How to Have a Good Round

You don’t need your best swing to have a good round.

In this episode of The Weekend Golfer, we break down how to still score well even when you don’t have your best stuff.

Because let’s be real — most weekend rounds aren’t perfect.

We’re talking about:

•  Keeping the ball in play off the tee 
•  Staying patient when things aren’t clicking 
•  Making smart decisions instead of chasing perfect shots 
•  Avoiding the mistakes that turn a decent round into a bad one 

This isn’t about playing perfect golf.
 It’s about playing smart, controlled golf — the kind that actually lowers your score.

If you’ve ever said, “I just didn’t have it today,” this episode is for you.

🎙️ The Weekend Golfer — where everyday golfers get a voice.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up everyone? Welcome back to the Weekend Golfer The podcast where everyday golf is just like you and myself, we get our voice back. And I wanted to ask you guys something and what we're going to be talking about today. But um, have you ever really like shown up to the course, you know, had a had a good expectation, been excited about what you're gonna do? You get out there and after the first few holes, you're like, this ain't it. I whatever you were practicing, whatever you were working on, this ain't cutting no more. But at the end of it, you look back over the scorecard at the end of the 18 or at the end of the nine, and you're able to be like, okay, you know what? This actually wasn't a bad round. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. The main thing I wanted us to look at today is just how we can have a good round, even though we feel like we're not playing that well. So y'all stay tuned. First and foremost, what I want to look at is just what do we what would we classify as a good round? Um, I think one of the the biggest problems for all of us as weekend golfers is that we defined a good round probably not the right way. We find it the wrong way. Um, we a lot of times we're going out there, we're thinking, okay, I need to hit every shot pure. I need to hit it the middle of the face, I need everything just to feel good. Um, I need to go out and make birdies, uh, at least making pars. Like, yeah, that's true. We want those things, but that is not the real golf that we normally see when we're going out on the weekend. Um, I can even tell you that I can go into a round with that mindset, be super excited about it, and after a few holes, I'm like, okay, this is just going to be a kind of more of a scrambling day, depending upon what's happening. But a good round isn't about how many perfect shots that we hit, it's about how well we are able to manage the imperfect ones. How well are you able to manage if you, you know, uh go a little bit too far off the T-box, and you now you're moving into you know, you got to play out of the rough, you're having to play around a tree. Um, maybe you have to play, you know, more of just like a little uh a duck, like a click shot out. Um, you can't really hit through the trees, but you may have to hit a shot out. We've all been there where we think we can hit a punch shot. And if you're like me, I've tried multiple times to hit a punch shot, I've practiced it on the range, and I'm still practicing it on the range because it just never works out to where I can keep the ball low enough that I feel that it can come right out. So instead, I may have to just make sure that you know, maybe I take um a pitching wedge or uh my 52 degree, and maybe I just hit a little shot out back into a good place to where I can play, and then hopefully, you know, try to save at least a bogey, if not scramble back for apart. Um, but at the end of the day, like I think we're looking at rounds differently, or the way that we shouldn't. Like, we don't have to come in with so many different things of this needs to happen, this needs to happen. Um, good golf isn't perfect golf, it's just it's controlled golf. How well can you be in control of everything that is happening as you were playing? I think that is what really we need to focus on as weekend golfers, which will help us define what's a good round. If we were able to look back over at the end of the round and say, you know what, didn't have a lot of good shots today, but was able to scramble out and make a lot of things, like when it could have been probably a triple bogey, I was able to make a bogey, or when it could have been, you know, an opportunity to to make a par, I made a bogey, but that was also because I had to take a drop shot or this, that, and the third. If we can look at the round collectively and just say at the end of the day, you know, we did as best as we could with what we set ourselves up for. And there's been plenty of times that I've gone out and I'm like five holes in, and I'm like, yeah, this this round is trash, like I'm scoring 110, and then I get done and I'm like merely a 91 or a high 80 number, and I'm like kind of shocked at that because I'm