Maddog's Blog
Chasing my dreams one shot at a time
Another Symetra Tour season has come and gone, and I now write to you from the middle of "Q-school season." My 2016 Symetra Tour bid was disappointing, but my game turned a corner just as the tour season wrapped up and Stage II of Q-school began. I opted out of two Symetra events in September in order to sort out my game with some fresh eyes. I enlisted the help of Gabriel Hjertstedt, a Scottsdale area coach and former PGA Tour winner. With my game feeling rejuvenated after a few weeks of work together, I flew out to Florida for the Symetra IOA Championship raring to get back in competition. However, a hurricane by the name of Matthew also flew in that week. The tournament was cancelled and instead I spent two days inside snacking on dried goods and overusing the word “hunkering.” Thankfully, the hurricane experience was largely underwhelming in the Orlando area. The next week’s Tour Championship was moved from the hurricane damaged Daytona Beach area back to the site of the cancelled IOA Championship- great problem solving from the tour staff and event sponsors. I could not have been luckier to have a host mom who didn’t mind letting me stay for two whole weeks (or maybe she minded, but she let me stay anyways)- THANK YOU, Kelly Hyne! I MC’d by one shot at the Tour Championship thanks to an ice cold putter, but I kept my chin up, made a few tweaks to my putting set-up, and came back strong the next week at Stage II. I shot 69-76-71-77 to finish T-31 out of 190 women, comfortably making the cut on to Stage III by seven shots. My mindset for the week was one phrase: keep it simple. I found a basic key for each part of my game and stuck with it, resisting the urge to analyze or try harder after a bad shot or in a pressure situation. Most of you know the drill by now: Stage III of Q-School is in Daytona Beach November 26-December 4. Approximately 150 women play five rounds for twenty full LPGA cards and twenty-five conditional LPGA cards. I've been preparing by working with Gabe, hitting the gym at Exos, and playing a couple mini-tour events to stay sharp. To state the obvious, I’m going to Daytona Beach the most experienced I’ve ever been. I’m taking a lot of pride and comfort in this (blatant) fact. I have learned from each and every Q-school event I’ve played (seven in total), especially my near-miss at the 2015 finals. My focus will be to adhere to my mental game plan of keeping it simple all the way from hole one to hole ninety. Last year I made it to hole eighty one. This year, I will make it ninety. I’ll skip doing more of a season-end summary right now because my focus is on what’s ahead. Thank you for continuing to stick with me on this wild ride! I'd like to give a major shoutout to Richard and Dee Frank for officially being my longest running host family. I stayed with the Franks during my first run at Q-School in Daytona back in 2012, and they have been showing support, treating me to dinner, and taking me on boat rides ever since. Thank you for hosting Demi Runas and me this week!
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Time to catch up on some golf and travel. In mid-June, I headed towards Lake Michigan for three of my favorite events. I love the quality of golf courses, scenery, and people of this area. After the difficult start to the year, I started to finally play some decent golf. I finished T-40th, T-39th, and T-13th in South Bend, Harris, and Stanwood. The top-20 finish in Stanwood was my first of the season. I took advantage of being able to hit a lot of wedges there and finally enjoyed shooting three consecutive under par rounds. I flew from Michigan to California during the Symetra Tour’s off-week in hopes of getting into the US Open. Much to my dismay, I did not budge from my position as second alternate. I was able to practice on site but was not allowed to play a practice round. This was a long and frustrating week, but if I had to do it all over again, I would make the same decision. I was too close to getting in to not take the chance and go. The remainder of the weekend in California was spent hanging out with family in the area. I then crossed the country to the next Symetra Tour event in Rochester, NY. My first round in Rochester was one to remember- I carded four birdies and an eagle in a five-hole stretch! Six under in five holes is a new personal best. Unfortunately, that was where the excitement ended. I made a few bogeys coming in to shoot 69, then shot three straight 75s to finish T-61st. The week in Battle Creek, MI, was another story of highs and lows. I had a blast returning to a place full of positive memories and being announced on the first tee as “Defending Champion, Madeleine Sheils.” I shot a very solid opening round of 70, but then made an early exit after a 78 in round two. In between Rochester and Battle Creek, I made a 24-hour stop in Newark, NJ to play in LPGA Legend Val Skinner’s LIFE (LPGA Pros In The Fight to Eradicate Breast Cancer) pro-am event. Val has raised more than $10.5 million since 2000 for breast cancer research, awareness, and prevention programs. It was an absolute honor to be a part of this event. I have made some big strides since the beginning of the season. I am improving my chipping, regaining confidence, and have started to feel more like myself on the golf course again. These improvements show in my under par scores and cuts made. The climb remains bumpy, though. There have been plenty of days that felt like a step backwards, despite what I believe to be a general trend upwards. Right now, I have to take this one day at a time, as cliché as that may be. I’m not going to continue to compare myself to where I think I should be. If I’ve learned anything this year, it is that life doesn’t always flow according to my perfect little plans. Letting go of expectations is very, very difficult, but it is necessary for me to do in order to move past being angry and disappointed and towards more improvement. Giving my best each day is all I can ask of myself. During this last third of the season, I will continue to dedicate myself to improving both my chipping mechanics and my attitude surrounding it. I