Utah Championship (Salt Lake City)

It has been a while since my last blog. The kids finished school during the week of Wichita, so I decided to pack the family up and bring them along for the Raleigh and Evanville, IN events. While it is always great to have them out with me, it's also hard to find the time to blog. After Indiana, we had the week off, so we decided to head down to Jacksonville, FL for a few days to see my parents. My Dad is doing much better and has most of his strength back. It was great to get down there and visit for a few days.

I met Kevin here in Salt Lake City on Tuesday morning. We both flew in Monday night but Kevin's luggage was delayed and didn't show up until Tuesday morning. We hit balls in the morning and then played an afternoon practice round. With the high altitude here, the 7000 yard golf course does not play very long but the narrow tree lined fairways puts a premium on ball striking. This course has five par 5's and six par 3's and most of the par 4's are not driver off the tees. With this combination, the scores will be low this week.

Unfortunately for us, Kevin's ball striking has been off since we arrived. We all know that we are going to go through times when the ball striking is not up to par and we will just need to rely on the short game to get us through the week. But what makes it difficult this week is the high altitude. When you are not hitting solid shots in this altitude, not only is the direction off but it is impossible to get the correct yardage. Shots that are hit solid will stay in the air about ten percent longer at this altitude. When a shot is miss hit, it does not produce enough spin on the ball and it will not be able to stay in the air. So even a short iron could have up to a 15-20 yard gap depending on how solid the strike was during the hit. So, with all that said, it has been a tough week for us out on the golf course.

We teed off yesterday for the first round at 7:10 with Dusty Fielding and Gavin Coles. After a tough front nine and a bogey on the 11th put us three over par for the day, Kevin managed to string three birdies in a row on 12, 13 and 14 to get us back to even for the day. A three putt on the 15th stalled the momentum but he was able to get one more birdie on the 17th hole and a great up and down the last gave us an even par round (71). It's definitely not the score we wanted but at least it still gives us a chance heading into today's round. Golf is a funny game. A little confidence and momentum will go a long way and you never know when it will show up. We just need to keep working hard, try to keep his spirits up and trust what we are doing. We tee off today at 12:10 on number 10.