First Professional Practice Round!...Results inside

Well we got our first practice round in as professional's on Sunday at Black Bear G.C. in Eustis FL. It is so nice showing up to play and finding familiar faces from ranking school to play with, what a difference it makes playing in a foursome of professionals. It 's so much better to play with good players I feel my game improving every time I put a club in my hands, I just cant wait to get into a tournament. Yes sadly that means I regret to inform everyone that I failed to make it in my first Monday qualifier this year. Despite playing great most of the day I wasn't able to take advantage of my good shots missing many short birdie putts on the tricky bermuda greens, add a few mental errors and the score wasn't where it needed to be. One thing that was really weird however was the fairways, I think the grass must grow much slower out here because the fairways are just COVERED in divots(for you non golfers that's the hole make when hitting a golfball off the grass) as more than half of the fairways I hit my ball came to rest in a divot. Now for the golfers: the break down of my round...On the front nine I used three wood most of the time off the tee as many of the par 4's are less than 420 yards as hitting full shots into these greens is very important being that they are very small and hard. I'm hitting my three wood about 285 yards giving me very comfortable yardages to the pins and it helps to hit 5 of 7 fairways. I also hit most of the greens giving myself six birdie chances inside of 8 feet(throwing darts), 3 of which were about 4' none of which I converted! That is not like me as putting is definitely one of my strengths, but everyone has there off days. With the chances I'm giving myself and the putting I am capable of I feel I can go very low. After making the turn I started off pounding a 350 yard drive on the long 460yd par four tenth(the tees were way back) surely setting myself up for a birdie and a confidence boost but again I found my ball in a deep divot and made bogey, followed by two more. This was a discouraging start to the back, but I managed to birdie the 13th and 16th to make up for some of the foolishness on 10,11, and 12. The thing that killed me was the lack of greens hit on the back nine. I practiced from the conclusion of my round until dark and got some of the putting problems worked out, and began striking the ball much better. In overview I would say that off the tee and around the greens I was very solid today, and it was definitely my strength for the round. On the other hand my weaknesses were some poor putting and a few bad breaks landing in divots that lead to some bad iron shots. Keep pulling for me I'm getting close and thanks again for your positive golf vibes and support... By the way I put some pictures of my practice round and a friend of mine from JR from Kansas City whom I met in ranking school. He's a big old boy with a bigger heart, and always good for some laughs!