Omaha Metro Championship-- Day 2

Day two of the Omaha Metro Golf Championship started much the same as day one---a two hour rain delay. Which is good for me, as I am not a good morning golfer. I used the extra two hours to go grab a breakfast sandwich at Burger King and to find my swing.

I got to the first tee at 9:10 am and met my playing partners for the day, Cliff and Rob. I felt as though my swing was in tune, so I took out the driver and put it down the left hand side of the fairway. I topped my approach shot, which left me about 110 yards to the pin. I caught my third shot square and over shot the green. As I went looking for my ball, I realized that OB was only about 5 paces off the back of the green. I made my way back up the fairway, dropped my ball, put shot number 5 on the green and, in my frustration, three putted for a dreaded 8. (2 strokes lost -- penalty + distance, 1 extra putt =3)

Luckily, I was able to clear my mind of the amazingly poor quadruple bogey on the first hole and was able to strike a good drive down the right side of the fairway rough. I had about 210 into the par 5 green, so I put my second shot in front of the green, chipped on, and two putted for a par.

On hole number 3, I put my 5-wood in the fairway, and landed my approach onto the green. But, the pin was tucked in the back of the green and I three putted for a bogey 5. (1 extra putt)

The fourth hole was a 160 yard par 3. I missed the green on my tee shot, chipped on, and two putted for a bogey 4.

I was unable to play the par 4 fifth hole as well as the day before, where I scored a birdie, and took a bogey 5 after missing the green on my approach, chipping on, and 2 putting.

I did however clean up my front nine with four consecutive pars on holes 6, 7, 8, and 9, which gave me a total of 43.

My back nine was much less eventful as the front, with scores of bogey on holes 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 18. I took a par on the par 3 14th and a double bogey on the par 5 16th, for a total of 45.

I carded a total of 88, which was about 4-6 strokes over what I could have potentially scored had I not had the out of bounds penalty on the first hole and had I not three putted two of the holes. I did, however, limit myself to one blowup this round and I had the personally impressive four hole stretch of pars.

After the round, I was proud of myself for improving my score by 6 strokes from the previous round and I would later find out that I was one of the few players in my flight to improve their score on the second day.

I hung around the clubhouse as the rest of my flight trickled in and was pleased to discover that I had tied for day money ($65), which, when combined with the skin from the previous day ($50), was enough money to win back my entry fee.

I was, however, unhappy with the way the tourney was structured, when I discovered that at least 4 of the players in my flight had handicaps under 10.0 and that had I played to my full potential, the best I could have placed in my flight was 5th. There were over 20 strokes difference between my score and the winner of my flight. Had the bottom three flights been structured similarly to the top two flights, with the flights being determined by the scores from the first day, I would have placed 2nd in my flight, with the top 4 players in my flight coming in as the 8-16th place finishers in the third flight. It is a little late to worry about it now, but it is something I may suggest to the tournament organizers for next year.

All in all, I felt very pleased with my performance that weekend. I struck the ball quite well. I also learned that my short game is in need of some practice, but considering how often I play and practice, I was able to hold my own. I ended the tournament in 10th place in my flight (out of 24 players) and in about 100th place out of the 156 competitors in the tournament. I'm not sure if I will play in the tournament next year, but I am sure glad that I got the opportunity to do so this year.