Brian Quackenbush Golf

I withdrew from the TarHeel Tour event next week. The course, Carolina CC, is refusing to allow us a practice round prior to the tournament. They’re not even allowing us to walk the course in advance. I had an “interesting” conversation with one of their professional staff who made it known that they really didn’t want us there. Very, very poor customer service. Anyway, the Tour apologized to its players and is allowing me to withdraw without penalty. The tour handled this difficult situation very well. Since I would have never seen the course prior to my first shot on Tuesday, I feel like I would have been giving up too big of an advantage to a mostly local field.

Throughout July, I’ve played four events which are the first four since I started my partnership with the Capital Hospice. I’m going to start making a monthly donation of 10\% of my earnings and sponsorship money to the hospice. I’m happy to say that the donation for July will be just over $400.

I shot 69-74 in the final two rounds of the TarHeel Tour event at Skybrook and finished 17th. Both days my ball striking wasn’t quite there. The difference between the two was that yesterday I hit 8 very good putts that ran over the edge of the hole. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many good putts miss like that. So, I was 7 under for the three days despite less than perfect ball striking and unlucky putting. I can accept that.

What I noticed is that my swing mechanics are getting simpler to diagnose. I’m still working on just getting my hands in the right position around impact. I also have a tendency to get ahead of the ball on the downswing and let my right should work under instead of around. So, the balancing act is to get my hands in the right position while still focusing on a good level turn.

I made a side trip down to Aiken, SC to visit my Mom and their work-in-progress new house down here. The new house is absolutely beautiful and about 3 weeks from completion. I’ll stay in Aiken through Sunday and go to the next TarHeel Tour event in Spartanburg, SC on Monday. The event runs Tuesday through Thursday and then I’m back in Northern VA.

I shot a 6 under 66 today in the first round of the TarHeel Tour event at Skybrook (yes, that’s the same course I played Monday in the National Golf Tour event). Two things were remarkable about the round. First, I started off well, but wasn’t getting anything to drop for birdies. I ran it over the edge 4 times in the first 7 holes and was only even par. It would have been easy to let frustration set in, but I kept telling myself that if I was patient, they would start to fall. Eventually they did and I made 4 birdies and an eagle on the last 11 holes. The other remarkable thing was the 3-wood that led to my eagle on the eighteenth hole. I pounded my drive exactly at my target on the par 5, but it hit softly in the fairway and left me with 260 sharply uphill (237 front edge) to a back right hole location off a slightly downhill lie. I hit it exactly perfect…a hard-hit slight fade with just a bit more spin on it than normal so it would hold the green at a shallow approach angle (since the green was very elevated). It landed on the front right of the green and almost went in before settling 15 feet past the hole. Making the putt for eagle was really secondary. This was absolutely one of the best 3-woods I’ve hit in my life. Nice to finish the day with that kind of a shot!

The National Golf Tour posted a few pictures on their website. I added one of them to my picture gallery. It’s me accepting the trophy from the tournament director. No comments on getting too much sun…it was about 105 heat index that day.

I had my second professional win today in a National Golf Tour event at Skybrook Golf Club. Like my first win on the Pepsi Tour, this was a small field. 17 were entered, but only about 10 showed. Regardless, I’m very happy with how I played for two reasons. First, I played a very good round on a relatively difficult course. I shot 5 under 67 with 8 birdies. It’s an “approach shot” course. The landing areas for the drives are generous if you know where to look for them and they normally funnel in toward the fairway. The greens complexes are much more challenging. They’re generally very large, elevated and undulating with big rolloffs on most sides. A lot of severe elevation changes as well. The other reason I’m happy with my play is that the TarHeel Tour is playing at the same course Wednesday through Friday this week. I made this a practice round for the main event and confirmed a lot of my thinking about where I need to hit my drives. The way I will play it will be a bit more conservative off the tees, but I know I will have enough chances at birdies.

They took a few pictures at the event today…I’ll post them on the pictures page when I get them.

I finished the Southern Open with an even par 72 yesterday and a tie for 24th place. The round wasn’t what I was looking for when I needed to make a move…not a very good ball striking day. The hole locations were definitely more difficult and I scrambled very well to hold together the round. I got off to a good start with birdie on the first, but then hit a bad drive and followed it up with double at the second. It seemed like that was my day yesterday… 4 birdies, but even par.

I had an interesting mental slip on the 15th when I was going through my read for an 8 foot par putt. My playing partners had both finished the hole and were both yammering about how their putts broke and how they were fooled. This is the nature of mini-tour golf. Sometimes you get a pairing with someone who just doesn’t understand the complicated etiquette of professional golf. If somebody’s still playing the hole in your group and you have some interesting comment about how the hole played, you’re supposed to keep your yap shut until after the hole. Well, my fault for not backing off and recollecting my thoughts before I hit the putt. They were both nice guys, so no ill will toward them…they were just maybe a little green when it comes to playing in a professional situation.