like, okay, I felt like things were wrong, but then there's so many different things that are happening. But overall, I look back at it and I'm like, you know what? I was able to help manage the course a little bit better. So I think that's what we really need to use to define a good round, and just kind of wanting to continue in that. Um, one of the things that I think we probably see or notice is that most of our rounds don't start don't really start to deteriorate just because of a couple of shots. It really is what happens afterwards. Um, like our round, it doesn't fall apart because of one bad drive. It's usually what happens after when we know we've hit a bad drive, and now we're like, okay, normally I'm hitting about 260, 275 on my drive. Now I need to fix this because I'm like 200 yards further back than what I normally would be because I messed up my T-shot. So now it's like, okay, I have to hit a hero shot. I gotta get my five or my four iron to get you know 215 yards when normally I'm not in a position to hit that shot, or normally I'm not trying to have to hit that hero shot just to save it. And or maybe it's um, you know, we maybe missed a green. You know, um we hit an approach shot, you it was looking good, but then it rolled off and it missed, and then if we know that we're better at chipping, then versus a you know, trying to hit like a flop shot, then we decide to hit a flop shot and then realize okay, now we've messed ourselves up because we went right underneath the ball, and all the ball did was go up and drop 10 feet. Perfect example of that. Um, the last round that I went to play, um, I went with my uh my dad and my brother-in-law. We went out to uh Charlotte National. Um, they have their number six hole, it's a par three. Um, it's a little bit uphill, has a little uh water in the bottom of it. And I hit a six iron, but I'm thinking it was an okay shot. It ended up being a little bit short from what I had. I realized that like maybe it might have been fat. I don't know. I can't remember in my mind. Um, but I know it was short and I didn't get on the green. But I'm like, okay, I've been on the range and I've been working on you know what my 50 degrees and my my 52, my 58, my 56, excuse me, 52, 56, and 60. I know what they do. Um, so let me try it. And so I'm giving my 56, I'm right at about 45 yards to get onto the green, which should be an ideal shot because usually I practice hitting 53 yard shots with my uh 56. I go to swing at it, all I did was plop it up in the air, and it went like 25 yards. So it's it's a lot of different things of like you know, it's different practicing it in on the on a mat in the rank on the range versus actually being in the grass with a lie that is a little bit thicker than what we're normally used to. So thinking through like what's gonna work the best um if you miss like a shot or something like that, or you know, not uh uh trying to avoid where one mistake turns into triple mistakes. Um, you never want to get to a place to where you made one mistake off the T-box and you're like, Okay, now I gotta figure this out. Um, you hit another mistake because you're trying something that you've never done before, and now you've added two mistakes on this same hole, or worst case, now you're just adding those mistakes on there, and you're at a point now where you're double the score limit and you gotta just move on. Um, you know, bogeys are fine. Um, like bogeys are okay. If we can if you get to where like you can play bogey golf most of the time, that's not a bad score. I mean, a few pars obviously we want out there, but bogey is okay. Getting a bogey on a hole every now and then is okay. Doubles is where we get hurt a little bit. Well, anything higher than that, doubles, triples, those, that's when our scorecard hurts a lot. But if we can get out with a bogey, if that's the main thing that we think of, even if we hit a bad first shot, bad second shot, if we're thinking if I can get out of here with a bogey, obviously you're playing to the best ability to make a par if you can. But if you can get out with a bogey, regroup and get ready for the next hole, you're good to go. Um, just try to avoid those doubles and just try to do as best as you can to manage what is actually happening in your round and not adding on to the mistakes that have already happened. You know, one bad shot doesn't ruin your round, the next decision does. So, whatever you decide to do after that bad shot, focus on what you know you can do. If you know that you can hit a certain shot at a certain yardage and you're pretty consistent with it, then do that. Don't try to do anything extra if it's a par five. And I was actually telling a um a friend of mine not too long ago, actually, um, like it's a if you got a par five. If you you got that means you get one extra shot to try to get this ball in the hole, meaning you don't necessarily, if because you're 40 yards behind me on the T-box, you don't have to necessarily try to get you know a three