Even now after a week has passed, I'm still bummed about the end of Q School. The tournament is not SO difficult where I need to go lights out. Just 4 average rounds of golf and you get through. Unfortunately, I fired a 71 and a dreaded 78 at the wrong time, and since the cut line was so tender, this second round put me out of the tournament.
Ultimately, it was this one decision that cost me the tournament. A hole I will undoubtably never forget. Hole 12, day 2.
Par 5, which we played at 485m, (525 yards) - top 2 easiest holes on the course. The only thing protecting this easy par 5 is a tight fairway, OB left and a large lake on the right (as seen in photo). Let the drama begin...
I was paired with 2 Germans, and as much as they were good guys, they were extremely slow players. On the European tour, the referees rigidly protect the pace of play, and on hole 4 we were notified that we were 10 minutes behind pace and if we fall more than 15 minutes behind the time, everyone in our group receives a one stroke penalty. I found this absurd and argued with the referee because it was not my fault we were slow, and saw no reason that I should be penalized for this. Their argument "it is your responsibility as a group to keep up and I need to push my players to move faster". From now on, we had a women with a stop watch timing our every hole, which put me under a lot of unnecessary stress/pressure. Every time my playing partners read a putt from both sides and took 60 seconds, I became more anxious. I didn't play particularly well, but I was +2 going into 12, or +1 for the tournament.
I hit a good drive on 12 and had a 4 iron into the green. I pushed it just a touch and it landed just right of the green and rolled into the hazard - about 10 yards from the pin. I got to the green and my ball was in the wet mud, surrounded by thick ferns. We determined my ball crossed the hazard about 50 meters back, and I had the option to walk back and take a drop from there. I looked over and the referee with the stopwatch was glaring at me, so I hastily and thoughtlessly buried my feet in the mud and tried to play the ball. My club went straight into the wet mud and my ball disappeared underneath the black sludge. Now I was in big trouble, as my ball is now unplayable and the last shot did not cross the hazard line. The ruling was, I must drop the ball, but ball-line-pin, meaning a continuation of the line of my ball to the pin, but in the other direction. Well, in this case I had a huge lake in that direction, so I had to walk "more like sprint" around the entire lake, onto another hole's fairway and drop my ball 220 yards away (the only spot where I didn't have trees in my way). Now I had a hybrid over trees and over the lake I had just been in. Out of breathe and covered in a cold sweat, I hit my 5th shot, and with a sigh of relief, hit it to 12 feet. Seemingly, I saved myself from a hole where I could have made a 10, or worse. I run back to the green, miss my putt, and we receive a stroke penalty for being way behind our allotted time. I walk off with an 8, triple bogey, on a hole where everyone else is making birdie. I've never been so frazzled after a golf hole in my entire life. I was angry at my group for being so slow before and I was upset at myself for being so worried about a 1 shot penalty that I made such rash decisions. I worked hard to regain my focus, but finished with 1 birdie and 2 more bogeys for a season worst 78, ultimately putting me into a position where I missed the cut.
Such a defeat would completely demoralize me as I really spent 6 months training for this one tournament, but I am already focused on my full winter training. Now comes the 4 month period of gym, fitness, technical training and of course work. If this summer has taught me one thing, it's that my goals are easily achievable. The competition is much weaker than I expected and all it takes to get to the elite is continued hard work and most importantly that "break" that lifts you through to the top.
