Brian Quackenbush Golf

After 12 days off, I’m back in action at the Tarheel Tour event at Cabarrus this week. Calling them days off would be misleading. I actually worked harder over those 12 days than I have all year. I made some significant changes to my swing, my chipping and my putting early in the break. I was putting in a lot of time each day to get the changes where I want them to be during the last run up to Q-School. I was trying to get the majority of my work done during the break and then put it under pressure and tweak everything over 3 Tarheel Tour events in a row. The changes I’m working on are:

• Full Swing - Start club back on path instead of outside. Ensure it is on plane halfway through the backswing.
• Chipping - Match the downswing plane to the backswing. I had been getting underneath it on the downswing.
• Putting - Work to fully release the putter on the follow through.

So, today’s round was the first opportunity I’ve had to put the changes under pressure. I shot 72 on a relatively difficult layout at Cabarrus. If you had asked me 12 days ago where I wanted my swing changes to be today, I would have described this round exactly. I hit zero hooks while fully releasing the club on all shots. I hit a few that were really bad, but I expected this out of the changes when I put them under pressure. But, they were not the type of mistake I had been fighting over the last 2 months. My chipping held up great all day. I hit a lot of very good putts and made my fair share. Regardless of whether they went in or not, my stroke just felt right most of the time. Overall, I’m very satisfied with where I’m at right now.

I took some video of my swing after the round today and am happy with the swing shape. I may try to put some video up on the website…it’s going to depend on how much bandwidth it will require. In the meantime, if you want to see it, email me and I’ll send it to you.

Well, the final round didn’t go very well at the last TarHeel Tour event. After two good rounds holding everything together under the pressure of a nasty hook, the wind kicked up and put a magnifying glass on my swing mechanics. I got into trouble early and was 5 over through the first 8. I wasn’t making the putts in the final round that I had in the previous two. I was hitting good putts that weren’t going in. It was just one of those days when nothing went right.

I was a little down on myself about squandering a good start again this week, but then realized that I still finished 12th despite ball striking that was really awful according to my standards. It was a very long 5 weeks on the road and it was time to get home and get the swing mechanics taken care of.

So, Thursday I had a lesson and straightened out a couple of flaws. First, I’m getting outside with a shut clubface on the backswing. This move - a tendency I’ve had for a while - requires me to time the transition to my downswing right to square the clubface at impact. I also moved my grip a bit to the left (weaker). So, I’ve got 9 days to get everything moving in the right direction before I go back to Charlotte for 3 consecutive TarHeel Tour events. Plenty of time.

After the round, I drove back to Fairfax and the drive prompted me to describe a typical final round day here. Most mini tours setup the final round so you play early because the players need to get on the road to the next event. Therefore, you play between 7am and 9am. This means you need to get to the course possibly as early as 6. After factoring in driving time, packing your stuff and packing the car and the normal morning routine, you could be getting up as early as 4am and probably no later than 6am. Hopefully you were able to get to sleep very, very early because it’s already been a long, mentally stressful week and you need your rest for the final round.

The final round - with all its accompanying stress - finishes between noon and 2pm, you sign your scorecard, throw your stuff in the car and get on the road to home or the next event. A typical drive is 4-6 hours. Now, if you’re playing something like the Hooters Tour, then the next morning you better be up bright and early to get in your practice round before the masses arrive. Otherwise, you get home the next day is all about recovery. If you’ve been on the road for a few weeks, you’ve got mail, laundry, etc. After this last trip I had a stack of mail literally one foot high.

So, another motivation for getting to the PGA Tour: you fly to most of your events and you can get your mail forwarded to you.

I shot a second round 3 under 69 in the TarHeel Tour event today. Almost a carbon copy of yesterday’s round. I had 27 putts and barely missed another 7 that I hit very very well. I finished with an eagle on 18 after hitting a utility iron to 4 feet. I’m in fourth place, 3 shots out of first. It looks like we’re going to have a chance to play tomorrow. Hurricane Ophelia isn’t projected to have an effect on Charlotte.

I found out today that the PGA Tour decided to cancel the pre-qualifier for Q-School. They had set this up for entrants who were deemed “non-competitive” and expected about 180 players. They ended up with about 20, so they gave all of them a free pass into the first round. One of the pre-qualifiers was going to be at Florence CC - the stage 1 site I’ve been at the last three years. Instead, they made Florence an overflow site and (rumor has it) they gave the pre-qualifiers the opportunity to go to Florence as their first stage site. None of this is enormously troubling to me, but it does point to some of the strange ways the PGA Tour conducts the Q-School process. First, if you’re going to have a pre-qualifier, have it regardless of how many entrants you get. You scheduled it - you have it. Second, if the rumor is true and people are getting to choose their stage 1 site (including the overflow site), then they’re getting an advantage (albeit a small one) over the rest of the entrants. Again, these are minor things, but when you’re talking about something as important as Q-School with an entry fee equal to 10\% of most players’ budgets, these things should be treated properly. Anyway, end of rant.