wood or a seven wood or whatever and try to make up some distance. Just put the ball where you know you can put it. If you know you can hit a 60-yard shot, put your ball to where you can get to where you want to be, and then you chip on. That's still a green and regulation, get out with a one putt, and that's still a birdie. So there's is a lot of ways of being able to just manage and not let the the damage of one shot ruin the rest of your round. Um, so after a bad shot, your only goal is like, where can I get back in a good position for myself to do well? Alright, so the next thing that I wanted to just kind of dive into is of course one of the things that we have all struggled with. It is not the easiest thing to uh control in some capacities, but it is the emotional control on the round. Um, and this I definitely am sure there's like the biggest separator for like you know, it's not the swing, it's the talent. It's like we've hear that thing of like it's not your swing, it's not your talent, but it's how you respond. Like we hear that, and it's it's tough, it's way easier said than done. But there's multiple times, and including myself, where I have to take a minute and pause even in a round if things are not going the way that I want it to, and I just have to stop getting to a place where I'm getting frustrated, um, or realizing or looking back over the hole and just thinking through okay, what did I mess up? How can I fix it? I'll give a prime example for my last round again at Charlotte National. This was the first round that I played with the new QI10 driver that I have. Um, ever since that day, I have been kind of really working on the at the range of more of the path that I have of fixing my path, and I've gotten to a point now where I feel very confident with that driver. Um, I've had a probably at least a collection of about maybe 20 drives, and I'd say all but like two of them look as about as normal as my shot normally would be. I've had some that have been straight, I've had some that have faded a little bit, I've even had one that or two that drawed. I have a few that have, you know, I lost to the right and a few that I've actually overpushed and lost to the left. But what ended up happening was I realized at the at that course at Charlotte National that that day that there were some things I needed to work on with that driver of getting a better feel with it. So, of course, with going to the Concord range that I not too far away from, been able to spend that time and and work on that driver playing virtual courses so I can actually in my mind picture out you know where I want the ball to land using the technology of Top Tracer to be able to see where it lands, get the data on it, all that good stuff. Um, like but that all came from you know the frustration I felt from that round that I played a few weeks back at Charlotte National. And at the time, yes, I was definitely frustrated. I mean, you're hitting a T-shot and the ball's sailing off to the right, and you're like, okay, there's another lost ball. Um, you hit another shot, and then you're like, okay, let me just you're you're doing so many things, and at this certain point, you're just like, I kind of w want to be done. Or if you're a good weekend golfer, you're at that point where you just want to be here and just have a good little bit more of a time. But you you wanna you want to figure out the best way of just being able to just take a moment and figure out just what works the best and not getting too high or too low in what's happening in the round. Um, and then also the biggest thing that I feel like we also struggle with as well is trying not to carry the bad hole into the next hole. Um, but again, prime example talking about that part of uh three uh number six. Um, knowing that I've been hitting this shot and I've been working on it for a lot of time at the range of trying to figure this out with this wedge, and then I end up hitting a 20-yard shot, and I'm like, okay, now that just put me at a double at best to try to save this out. We go to the next T-box and I hit a driver and it fades right out. Well, it slices honestly, it wasn't even a fade, but it slices right into the tree. So now I'm like, okay, not only did I just put a double on the scorecard, but now I'm already having to take a drop shot because I know that ball is gone. And then just to be safe, I hit a provisional just to see what happens to try to kind of correct some things and maybe push the ball a little bit out to the left, dragging my left arm a little bit harder to make sure I get the ball and get the face center at impact. Ended up doing the wrong like the exact same thing. It goes a little bit further, but it still slices it out. Um, luckily enough, I ended up seeing um when we drove up. I don't know how it happened because you know this thing happened where you hit a ball and you think it's gone, but somehow it kicks back out because of a tree. Um, or maybe it was the little girls that were walking