So, overall, I’m not disappointed with my play in the event. I didn’t have my best stuff, but was able to hold everything with strong scrambling and course management.

69 (3 under) today in the second round. I hit it better and the wind was up, so a better day overall today. I made some really great par saves when I missed greens…2 good sand saves and 3 from nasty, high bermuda around the green. Final round is tomorrow.

I’ve run into a few interesting things while traveling over the last couple of weeks. First, XM satellite radio now has a golf channel. Their coverage of the British Open this week has been great. The two announcers are British and really don’t pull any punches. The other thing is a traffic service in Virginia (don’t know about other states) that you can access by cell phone. If you dial 511, they have a traffic system for major cities and interstates that tells you about traffic delays and road conditions. The best part is it’s all voice recognition and it works very well.

Played the first round of the Southern Open today at Cabarrus CC. I had the hooks bad…something Chad and I have been working on sporadically over the last few weeks. It’s been a minor problem and even somewhat of a good thing because I’ve been able to rely on the ball moving right to left all the time. Today I had a bunch of trouble controlling the ball though and had to scramble a bunch to shoot 1 under 71. That said, I really didn’t make any putts that I shouldn’t have. I actually rolled about 4 birdie putts over the edge or lipped them out.

Tomorrow I play Kannapolis CC and Sunday back to Cabarrus for the final round. Kannapolis is one of the sites for stage 1 of the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament this year.

I’m going to stay with a friend down in Charlotte for two days after the Southern Open and then play another TarHeel Tour event next week. It just didn’t make sense to drive 7 hours back to Fairfax for two days.

I’m heading down to Charlotte again on Wednesday for the TarHeel Tour Southern Open. You can follow the event on their website. Also, you can check the TarHeel Tour website to see how I’m doing as I play in a few of their events this summer.

Last week at the Charlotte National Open, I cashed $1,637.50. This means that I can make my first donation to the Capital Hospice for 10\% of my earnings. I’m excited that our partnership is starting (albeit on a small scale) to benefit the hospice.

I’ve been really running around like a lunatic since I got back in town. The time has come to make the move back into the “Casa Balsamo”. I’ve been helping to remodel the basement (which has been a fun project) before I complete the move. I’ve also moved a bunch of stuff over the last few days…about 8 carloads of stuff including runs to the dump. We’ve been working to get all of this squared away this week so we don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the summer.

Play was suspended yesterday during the second round of the Tarheel Tour event. I played 12 holes in one over par before they blew the horn. The wind was absolutely howling for the first nine, so I was OK with how I was playing to that point. I figured I was about 5 shots back without a lot of people between me and the leader. I played the first 12 holes under the same conservative strategy.

The tour’s policy didn’t allow us to play the third round today…only to finish the second round and make the tournament official at 36 holes. I probably would have altered my strategy slightly had I planned on a 36 hole event. I may have hit a few more aggressive shots during the second round. Today I did get a bit more aggressive when I went out for the last 6 holes of my second round. I birdied 14 and 15 and parred the rest. 16 through 18 were playing very difficult, so I am very happy with how I finished out the round. I moved up one place into a 4 way tie for 5th, 3 shots off the lead.

I consider this week a success because I stuck to my strategy and after 2 rounds was exactly where I wanted to be - in contention and within striking distance with one round to play. It’s just unfortunate that I didn’t get a chance at playing the third round.

After the round, I went up to Kannapolis CC and took a look at the course. It is one of the two courses I’m playing next weekend in the Southern Open. The other is Cabarrus CC. Both are about 30 miles east of Charlotte.

Just a quick update after Day 1 of the Tarheel Tour event this week. I shot 4 under 68…exactly what Chad and I discussed in my preparation. I played very conservatively hitting fairways and greens and just trying to eliminate any mistakes. In fact, I didn’t hit one driver today on a 7,250 yard golf course. I laid up twice on short par 5’s because there was trouble either off the tee or by the green. My strategy is to just get into position on the first day or two without putting any pressure on myself to go super low. On the final day or two, if I’m really feeling it, then I can get more aggressive if I need to. The goal is to put myself in position going into the last couple of days more often. A side benefit is that I play much more relaxing rounds. After today’s round, I felt no remnants of mental stress. I think this is due to not putting any pressure on myself and making sure my pre-shot routine was perfect before every shot. Because of a good pre-shot routine, my mind was at ease throughout the round.