed to my shots in the tournament and letting the chips fall where they may. I derive my confidence from being a relentlessly hard worker and practicing smartly and efficiently. I've changed the banner to my blog this year to "Trust It". I can keep my head held high regardless of my results if I can look myself in the mirror and say after each day that I was fully committed to the shots I played on the course that day. I'm going to trust my game and I know I will find happiness and success along the way. Thank you for your support in me. Great days lie ahead. Time to go TRUST it.