Brian Quackenbush Golf

The Tarheel Tour event at Sapona marked the end of the earnings season for me. With the earnings from this event, I made my final donation to the Capital Hospice for $83.50. Thanks to my sponsors for allowing me to partner with this charity that means so much to me. With my sponsors help, we were able to donate almost $3,800 in 2006 and about $4,600 since we started the program last year!

The Tarheel Tour played its final event, their Tour Championship at Firethorne CC, while I was down at Stage 2 of Q-School last week. The end of Q-School (for me) and the end of the Tarheel Tour season marks the end of my season and provides an appropriate place to recap a very good year. The highlights:

• I had my first “quality” professional win - The Southern Open on the Tarheel Tour.
• I finished 6th on the final Tarheel Tour money list. This is by far the best money list finish I’ve had since I turned pro. Finishing in the top 10 was a goal of mine for the season.
• I made it through Stage 1 of PGA Tour Q-School with flying colors, finishing 9th. I also gave myself a very good chance at making it through Stage 2, eventually finishing 33rd.
• My “primary tour” scoring average of 70.63 on the Tarheel Tour was my second-best in 5 seasons. The 2004 Gateway Desert series was the only lower scoring average, and I believe conditions were substantially more difficult on this year’s Tarheel Tour.
• In multi-round events, I had 5 top-5 finishes and 8 top-10’s.
• I made 16 of 21 cuts on the Tarheel Tour.

All of this was in spite of 5 weeks of downtime when I was playing very well (1 week early in the year for the Flu and 4 weeks with a broken toe).

The big carrot was making it to Stage 3 of PGA Tour Q-School because that would have guaranteed me at least conditional status on the 2007 Nationwide or PGA Tours. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. But, I’m still very happy about my season and the progress I continue to make.

I had a disappointing final round 73 at Lake Jovita yesterday. I missed making it to the third and final stage of Q-School by 4 shots. I’m mostly disappointed in my round because I felt like I did everything about right. There are only 4 shots I would want to hit again…1 tee ball on a par 3 and 3 mediocre putts. That’s really not a lot for a round…you can always find 4 shots you would like to hit again in one round.

Unfortunately, I had a stretch in yesterday’s round where things weren’t going my way. I had clods of mud on my ball after good tee balls 3 times, and it cost me three bogies. I also hit 5 really good putts that I felt had a chance to go in. That was the difference between my first three rounds and yesterday.

Though I am disappointed with the result of yesterday’s round, I feel like I played it as well as I could have. I’m very happy with the continual improvement I’ve made since late last year. I’ll keep focused on the process of improvement and look forward to another successful year next year. Short term, I’m looking forward to a little down time heading into the off-season.

Another good round today inched me a bit further up the leaderboard in the third round of Stage 2 at Lake Jovita CC. It was an interesting start. I made a great par save on 1 and then birdied 2. On 3 I hit the flagstick and took a chunk out of the lip of the hole with my approach shot. Unfortunately, the ball ricocheted off the flag some 30 feet away from the hole. I barely missed the birdie putt.

Things started to settle down after that. I made 5 birdies on holes 7 through 14. The 13th was also interesting. After a great drive on the par 5, I had about 260 yards left for my second shot. However, I had an enormous clump of mud on the bottom and side of the ball, so I really couldn’t predict how it would fly. Therefore, I tried to lay up with a seven iron, but the mud caused the ball to hook about 30 yards into the left rough. From there I made a good swing with a sand wedge that caught a flyer and went over the green into a nasty lie in the rough to a tough downhill hole. That’s when things evened out because I holed the flop shot for a birdie.

I putted well today…only 24 putts for the round. And, I hit about 4 more that had a good chance to go in. I felt like my comfort level with the green speed went up a notch today.

I moved up inside the cut line into 18th place. It’s a tight-packed field…I’m only 2 shots out of 10th.

Tomorrow’s weather looks very similar to today. Should be a great day for golf.

Lake Jovita got soaked by rain last night. Drives weren’t rolling at all in the fairways. We played lift-clean-place, and that was to my advantage as I hit 11 of 14 fairways. I also hit 14 greens and was able to putt from the fringe on 3 of the ones I missed. I made 4 birdies early (in the first 11 holes) and then the wind really picked up. I finished 3 under for the day.

Despite falling from 27th place to 29th place, I actually made up ground on the cut of top 20 and ties. I’m one shot off the cut line now - I was two shots off after the first round.

The first two rounds have been very windy. The weather for the last two looks pretty good…about 70 degrees and calmer.

I shot 71 in the first round of Q-School Stage 2 at Lake Jovita. The wind was howling all day, though the scores didn’t seem to reflect it. Perhaps we had relatively easy hole locations today.

I had it going early thanks in part to a ridiculous birdie on 10. I was 5 under through 11 holes, but bogied 4 of my last 7. I felt like only one of the four was a poorly played hole. Things just didn’t seem to go my way over the last 7 holes. To be honest, things seemed to go my way over the first 11. So, it all kind of evened out in the end.

After one round, I’m in 27th place, 2 shots off the cut line for the top 20 and ties that advance to Stage 3. I feel like I’m in a reasonably good position after one round.

We’re supposed to get some bad weather tonight and then some more wind tomorrow.

