The Fitness Caddie Blog: “The Lip”

The rain has followed me once again, goodbye to sunshine and 90 degrees, hello rain and wind.  The forecast is calling for close to an inch of rain tomorrow with 40 mph wind gusts (Stewart if you are reading this, I am blaming you!).  Despite the conditions, my second practice round went much better today.  This is definitely a golf course that requires a lot of thought and focus.  A few holes had 20 mph cross winds where I had to aim almost 50 yards left of the pin!  Here are a few shots from today, hard to believe I’m wearing rain pants and a sweater when just yesterday even my teeth were sweating.

I tee of in the afternoon tomorrow, keep you fingers crossed that the weather holds up.  Be sure to watch scores at www.usga.org, live scoring will be going during the entire tournament!  Happy Golfing Everyone!

As I recap Day 2 here in Virginia Beach, I’m listening to a massive thunder storm accompanied by lightning flashes that would blind you!  Thankfully, the storm came in about 20 minutes after I finished my practice round.  Hard to believe it went from 90 degrees and sunny to this in just a matter of minutes, but most everyone I have met from here says this is not uncommon.

Today started with a quick workout, my upper back and hips were so tight from the travel that I could barely move.  But after working through some stork turns, hip flexors stretches, reachbacks and a lot of full body movements, everything was functioning better.  I hit the range and putted for a bit before teeing off with these awesome ladies!

Joan and Julie are from Michigin, and aside from being amazing golfers, they happen to be friends with my client Leslie Folsom (Leslie was just named to the Washington Team this week and will be competing in Savannah in a few weeks, go Leslie!). 

The golf course is like nothing I have played before, you literally end up using every club in your bag.  But it never feels impossible, they throw a few difficult ones at you and then give you a recovery for a few.  My lessons learned today……. well, really one lesson, STAY OUT OF THE ROUGH!!!!!  I’m saying this loudly because apparently I didn’t listen to myself today.  Aiming is everything for me right now, and I struggled finding targets which means rough.  Here’s a look at what happens when you miss the fairway.

I’m teeing off early tomorrow for my practice round, I definitely need to work on picking my targets and being decisive with my putts.  The greens are not receptive to dying the ball in the cup like they are in Seattle, plus with all the rain tonight, I’m sure they will be slow.  Doc Sese will be on the bag tomorrow, he just arrived tonight and worked on my back a bit.  Only a few knots in my upper back to report! 

One more picture for all of you, this is what was in my locker when I arrived!  The staff at Bayville are so amazing, can’t wait for the weekend qualifying to start, I have butterflies just thinking about it!

I made it to Virginia Beach!  After a red eye to DC, and a little car drive south, here I am in 85 degree temps, partnered with 100% humidity.  This is actually my first time travelling to the east coast, and whatever I thought was humid in Seattle most definitely is not!  Today was just a short practice session, making sure everything was still functional after my 10 hour trip.  This tournament is a whole different breed of amatuer events, the second I parked my car someone was waiting for me with a cart to take me to the clubhouse.  Here’s a picture of the outside, I found out that is was originally a dairy farm.

After getting a tour of the grounds, and finding out where my locker for the week is……

I headed out to the range to see how the swing was feeling after a full night and day of travel.  I’m used to seeing beat up range balls that only fly about 75%, and to my surprise the entire facility was outfitted with Pro-V 1’s!!!  There may not be anything better than hitting fresh Pro V’s, but I reserve mine for tournament play so to have free rain to hit 100’s of balls, I was in heaven!  Here is the beautiful range at Bayville.

Tomorrow afternoon I play my first practice round, the course looks really challenging.  We received an official scorecard with our players packet and they are throwing a little of everything at us: a 410 par 4, a 190 yard par 3, a few short par 4’s and even a 113 yard par 3.  My start time is in the afternoon so tonight I’m making sure to hydrate, and tomorrow morning I’m doing a light workout.  And what makes tomorrow even better is that my favorite Doc is flying in to caddy for me over the weekend!  That’s all for now, I will post more tomorrow, time to catch up on some sleep!

Earlier this year, I decided it was time to set some goals and start working towards playing competitive golf again.  It seems like I’ve said that every year, but then some injury would get in the way or work would just get busy.  In other words, I never fully committed to my goals in the past and always gave myself an excuse or an out because the truth is, I have been so afraid of failing for so long that it was easier to just watch everyone else compete.  There is nothing I love more than watching all my clients compete, however everytime I am out there cheering, all I can think about is wanting to be out there as well.  So, the US Mid Am became my mission this year.  But after my car accident in March and all the neck pain I have had to deal with as a result, my mission seemed to be slipping away again several months ago. 

I had this major epiphany though during a round of golf back in July.  I was going about my merry way, and realized that every time I made a mistake I said to myself “that’s ok, you haven’t been practicing” or “that’s ok, you’re still injured” and it only went on from there.  Walking off the course that day it became clear that I was just going through the motions out there, not caring and accepting mistakes.  It was there that I went home and actually signed up and paid for both the WSGA Mid-Am tourney and the US Mid-Am.  After that, I made a plan.  Number one on that list was to make golf a priority.  No longer could it just be something used to do well.  It was time to compete!!!!

Yesterday was the US Mid-Am qualifier at Fircrest Golf Club in Tacoma, Wa.  There was 10 golfers playing for just 3 spots to the Championship in Virginia Beach.  Not knowing what to expect, I went out there and just tried to post a number that would give me a chance.  Fircrest is an amazing golf course, that although is not difficult in length, the greens are hard, fast and the pins were on every ridge possible.  Thanks to my awesome caddy TJ Bourdeaux, I survived the greens and shot 5 over.  However, 2 other golfers came in with the same score and we ended up playing off for the last two spots. 

All three of us fought hard and when it was all said and done, we went two holes.  Two of us made birdie to advance, and yes, I was one of those!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In two weeks, I’m headed to Virginia Beach to compete in my first ever national event!!!!!! (can you tell I’m just a little excited :)

Here’s a few pics from the round yesterday, my favorite is TJ and I showing off our deep squats reading a green!

Big thank you to TJ, Harry and Heather for all your support!!!!

I can’t wait to get to Virginia Beach, and in the words of my favorite golfer Jerry Kelly “play nice and easy through qualifying and then put a bullseye on the back of everyone I play, walk right behind them and let them hear the footsteps!”