did some more work with coach Tiffany Yager of Vision54 recently. She was on-site for coaching in Battle Creek, and we played a practice round focusing just on my playing skills- how do I build energy before competition and keep it high throughout each round? How do I train myself to have neutral or positive reactions after each shot? How can I be prepared to adapt to physical/mental/emotional changes that come up each day? These are all ways I am working to better myself and my golf game. Good news in the caddy department: I started working with Larry Smich, a longtime LPGA Tour caddy, five weeks ago. He brings great experience, perspective, and humor to the bag. Larry has an entertaining blog of his own that I recommend checking out here. It has been so nice to have the consistency of a tour caddy again! I am now coming off two wonderful weeks in Idaho. I skipped the tour event after Battle Creek to be a bridesmaid in one of my closest childhood friend’s wedding, then enjoyed the tour’s given week off with even more time at home. Nothing could be better for my soul than time spent in the mountains of McCall, ID with best friends and family. The final third of the year goes: two weeks on - one week off - three weeks on - one week off - three weeks on. Follow along at www.SymetraScoring.com this weekend while I play in Decatur, IL. The Mitten (aka Michigan) is a beautiful state. Here are a few of my favorite scenes- Hello from the scorching desert! Time to catch up on the last two months of golf- To put it very gently, I have had a slow start to the season. Most of you have probably seen the results- in eight events, my best finish is a T-43rd in Boston two weeks ago. I have already missed as many cuts this season as I have the last two seasons combined, and my scoring average is currently the highest it has been since my junior year of college. You could say I hit a rough patch. So what gives? I mentioned in my last blog I was having trouble scoring. I accomplished my goal of cleaning up my distance control, but my touch around the greens took a turn for the worse. My chipping was very, very off. Poor mechanics led to poor shots. Poor shots led to very negative emotional reactions on my part. Negative emotion led to negative memories of these mistakes being burned into memory. Negative memories led to me feeling intense anxiety over even the most basic of chip shots out of fear of how I might screw up again. This feeling is so miserable that I will not elaborate - if you’ve been there, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't been there, re-watch Ernie Els six-putting at Augusta. I prefer to talk about the solution instead. In between the first and second stretches of events, my coach Mike Pinkey helped straighten out my misaligned address position that was setting me up for disaster. With that and just a few basic tweaks to shot strategy, I was back to making solid contact… during practice rounds. I had stored so much fear and anxiety around chipping that mechanical fixes weren’t enough to make me feel comfortable in tournaments again. Vision54 coaches Tiffany Yager and Kristine Reese helped me get over this hurdle. They taught me to be aware of (and how to practice) my balance, tempo, and tension. These are what change under pressure, not my mechanics. They also taught me to neutralize my reactions to bad shots and emphasize positive reactions to good shots. In this way, I am purposefully taping over my lowlight reel of mistakes with fresh, happy memories every single day. Lesson learned: all those seemingly small, isolated outbursts of anger, frustration, or embarrassment after bad shots add up over time. If I don’t learn to control my emotion, the emotion will eventually control me. There lies the micro explanation of my struggles. Here’s the macro explanation: I chose to play an unbelievably fickle game for a living. When you decide to play professional golf, you’re signing up for the valleys just as much as the peaks. It is an inescapable part of the game. As devastating as missing cut after cut by one or two shots has felt, I cannot let that change my self-perception. PGA Tour player James Hahn recently missed eight (!!) consecutive cuts then won the Wells Fargo Championship. There is nothing stopping me from doing the same. I am positive that everything I am learning from these lows is only going to make me that much better down the road. The great news is I feel like I have recently turned a corner. On May 23rd, I shot 69-71 in my US Open Qualifier, tying for 2nd out of 80 women. I lost in a playoff for the second guaranteed spot into the Championship, but I did not let that dampen the excitement of my first great tournament of the year. I showed more signs of promising golf a few days later at the Symetra Tour event in Boston. Boston was the ninth city I had visited in eight weeks, so I was more than ready to skip the Albany event in favor of an extra week back in Arizona. I have now had two glorious weeks in my own home. After some well-balanced time off and practice, I am recharged and ready to go. Tomorrow I travel to South Bend, IN, which begins a three-week stretch of Symetra Tour events in the Midwest. The US Open will be played July 7-11 at Cordevalle in San Martin, CA, and I am waiting to hear if I will get in as an alternate. I could find out next week or maybe not until the night before the tournament- there is no way to tell. You can be sure you will hear about it if I do get the call. A little bad golf hasn't stopped me from having fun on the journey around the country. I've had fun side-trips, enjoyed being with tour friends, and never tire of spending my days outside on beautiful courses. I have had a blast revisiting host families that I have stayed with for two, three, or even four years now. I am so grateful to these people for taking me in and making my week about more than just bogeys and birdies. Especially during the tough weeks, the comfort and welcomed distraction my host families provide has been a saving grace. Thank you to each and every one of you! As usual, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking- |
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