Dad and I played a practice round today at Lake Jovita for this week’s Second Stage of Q-School. It’s a good course. It reminds me a lot of Kingwood where I played Stage 2 in 2004. The layout is a good, fair test of golf. The bermuda greens are in excellent condition - firm, but holding a well struck shot, fast and smooth. The bermuda rough is challenging, as expected.

I have another practice round tomorrow before the event starts on Wednesday.

Jack Lumpkin and Mary were kind enough to arrange an afternoon practice session at Sea Island’s Learning Center this afternoon. Sea Island is midway between Aiken, SC and Dade City, FL (site of Stage 2). It’s 4 hours to Sea Island, so I drove the morning and spent the afternoon working on my game. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up and finish the drive to Dade City in time to get in an afternoon practice session at Lake Jovita and possibly walk the course.

Sea Island’s Learning Center is an incredible facility. Three full-size greens with multiple chipping areas and bunkers. An enormous practice tee (I would estimate 400 yards) on one end of the range…there are several other tees encircling the entire range. Everything is extremely well manicured. One of the most impressive aspects of the facility is the view.

This is the view from where I was hitting balls today. The ocean began 20 yards behind my spot on the range!

Yesterday I finished 13th in the Tarheel Tour event at Sapona CC with a second round 73. It was a missed opportunity because nobody went low and I normally feel very comfortable on this course. Unfortunately, yesterday I never really got into a good mental rhythm. After a shaky start, I hit some quality shots on the back nine. I did have some trouble controlling spin on some of my shorter shots because the greens were damp and fast. So, a few that would normally have been very close spun back out of reasonable birdie range. I was hitting my putts on the intended line, but my reads were just off slightly.

So, I’m not going to shoot myself over a thirteenth place finish, but I do realize that it was an opportunity that I let slip away. I still feel great about everything going into Stage 2 next week. This week was a very good warmup.

I’ve been lucky. I began playing when I was 3 years old and learned the game from my Father. He made sure I knew the basic etiquette of the game. Several of the club professionals I knew reinforced this etiquette throughout my Junior career. When I began playing competitive amateur golf, I learned an even more detailed etiquette which is appropriate for highly competitive rounds. Throughout my professional career, I’ve learned how important it is to observe this etiquette. It shows respect for your playing partners and, I believe, even helps everyone in the group play better because nobody is stressing over poor etiquette.

I’m often amazed at the lack of etiquette I encounter, even among my fellow professionals. That’s the motivation for this post. Maybe people will read this and learn some new things about proper etiquette, especially in a highly competitive event.

I don’t pretend the be the best observer of etiquette in the game, but I do think I’m at least adequate. Nobody is ever perfect. It’s something that needs to be practiced every time you tee it up.

The list below is by no means complete. I will gladly add appropriate information to the list. I’ll start off with the Etiquette Section in the USGA Rules of Golf. It’s a quick, easy read and highlights the basics.

Here are some of the more overlooked items of etiquette I’ve observed in competitive golf:

• The through-line: Everybody knows not to step on another players line on the putting green. You should also be careful not to step on their through-line. This is the line of a putt if it happens to miss the hole and go a reasonable distance past (about 3 feet or less). This is why you see professional golfers on TV stepping so carefully around the hole. They’re conscious of everyone’s line AND through-line.
• Shut-up when a player is “pitching a no-hitter”: If a player is having a great round or just performing one aspect of their round very well, don’t talk to them about it. For example, a player has 11 putts on the front side. Don’t tell them they’re having an extremely good putting round. This is likely to throw them out of their “zone”. Normally a player makes such a comment simply because they’re an idiot, but occassionally it’s done with ill-intent.
• Throwing a tantrum: We all get angry about missed shots or bad breaks. It’s what tests us most in the game - the ability to recover from a bad situation. For a lot of players, a little tantrum helps to get them focused. I’m not condoning it and not saying I’ve never had one. If you must cut it loose, it absolutely must not interfere with the other players’ shots.
• Looking for a lost ball: If a playing partner hits it into the wild and wants to look for it, help them. Continue helping them until they call off the search or the 5 minute time limit is clearly up. If you walk off during a search and stand in the fairway, you look like a jack-ass and absolutely ruin the group karma (goodwill) for the rest of the round. You’ve probably made a permanent enemy. The exception: A one-round qualifier and your playing partner has hit their 10th ball into the woods in 10 holes on the way to shooting 95. In this case, the 95-shooter has made a serious breach by entering a tournament that they clearly do not belong in, thereby causing a major distraction to his playing partners. This happens a lot!
• Observe the sight-lines of a player reading a putt who is next to putt: If a player is next to play and reading their putt, don’t walk between them and the area they’re trying to read. It’s distracting.
• Hit it and get out of the way: If you’ve just hit a bad shot, don’t stand around grumbling in the way of players who need to hit next. It unduly delays the play of other players in the group. Almost as importantly, you’re indirectly forcing the other players to really focus on that bad shot right before they have to hit one themselves.
• Don’t be a distraction: From the time a player gets into his pre-shot routine until they’re finished with their shot, shut-up and stand still. Notice that I included the pre-shot. For most players, attention during the pre-shot is as important as the shot itself. Don’t be a distraction.