in the trees in the woods finding golf balls, and they threw mine back out. If it was y'all, appreciate it. Um, but my ball ended up being in the fairway right before the women's T-Box. Obviously, not where you want to be distance-wise, but it's in the fairway. And but that was a whole thing of just taking that hole that I knew I just put a double on, and my mindset was already not cleared out of that that just happened. Um, so carrying your hole forward can be tough. And um, like you know, we have those makeup shots, like, oh, let me. I mean, most of the time when we're playing, when we made my feeling, most of us are using mulligans. Um, like, hey, let me let me try that again. You know, call the breakfast ball off the tee if you're on the first T-box. But we're we have those makeup shots, but again, it it that can either go good or that can go bad, because the one thing that'll happen is that either you hit a good shot the second time and you're like, Well, I should have done that the first time. Now you're mad that you didn't do it the first time, or you hit the as worse, or if not as bad, as the second the second time, and you're like, Okay, I just suck. So there's not there's not a win-win in that situation most of the time. Um, you can't so with the big like one of the things that I just want to kind of say with all of this is that you can't bring the last hole to the next team. Um, golf punishes emotions more than bag swings do. If your emotions are all over the place with it, you're upset, you're mad, you're irritated, everything like that's going on in your mind, you're gonna you're not focused in on what is what this hole that you're currently on is asking for you to do. If you're it if you're focused still on what happened previously, you're not you're not in the right headspace to focus in on what's ahead of you now. Because at the end of the day, you can't go back and change what just happened. But you can uh possibly affect what happens here, and like the bet the key the um one of the best things I'll say about it is that if you get on a par three and get a double, if you go on a par five and make a but uh a birdie, if not possibly potentially, depending upon how well you play, an eagle like that is completely gonna change everything because you just made a double, but now you scratched it off, at least with a birdie, taking one of those points back in, uh dropping one of those scores back off, or if you somehow can manage to make an eagle, you've dropped the tault, you've erased that last hole at that point. So it's really funny, it's really intentional about what are you trying to do and what's right in front of you. So every and the biggest thing that I'm I'm even trying to do now, I even do it on the range, and I'm sure people probably think I'm crazy. Um, or they're like, Why is he doing this every single time? I go through my routine every single time I'm on the range, through every shot, meaning like the whole swing routine that you do before you actually hit the golf ball. I go through that for every shot, whether I'm just hitting my you know, practice round of five shots each to get my dispersion rate on top tracer, or if I'm actually playing a virtual course, I go through my my whole routine every single time. I take a deep breath and I reset what I'm trying to go after. I do that every single time so that way it just becomes like second nature when I go on the golf course. I'm doing the exact same thing. Everything has the same feel to it, but it also allows me to just recenter myself and be calm as I'm going into the next hole. So, again, kind of a longer portion that I we were talking about right there, but the emotional aspect of it is just trying to keep our emotions under control. Um, that's another part of that damage control of just keeping our emotions in check, not worrying about what we just did on the last hole, but bringing this hole back together, taking a deep breath, walking maybe a little bit slower, or uh making taking that moment to just kind of reset. Um, one thing I've actually even done in the past is that if I hit maybe um a bad, I did I had a bad hole, I hit my t-shirt and I'm okay with it. I won't, if I'm playing with people, I actually won't I'll tell them I'm walking it because I know in my mind I'm still thinking about that last hole. So I give myself time as they're driving up, I'll walk to the net where I need to go, and I'll just take that moment just to kind of decompress and just kind of walk it out a little bit. So walking is also good and helpful for you, but do what you need to do to make sure that your the emotional aspect of your round always stays under control. Alright, so I have a hard truth for all of my weekend golfers. The hard truth that I want to share with all of you guys is that you are not going to hit the ball perfect today. When you go play your round, when you go out to play golf, whether you're playing it on the weekend, maybe you're playing it on the weekday, you are not