The Shilling April 26,2011

On April 26th we had a golf tournament at Tokatee Golf Course, this tournament was different than any of our other tournaments. During this tournament we were partnered up with someone from our team and played a best ball styled game against another school for 36 holes. On the first 18 I struggled a little bit with my driver but my close game was on fire, I was super relaxed and was laughing alot. This kept me loose and my mind on ease. On hole 17 I hit a PW to the back of the green and ended up making a challenging 40 foot putt for birdie. On the second time through I hit the same exact shot on 17, the ball was literally within 3 feet of the last one. I walked up to the putt and told myself "I got this, its going in the hole"as I put a confident stroke on the putt I watched it drop into the hole.
This is a perfect example of how golf should be played, I have never laughed so much in my life playing golf. It was by far the funnest round I have played and the best one!

Mission Statement

                I feel that being able to create your own syllabus and course is a great way for students to learn valuable skills that some classes cannot provide. By creating your own course, the student is clearly doing this out of complete interest, not because they were told to by a teacher. This will increase the motivation and interest of the student causing the student to perform much better in class and with their project. If the student is using criteria that classes imply in different assignments then I don’t see any issue with students creating their own assignments. I feel when students have a choice, they will actually decide to do something more challenging because it is something of their interest, this means that they will WANT to learn about it and not be forced by a superior figure in the classroom. This is exactly why I feel that the project I chose is acceptable for any school district. My project is challenging in multiple categories and I will be learning a lot of very important skills and because I chose this, I will be more interested and motivated for this project making me want to learn more and do more work in order to be successful. 

Tiger Woods

                 As many people know Tiger Woods went through quite the rough patch, after his incident his golf game went to crap. Tiger started shanking the ball and ended up not attending PGA tour events. Tiger worked with many therapists and swing coaches to try and clear his mind of the past and focus on what he was good at, the game of golf. Once Tiger returned he still struggled in rounds but that didn’t stop him from trying, if he had a bad round then that meant he would just go home and work harder to improve other mistakes. In the 2011 Masters Tiger started the tournament with a 71, a 66 on the second day, a 74 on the third day, and a 67 on the fourth day resulting in a 10 under finish for the Masters. This was the best round of Tigers career since his return from the chaos he went through, the difference between this tournament and the previous ones is that Tiger seemed so much more relaxed in this one. Tiger had the confidence he lacked before, this made him an overall better golfer and caused him to have the round he did because of his positive attitude. During this tournament viewers could tell he wouldn’t settle for anything less than what he did, he played very well and let everyone know it. 

April 18, 2011

On Monday we had a golf tournament at Shadow Hills Country Club I started the round off very poorly and had a pretty bad attitude. I started the round unfocused and with a negative attitude. During the round I began to clear my mind and start to have a more positive attitude. I started telling myself that putts would go in and that I would make solid contact with every shot I made, surprisingly this worked! I started making a lot of pars and my golf game got much better. Overall I didn’t do very well because I started the round poorly, but if it wasn’t for the attitude change then my score would have been a lot worse than what it was. 

The Masters 2011

Example 1: Rory McIlroy was in the lead throughout the first three days of the masters shooting a 65 on day one, a 69 on day two, and a 70 on day three. He entered the fourth day of the tournament with a 4 shot lead on second place and was almost guaranteed a win if he had another good round. During warm up the commentators noticed that Rory looked a little more tense than he did before, this is probably because he is so young and had alot of pressure on him to win the green jacket. They even said that his swing looked a little different and he didnt seem comfortable. Slowly throughout the round his scorecard showed this, Rory started the round off with a bogey and it only got worse for the young golfer as the round continued. Rory had a few pars and one birdie, but he had many bogies, double bogies, and even a triple bogey. This led to Rory shooting an 80 for the day costing him the whole tournament.

                Example 2: Charl Schwartzel a man most people havent heard of won the masters. Charl was playing decent golf the first three days, not to spectacular but well enough to stay in the top half of the pack. On the first day he shot a 69, a 71 on the second day, and a 68 on the third day. Thats worse than Rory, but what changed the ending result was the final day, Charl shot a 66, he had five birdies, one bogey, and one eagle. The rest were pars, this was one of the best rounds of golf I have witnessed. Watching Charl play was very entertaining, he looked super relaxed and had the same swing every single time he hit the ball. He was constantly smiling and seemed to have a positive attitude for the whole tournament. I believe that he was in such a good mood because he really didn't have anything to lose. He was an underdog in the tournament and no one expected him to win, so when he did everyone was shocked. I think because he was an underdog he didn't need to put any pressure on himself because he has never won a major before so he was just out there having fun and doing the best he could. 

Golf Notes: April 11, 2011

I had a golf tournament at Eugene Country Club I started the round off playing pretty decent golf, my mind my clear and I wasn't really thinking about anything. Once I hit a bad golf shot I started thinking about my golf swing and what was going wrong with it, I kept trying to picture my swing and thinking of ways to fix it. Slowly my game was getting worse and I didn't realize why until now, it was because I wasn't relaxed; I was over thinking my golf swing which made it worse. Towards the end of the round I stopped worrying about my swing and told myself that I was just going to have fun, when I did this I became more relaxed and I started hitting the ball better and was making pars. To me this is a perfect example of how your mentality affects your game, it's not always about physical requirements. I feel that this similar thought process can be used in other sports and in classrooms as well.