First round today in the TarHeel Tour event at Olde Sycamore. This is a tight course where you have to keep it in play all day…lots of hazards in the driving areas and around the greens. The rough is pretty dense as well. I hit it fairly well en route to a 3 under 69 - 3 shots off the lead in 7th place. The real story of the day, however, was my putting. I made a small tweak over the weekend and am stroking it very well. I one-putted 10 of my first 11 greens today and had 25 in total. I two-putted holes 12 through 16, but every putt was hit exactly how I wanted to. I don’t feel like it would have been unreasonable to have a 19-putt round.

We’re keeping an eye on Hurricane Ophelia off the coast because that could obviously impact the event. Looks like it will move in a direction that would keep the wind and rain away from Charlotte.

Well, round 3 was absolutely miserable, but a little funny (at my expense). Since I figured I needed about plus 20 in the stableford format to win, I planned out an aggressive game plan starting on the first tee. I hit a 3 wood pretty close to my target but it kicked hard left and ran into the creek crossing the fairway at 300 yards. It came to rest against a wooden piling where I could hit it but my club would hit the piling on the follow through. I pulled off the shot, but bent my lob wedge in the process. Under the rules, I was allowed to repair or replace it, but the course didn’t have a repair shop and didn’t have a good replacement. So, I was stuck without a lob wedge (an important club!) for the rest of the round.

I wasn’t hitting it great, but was getting some decent shots at birdie through the 14th hole. That’s when I had a run-in with fire-ants. I hit it left of the par-5 in two into a horrendous lie in the rough. I tried to use the lob wedge to get the ball on the green, but couldn’t advance it far enough. So, I had about the same shot from an equally horrendous lie. This time the ball got caught up in the grass and I double-hit it. I scored double bogey and was walking back to the cart when I noticed about 20 fire ants crawling all over me. I must have stepped on a nest trying to chip the ball onto the green. The good news is that I know I’m not allergic because I was bitten several times and didn’t react severely.

Overall a really miserable day which is disappointing because how well I started the event. At least I have a good story from yesterday’s round.

Everything was just a little off today in round 2. I started off with a few bad swings and then when I hit some quality shots in the middle of the round the putts didn’t fall. Plus 2 today in the stableford system and plus 15 for the event. It looks like I wasn’t the only one having trouble today. Scores were definitely higher despite much less wind. One more round tomorrow. Because of the format, it’s easy to make up a lot of ground quickly…just a few birdies or eagles.

For the record, my nine hole points for the pardsie game over the last two days would have been +1, +8, -2, 0.

I’m playing a Stableford format event on the TarHeel Tour this week at Stonebridge Golf Club in Monroe, NC. Stableford format means that there is a point system where the goal is to accumulate as many points as possible over the course of the event. This is the same format as played at The International on the PGA Tour. You get points (plus or minus) for your score in relation to par on each hole. The points are:

In this system, it pays to be aggressive and try to make as many birdies or better as possible. For example, if you go par-par on two holes, you earn 0 points at even par. If however you go birdie-bogey over the same two holes, you’re still even par but you earn 1 point.

This was my first stableford round and I finished +13 in fourth place (I shot 66). I had 7 birdies and a bogey. Actually, I do have some experience with stableford-type events. All my weekend “team-points” pardsie rounds at International CC are a modified stableford system. As strange as it may sound, I think all these rounds made it easier to adjust to the format.

I got my site assignment from the PGA Tour for Stage 1 of Q-School yesterday. I didn’t get my first choice - Kannapolis - but I was OK with getting any of my first three choices. So, I’m going to my second choice, Grasslands CC in Lakeland, FL (just outside of Orlando). Neither Kannapolis nor Grasslands has hosted Q-School in the last three years. So, there is less chance of anybody having an advantage for course knowledge.

The date for this site is one week later than Kannapolis - October 25-28. I think getting the Lakeland site is good for another reason. Usually Q-School in North Carolina is just starting to get a little cold in October. The mornings are usually just a little uncomfortable and if it rains it’s miserable. Lakeland in late October is more likely to be good weather.

I’ve spent the week down in Aiken, SC at my parents’ new home. Thanks to Woodside Plantation CC for allowing me to play and practice out there while I was in town. The location is impossible to beat. 50 steps out the back door to the practice putting green and the first tee of one golf course. Another 50 steps to the first tee of the other course, the par-3 course and the practice range.

I’m heading back up to Charlotte for two in a row this week and next. That will be the end of a 5-week road trip and I will be ready to get back to Virginia.

I made my second donation to the Capital Hospice today in the amount of $208.38. This was 10\% of my earnings for August. I only had two tournaments to work with in August since I took a small break at the beginning. Total donations to the Capital Hospice are now $619.96.