going to hit it perfect today. That is a good thought to already just have is I'm not gonna hit the ball perfect. So I'm just gonna play the best way I can I'm playing the best I can. I'm not gonna hit it perfect, but I'm gonna play the best I can. Reason why I say that is because none of us are on the tour, and even the tour pros don't hit it perfect all the time. They may have a lot more opportunities and more perfect filling shots than we do, but we're not gonna hit the ball perfect. If we hit it perfect, then by all means, kudos to you, you hit a perfect shot. But we need to stop going out to the range or going out to the the course, planning like we're gonna be hitting the ball perfect. And even the difference between like you know, going to the range and then coming back in, and oh like we've been on the range, we probably went out once or twice that weekend, that week, and now we're getting ready to go out and play, and we're thinking, okay, everything I I was hitting that ball, I was hitting you know my driver 275, I was hitting my three wood at about 245, um, hitting this, hitting that, hitting everything pure. That's great. But a prime example can be like I can hit my two iron way better on the golf course than I can on the practice on the the driving mat. Because prime example of yesterday when I went out to the driving range, I was trying my two iron just because I hadn't hit it in a while, and it felt very awkward because I haven't hit it. And so I realized like that's like on the golf course last time I was hitting, you know, hitting them a pier in the middle of the face and it was working fine. But now I'm not hitting that. So like I can't plan to get on the golf course and just know that my two iron is just gonna work because it may not. Um, and so like if you if you hit a fade, and what I what I what I'm really all trying to get us around on this hard truth is just that we gotta play our miss. Um, so like if I like I play a fade, so I naturally aim for a little bit of a fade. Um, there's times like especially now with like I'm over-exaggerating in my driver, um, the the motion of the path that I want, the correct path where you want, where you come in and you're hitting almost like out on the ball. Like um, even with my stance, like I've tweaked a lot of things in that, and but naturally, like my ball does tend to fade. So I play for a fade, like even on the virtual course, um, on the rounds that I play, um, I'll slide you know on the screen, I'll slide it a little bit to the left. In the event that it does fade, I'm still in good position, or if it even goes straight, I'm not terrible. Um, so like that's I know what that is. Like, I know like I'm not gonna hit a perfectly straight shot, but I know I'm probably gonna hit a fade. Worst case scenario, I'm hitting a slice. But I'm giving like my aiming point is based off of that. Um, if I you know, if I if you miss to the right, like if you're just like if you completely miss, we've all been there. Almost I feel like 70, maybe 80% of golfers right now are right-handed. So our miss is a slice. And if we miss that way, then give yourself space. I have a buddy of mine who would almost aim completely, like if we were going, like everybody knows Augusta. So I'm gonna just pick this one the hole. The first hole at Augusta, the number one hole. Everybody knows Augusta. If you not don't know it, you can look it up. But a picture, like you picture the first hole at Augusta, you have the trees and the the galley, obviously, the people, but you have the trees going up to the left side and the trees going up to the right side, but you have a little bit more room on the right side before those trees start, before you get to that bunker. That's probably at about what uh 175 to 200 yards in. Um, and like I like my friend would aim probably almost borderline to the left trees, if not to the people, just because he knows that his ball is naturally gonna fade out so hard that it is essentially a slice. If that's what you miss, then play that. Because if you know that you're in the fairway and you're in a good spot to hit the next shot, then play your miss. If you know that's what if they you miss that every single time, like if out of ten holes, if you know your miss is right, play the miss. Because then you might be in a better position to not be in the trees. You can actually be in the fairway and have a better chance of hitting the shot or hitting the green in the regulation that you want it to be. Um and which again, I don't always rec I will never recommend for anybody. To aim at the the area of trouble, but if your miss is that, do what you need to do. Um, I will say aiming at the trouble is not necessarily a good idea, and I don't necessarily mean like how my friend aims at the trees. I mean aiming at like, oh, let me hit over the bunker or let me hit um you know over this water or something like this, maybe as a creek or something. Like I don't want to use the hazard as an aiming spot. I want to