Delaney Shah
I teed it up this week in my first tournament in three months at DeBary Golf and CC, near Orlando, Florida. Taking a break from competitive golf was a good refresher physically and mentally, but I was super excited to get back out playing. I played my practice round with an old teammate from college, which was nice to have someone I was comfortable with and who had played these tournaments the last few years. The course played long, over 6,500 yards, with very tight fairways lined with Out of Bounds stakes on both sides. The greens rolled very smooth and fast, and there were lots of bunkers guarding the holes. Since college, I have struggled with being consistent with my driver. Having my first tournament on a very tight narrow course, I was definitely nervous going into the first day. My tee time was 10:40, and I was paired with two other professionals from Florida. The front nine consisted of 5 pars and 4 bogeys which was a cause of some mental mistakes and some lipped out putts. The back nine started off with a birdie, then 4 bogeys. I hit a tee shot Out of Bounds on 11, but made a nice 20 foot putt to save bogey. I then had a plugged lie in a bunker and another putt lip out. I bounced back with a birdie on 16 and pars on 17 and 18 to shoot 2 over on the back and 6 over total. This score put me right in the middle of the field, and I knew I had a lot of room to improve.
The second day was rough, I am not going to lie. My tee shots got away from me, and I really struggled to get it under control. I tried everything I could to get it under control, including hitting 3-wood or hybrid off the tee and purposefully hitting a cut with the driver to control the trajectory. I hit my irons well and made lots of putts, but just could not figure out how to get off the tee. I finished the round very upset and frustrated, seeing that I had hit my tee shots well the day before. After my round, I got a FaceTime lesson from my coach, and we figured out what was going wrong with the longer clubs. We talked about how I was getting too long on my backswing, which was causing my clubhead to go over the top. I started focusing on taking a shorter backswing, which in turn shallowed out my club and got it set on the right path on my downswing.
I went into the third day nervous but really focused on those swing thoughts. It ended up being so much better off the tee. I was a lot more consistent and felt so much more confident standing up on the tee box. Granted, once one thing goes right something else always seems to fall apart, and I struggled on the greens. My putting which had been solid the prior two days just wasn't there, which was frustrating since I was finally hitting the ball well. I went from having 29 putts the first two days to 36 on the last.
Overall, I am very disappointed in my performance. I know I have not played a competitive round in a while and playing well consistently comes with putting myself in that situation more and more. I feel a little better now having those swing thoughts to revert back to if my driver swing ever gets off again. I was happy with how my short game and putting was under pressure, so that is the positive takeaway from this tournament. I am signed up to play another event next week at Zellwood Country Club February 2-4. I am going to take this week in between and really work on dialing in my tee shots and getting more confident with it. Stay tuned for next weeks update!