Tournament Recap: 2020 Oklahoma Open

• Posted on Grant
• in My Journey, Tournament Recap
• on September 1, 2020
• Comments Off on Tournament Recap: 2020 Oklahoma Open

Overview: The East Course at Oak Tree Country Club is a Pete Dye design with narrow fairways, quite a few water hazards and tricky greens. It was in great shape for the tournament and the weather was really nice.

I ended up missing the cut by 1 shot, but it was a very positive experience. I can’t wait to play it again next year.

Holes to Remember:

Day 1

#2. There’s a road in front of the tee box and there was a pick-up parked in the road. It was into the wind so I wanted to hit the ball low, but during my swing, I thought about the pick-up and kind of topped my ball about 200 yards. So I had 255 yards into the green and the green is elevated which makes it hard to get the ball to stop on the green. I hit a cut 3-wood that landed softly on the green and rolled to 4 feet, and then I made the putt for birdie.

#6. I hit 7-iron from 184 yards to 3 feet and made birdie.

#9. I hit driver, 8-iron from 165 yards to 15 feet. This was my last hole of the day and when I hit the putt, I knew I hit it too soft. But it stopped on the lip and then fell in for birdie.

#12. I hit driver, 4-iron from 240 yards to 30 feet and two-putted for an easy birdie.

#13. I hit driver, lob wedge from 40 yards to 5 feet and made the putt for birdie.

Day 2:

#1. Driver down the middle and then sand wedge from 95 yards to 4 feet for birdie. Normally I would hit lob wedge from this distance, but there was a slope in front of the flag and hitting sand wedge took the spin off and made the ball stop and not spin back down the hill.

#2. Driver down the middle and then 7-iron from 185 to 20 feet past the hole and then made the putt for birdie.

#6. Driver into the right rough and then lob wedge from 90 yards to less than a foot for a tap-in birdie.

#15. Driver down the middle and then sand wedge from 124 yards to 5 feet and made the putt for birdie.

#17. The pin was tucked up front about 5 yards over the water and I hit pitching wedge from 144 yards to 3 feet and made the putt for birdie.

Learning Opportunities:

I started on the back 9 the first day and made a 7 on a par 3 with two balls that went left into the water. I usually don’t miss left, so it was a little bit of a shock. But then I realized I was taking too big of a backswing on my iron shots. After that, I hit my irons really solid for the rest of the tournament. Also, the first day, I was a little nervous with my putting and forgot to count “1, 2” for good tempo during my strokes. But I settled down and remembered to count the second day and putted well.

Positives: I kept the ball in play with my driver and my mental game was solid. I stuck to my routine of “plan carefully, commit fully, execute freely, evaluate calmly and move on assertively.” I hit my go-to stinger driver on about 75% of the holes and was in the middle of the fairway most of the time when I hit it low.

Areas to improve: 

I’m very close to making lots of birdies and cutting out the bogeys. The biggest thing in my next tournament is to remember a few little things about what I need to focus on during tournament play. Such as: Counting during my putting stroke, taking a smaller backswing with the short irons, hitting my low, stinger driver shot as often as possible, and also using my 54 degree instead of my 60 degree when chipping into the grain when I have plenty of green to work with.