Tiger Round

So in the Tiger Woods Challenge on the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 I struggled mightily with the Scotland course. I was not looking forward to playing it as a Tour event since I figured that would continue.

But I came out on fire. I hit a beautiful shot to Eagle the first hole. I birdied the second hole. I birdied the 3rd hole. I hit par on the 4th. By the 10th hole I was 10 under for the round. I ended at 14 under, setting my all time record of 58. I did not bogey a single hole. It was awesome.

For day 2 I came out expecting more of the same. But the wind had kicked up. Now my long drives found the rough. My second shots shot way left...not drifted, shot. I had one shot where I aimed 40 or 50 yards to the right of the green...and went O.B. to the left with a 60 yard window over there on a 108 yard shot.

After that I got smart and started using a lot of punch shots or at the very least changing the loft on my shots. And I fought my way to a sub-par round somehow, some way. It was tough but fun.

It was very challenging. I had gotten used to just unloading, powering up every shot as much as I could. Even when I missed the fairway it was not by much and I was so close to the green that recovery was no problem.

Now, however, I was hitting long rough, long second shots, bunkers...and even more importantly, tough putts. I had come to consider 30 foot putts routine because they were typically relatively straight. Now 20' were almost impossible and there were even a few 5' that...well, here is an example.

I had a 2 foot putt...and had to put it almost directly left instead of straight ahead. I put the minimum possible power into it. My next shot was from the rough 31 yards away, that is how far it rolled.

Under those conditions I was quite pleased to get under par.

2 more rounds like that and I eked out a 3 shot win.