know how far it is, of course. Um and unless I know that I can carry it, then I may necessarily, you know, I worry about it. But I'm not using that as an aiming point. Um prime example of uh that is number uh I'm trying to think, I think it is one, two, three, four. Well, possibly there's number so number four at Charlotte National here in in in North Carolina. Uh number four is a dog leg to the left, and there's a little there's a chunk of trees that sit out to the left side, and you can play right at it, and it'll put you right over the fairway. But if you play with like right in it, you're cutting off a lot of the hole, which is fine. But that is an aiming point, but I don't necessarily I know my ball is not gonna end there. That's the thing I'm trying to get us, like kind of really trying to say right here in this moment about not aiming at the trouble. Like, I may be kind of looking at that as my spot, but I'm not um going to I'm aiming from it almost at if that makes sense. So like I know my ball, unless it if it goes straight, then I'm in the trouble spot. That's what I'm trying to say. Like if it goes straight, then I'm there. But I know that the ball is gonna fade a little bit just because of how I like I like a fade anyway, but if you know your ball is gonna veer away from it, then it's fine. But don't you know think that you're gonna hit a perfect shot and then you're in the trouble. It's like you're just putting yourself in a difficult position. Let's say I hit like if you know if you hit your driver, you know, dead straight every single time and you're aiming for a bunker, that's just not smart. So, um, but play your bad swing, play the uh play the bad swing. Oh well, play for your bad swing, not for the perfect one. Because again, we're not perfect, we're not hitting all these things. All right, so the last thing that I just wanted us to kind of to hit on here um is just the simple strategy shift. Um, it's kind of like collecting all of what we've talked about so far, um into just making sure we're like again, we have those good rounds when we go out. Um, but when you when you don't have your best stuff out there, like when we go out and we play and we don't have our best stuff, the good thing to do is just to simplify everything. Um, small practical things that we know that we can do. Um, I don't have my best stuff, but let me just aim for the middle of the green. If I know my miss has just been going right, I'm just trying to aim for the middle of the green. Let's just simplify it, hit a simple shot, get it in the middle of the fairway, or get it in the middle of the green. Um, if things seem to be going shorter, or like you've hit a few shots and you realize like the distance that you've been hitting, like a seven-iron, is a little bit shorter today, then you know, club up and swing a little bit smoother. Um, use your most trusted club off the T. There's been plenty of times that I've gone out with my brother-in-law to go play, and he's used his six-iron because that is his trusted club ever in his bag, and that club will give him more quality and more chance of having a better score on the hole than sometimes his driver will. So if you have to do that, by all means do that. There's a particular hole at Charles T. Myers here in Charlotte that um I believe it is it's uh number five. I think it's like the first par five. I can't remember, but it's the one after you hit the par three for all of my Charlotte golfers out here. You can help me out with that one. But um, it is the one after you hit the par three with the water on the front, and you come around and drive through the the wood, the road, and then I think I want to say it's number five. I believe it is number five. Um, but it has a blind, you know, you have a t-shot, but you can't see the next section because of the heel. I have never hit a driver on that hole. I have always either hit maybe a anywhere between a six to a four iron to start off that hole and then use maybe a three wood or something to get down to the next portion. But I have never hit a driver on that one because I can't see it. But also I know if I just want to get in the middle of the fairway and get a little bit further down. I mean, I can just hit uh a little iron and get one of my high irons and get down there. Like that's just you know what's a trusted thing that I can do in that, and I can repeat that every time I get out there. Um and of course, the simplest thing of all is keeping the ball in play. Um, I mean, you don't obviously we don't want to lose golf balls because for one, you paid for it. Um, you paid for that golf ball, whether you, you know, got it from the the the shop or the store, or you know, you maybe you found it on the on the driving range and was like, I'll use this as a water ball. Like at the end of the day, nobody wants to lose a ball. So keep the ball in play, and our boring, simple golf rounds can honestly save us on the scorecard at the end of the day. If I know that I can keep a