update through the Tampa Futures event

Hi Friends,

*Note...I did not add the pictures yet..coming soon*

I learned a few days before the Tampa Futures event that I had gained a spot in the field! Yippee! I drove north and west from Port St. Lucie on Tuesday, March 14th to begin my week. It was a challenging week characterized by rain delays and a windswept golf course. If you watched the Saturday coverage of the PGA Tour event at Bay Hill that will give you an idea of the conditions we played in.

The week began on Tuesday with a mandatory player meeting where we learned about "branding" ourselves. It was interesting and informational session about how to gain sponsors based on our personalities and character traits. It was also announced that just a day earlier one of the players who had graduated to the LPGA tour from the Futures Tour, Meaghan Francella, had just beat Annika in a playoff in Mexico! What a testimony to the competitiveness of our tour. Needless to say, I am soaking up every minute of my experiences, even if the results are not quite what I am expecting.

On Tuesday evening we had a required "Meet the Pros party." I have included a few pictures from the evening. The first picture is of my friend Nicole Mytyk (on left) and a fellow player Christine Boucher. Nicole is a close friend from my days in Gainesville. It was wonderful to see her and catch up that evening as she recently moved to Sarasota to accept a job with....Christine is a Canadian player who I shared housing with in Lakeland. We had a great time meeting some of the sponsors for the event and enjoying some good food. As you can see Chik Fil-A was a sponsor of the event and I was lucky enough to get my picture taken with their famous cow.

I played two practice rounds one with my friend Yu-jin Bang...and another with fellow Nutmeg state resident, Lynn Valentine. I had a late tee time for Friday's first round so after practice and workout on Thursday I enjoyed a movie, dinner and relaxed by reading magazines and drinking coffee (decaf of course!) at a local Barnes and Noble.

A morning rain delay on Friday march 16th pushed my 2pm tee time to after 3pm. It was an eventful round, trying to navigate the winds. To give you an idea of how gusty it was I had an interesting situation happen to me on the 4th hole. After teeing up my ball, taking a practice swing and setting up to hit my drive, I was mid-downswing and my ball fell off the tee. I could not stop my downswing and I hit the ball while it was falling off the tee. That had never happened to me before! Good news was there was no penalty (I stumped the rules official and she had to take some time to find the rule...check out 11-2 if you are a rules nut) but I had to play the ball as it lies. I hit the par 4 in 3, hoping to make a 15 footer or so to save par but walked away with bogey.

Because of our late start we were rushing to finish 18 before dark. The rule on tour is that as long as one person has teed off before they blow the horn for darkness you can finish the hole if you choose (and if your fellow competitors want to quit and you want to keep going, that is ok too). Well, we were on 17 and one girl had putt out and we were urging her to get her driver and go to the 18th tee. Unfortunately, she was not quick enough so we returned early Saturday morning to play one hole at 8:15 and begin our second round at 9:33am. I enjoyed a quick dinner with my housing host, Linda Smith, and headed for bed to rest before a long day on Saturday.

Saturday March 17 was still windy but my results were a bit better. I finished strong with 2 over par on the back 9 with a nice birdie on the 15th and lipped out a chip for birdie on 16. The two days were "just hang in there" demanding conditions so I was glad to end on a positive note. Rounds of 85-80 didn't make the cut so I headed home Sunday morning.

I have had a productive week of practice in Jacksonville (March 19-24th) and have enjoyed visiting with my aunt who flew down for a visit. I am headed to Orlando tomorrow to play golf with my cousin, Eddie Moan and prepare to play in a Ladies Tournament Series event at Deer Island . Looking forward to a good week!

Some advice that I received from a trusted friend who is a very good amateur golfer is that *most* players make their living in a few strong finishes during a given season. A few top ten's, a top five, etc. Certainly, I aspire to play well consistently but it is important to find a way to find positives in an off week.

I will keep you posted!

Mary