Q-School Florence - Round 1
Cold was the operative word for the day. Cold weather and cold putter. I got to the course 75 minutes before my tee time… temperature was in the upper 30’s. It was 42 degrees when I put the peg in the ground on my first hole. It eventually got into the upper 50’s, but with a strong northwest wind it was still bitter.
I got off to a reasonable start with a one over par 71. I hit plenty of greens (14), but didn’t give myself a lot of close birdie opportunities. It was a conservatively played round. I had a few chances, but despite some good strokes didn’t make many midrange putts.
You always seem to have a round in an event where things are a challenge, and I think today’s round was the one. I’m hitting it well and putting it well, so I feel good about the rest of the event.
We got some good news at the end of the round. The low 27 players (including ties) will advance from this site to stage 2. Usually stage 1 sites advance 18-22 players (including ties). It looks like the pre-qualifying helped in this respect. There are only 11 stage 1 sites this year compared to 14 last year. So, the total number of spots available for stage 2 are divided among fewer sites.