simple shot and not try to do something that I don't normally do, then and I'm on the green and then I have a good chance of making a putt, if not par, I will take a par more times than not than I will take a bogey. So keeping things as simple as possible is going to be the best way to really, you know, take care of everything that we need to on the golf course. So just to kind of collapse all of what we've been talking about, you know, we want to stay on top of the damage control. We want to keep everything um, you know, not expounding upon the first mistake that we've made. We rather have one mistake on one hole, not three. Um, we'd rather keep our emotions as best as possible calm and in check as well, and not taking that bad hold right into the next one, and then we end up in turn having a full bad round. Um, and then just keeping everything as simple as possible. Like, how can we just hit the necessary spots we want to hit, aiming for the middle of the green, clubbing up and swinging smooth? Um, just doing those simple things. Like, that's that's the best way that we can make a good round. And I think over time period, if we consistently can kind of develop ourselves as we can golfers in that space to where we're just focused on the simple things and enjoying the time that we're out there, because any day on the golf course is a better day to be in the office. It was better than being in the office. So um, the simplest way of doing everything is just going out there having fun, and you'll be surprised how much your round just feels a little bit better, not focusing so much on you know those guys. Like we've seen all those videos where they're smashing clubs down and breaking clubs or doing all these random things. Like, there's there's no need for that, first of all, because golf cross golf club uh golf clubs cost way too much. Um and I've I've done that in the past, I've been a victim of that, but at this point, like I'm just like, uh, that was a crap shot. Okay, now let's figure out the next one. Like it's that it's at that point, because I can't fix it at that point. Once you're on the golf course, you can't fix it unless you're just one of those guys that takes 35 mulligans and says you had um a score of 52 on the front and the back nine, and now you're lying in the tournament. But we're not gonna talk about that on here. Alright, so wanted to end this podcast um kind of what I was going to do in the last one was the round recap. So I had mentioned previously um that I had gone out to play uh Charlotte National Golf Club not too long ago. Um, but just kind of want to set the scene for you guys a little bit and give you guys kind of a quick round recap and even talk about some of the things that um I had to realize that I was defining what was helping me define my round. So this day, a little bit of a kind of a hectic, more hectic Saturday. Um, I had just I got set up to get a haircut right before the got the RT time. RT time was like at 220 or something like that. I think I got at the course at like 235 because from the distance that the travel was. So I caught um I was playing with my dad and my brother-in-law, and I caught them on hole number three. So I had already missed the first two holes, trying to get things squared away, but I finally get out there and I'm starting on pole number three, which at Charlotte National actually is a part three, um, which never fun. Um, but no warm-up, nothing like that. Just walk right out there, grabbed some clubs, and was like, all right, cool. We got uh 145 yards or 150-something yards, I can't remember how much it was. Um but we get our round started, and so but I was excited obviously to ready to go play golf. This is like one of the first few rounds of the year. Excited to get ready to go play, and we're starting off not too bad. Um, I'm also excited because this is the first round that I'm playing with my new driver. Um, of course, that eventually uh didn't go as well. Um, but there was obviously some early struggles going on. So we played the first hole. I think I made out with a bogey or a par I'd have to look at my 18 birdies to see what the scorecard was. Um, but I know that it was not ideally the best round. I know the biggest highlights that I remember from that round was that um there was a lot that I needed to grow with the driver, which I have spent a lot of time on that because a lot of those drivers and those T-shots were not going where I wanted them to go. Um, I had mentioned previously the shot that I hit, um, my second shot on number six, I believe, um, where I was supposed to hit all I needed to hit was like a little 50-yard uh shot uphill to get onto the green, and I hit it 20 yards, and now I had to double chip. So, and and then the next hole losing the ball off the tee. So, like, there was already things that were happening, and I even had to try to adjust as best as possible of like, okay, because there's a there's a the I guess that's what you would consider the famous hole at