Honda ‘09

Last week at the Honda was a good week. On the way down I learned a student, Sal Spallone, Monday qualified (67 – medalist), and it was good to catch up with him which was unexpected.  He’s doing a lot of good stuff and I expect him to have a solid year on the Nationwide Tour.

As far as my guys go, nobody played great, but Davis Love III played solid (T13) as did Lucas Glover (T39).  Brian Bateman made the Friday cut but after a lackluster round Saturday, missed the final day.  So he kinda made the cut – that secondary cut is not popular with the tour guys.  Jonathan Byrd and Vaughn Taylor both missed the cut.  Zach Johnson did not play.

The golf course was extremely demanding with winds of 15-20mph each day, significant rough, and hard greens.  If you weren’t in control of your ball it showed. Everybody seems to be making slow but steady progress.

That’s the crazy thing about golf – you can be making progress but if you’re not looking, you won’t see it.

Take Jbyrd for example.  He hired a new instructor in the off-season (Mike Bender who also works with Zach), and it’s taking time to translate all he is learning to the course.  He has shown signs of greatness (two nines of 31 or better, a 71 Thursday at the Honda with a quadruple on a par 3), but he hasn’t been able to sustain it for four days.  Once he does, and he will, it’s going to be scary good.  He just has to be patient.

Well I hoped you liked the first installment of On Tour – next update after this week’s dual events, the WGC @ Doral and the Tour event in Puerto Rico.

Till then, have fun and play great!