Charlotte National is when I believe you get to number eight, if I'm not mistaken, it's hole number eight. Your T-box is set up at about it's up on a hill, and then you um you're you're teeing off like downhill, maybe like I don't know, maybe somewhere close to like 50 feet or something like that. Like you can, it's a big dip. Enough of a dip that you can notice it. Um, but there's a lot of area in the right side of that fairway. So I'm like, okay, obviously my driver hasn't been going too well today. I know my three wood, I need to get re-gripped because and reshafted because um I have just not liked the feel, I haven't liked the feel of that with my three wood. Um, and I know I wasn't teeing off with that because that was just gonna be a disaster worse than the driver was. But I want to work out the driver as well. So hitting the driver, I ended up hitting it to the right, but it was okay. Found it. Um found the ball sitting on the right side, a little bit in the muck. Um, hit a shot. Uh I think it was a seven-iron, hit the seven iron, trying to hit it about one fifty and eight-ish or so, a little bit almost one sixty. Um, bled off to the left, but I ended up making a birdie on that one because I was able to chip close and then um and let it fall. And it up well, no, it was part on that one. I chip close, and then I was able to put one time for that one, but I can't remember if it was a part five or not. But those are just like those things of the adjustments that you're just kind of having to make on the fly, um, but also having to manage the emotions of it. And then there were the worst thing I can tell you was um we're we're playing, and you get on a hole, and I think it was like 13 or 14, somewhere getting close to the on the backside, because we couldn't finish all of it um due to the uh sun going down and the time constraint. This was right before daylight savings time, and there was one hole we were playing, it was like a par four, and it was cart path only the entire time. And of course, the way that my driver's going, the cart path's on the left side, my driver took the ball to the right. I actually didn't even find the ball. So I lost the ball and I'm like, all right, okay, so now we're we're struggling a little bit again. Lost the ball. I walk all the way back in my walk. I'm trying to prepare my mind of just like, okay, I've lost the ball, can't do nothing about it. Let's just take a drop where I believe the ball went out and hit a shot up to the grade. I hit the shot, it falls short. I chip it, it runs a little bit long. I ended up making a two-putt. I don't even know what the score was at that point. I put it down on the scorecard, but it just wasn't it wasn't going well. So, but those are those things that you just kind of understand and learn throughout the process of the round of like, okay, I'm not gonna get it any better. It's not it's it's not gonna get any better, but I can control how much how worse it gets. That's the key thing. The round's not gonna get any better, but I can control how worse the round gets. So just trying to avoid again those blow-up holes. And I know I didn't play great, but I didn't let it get super, super bad to where you know things are breaking and stuff's going to horribly wrong, and at that point I'm getting kicked off the golf course. Like it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. All right, so I'll say all of these things and everything that we talked about today. First and foremost, I hope you guys have enjoyed um this podcast episode. And if there's anything that you guys want to hear about, definitely let me know um in the comments below. Reach out to me either on TikTok or on um Instagram at the weekend golfer. Definitely let me know. Uh, but if you're playing this weekend, remember these few things. You don't need your A game to shoot a good score. You know, you just want to keep the ball in play. Taking a bogey is okay, it is not the end of the world. Um, and then making smart decisions is making sure that you're playing the way that you know you can play. Um, our good rounds aren't built on perfect swings, it's built on the smart decisions that we can make. So, if this episode has helped you or helped uh anybody that you have uh possibly have known about or knows that they're playing golf and it would be helpful for them, go ahead and share that with them. Uh let them know that they can subscribe and follow and get all of the content that is coming out from the weekend golfer about the weekend golfers for weekend golfers. Um, and if you're not already a part of the weekend golfer clubhouse on Facebook, you need to join. Um, we are just it's a place where we can get a whole bunch of golfers together to talk about real things that we deal with, even connect about some people that may want to go play golf this weekend in your area, they can connect. But again, this is the weekend golfer where everyday golfers get a voice, and I hope you guys have certainly enjoyed the off your list.