On the road again, back out living out of the old RV. The first qualifier was tough, I had just finished driving across the United States (not hitting a golf ball for 5 days) and then try to step up with two days practice and play good. Well that's not what happened, it is a tough course playing at 7,400 yards with a 25 mph wind the entire day. I played pretty good on the front nine making bogey on the 9th hole to shoot one over, but hit a bad streak on 10,11, and 12 going bogey, double bogey, and bogey. That was really tough on me mentally being even par after the 8th hole and then after the 12th hole I was 5 over par. That is pretty close to where I finished up, 78, but it really helped me to get back in the swing of things. I am getting ready for the next Monday qualifier, which is tomorrow, feeling very confident with where my mental game is and my swing. I feel like I have gotten a lot of the rust off and now am ready to play some golf to the standard that I hold myself to. Please keep me in your prayers, for safe travel and that I would play to my best abilities, but also that God would continue to use me to impact the lives of other golfers out here. I really feel like God has put me in a position in a lot of peoples lives to share the gospel with them and let Him change their lives for his glory.
Thank You,
Joe
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Travel in Guatemala
Because I missed the cut at the Guatemala International Open, I was given the opportunity to travel around the country and see some amazing things. First on Saturday me and some friends woke up early and decided to go on a hike up one of the vocano's, don't worry with a guide of course. (because that makes it much better)
What doesn't make anything sound better was that we decided to hike the most active of all of Guatemala's Volcano's, which I latter read that they have more than 15 around the counrty. 
Our guide, who spoke english, ( not much) told us about the history of Guatemala and its people as we were hiking up the mountain and many other things about the natural landscape and the trees and plants that were native to Guate. After about an hour and a half into the hike we came to a sign that warned us that if we go past this point we are putting ourselves in danger of gases and lava.
Just what we were looking for, some excitement to get our minds off golf. Enough talking I will let my pictures do that. Next we took a taxi ride up to the Quaint and beautiful town of Anitgua.
We had a lot of fun going to all the different shops in the town, just about every door way is a new shop with different things to look at. After the sun set and the street lights came on we wondered the streets for a little more had some dinner and then took the hour long taxi ride home for a fun filled day in the sun. Then on Sunday we had some big plans that fell through, we were trying to fly up to Tikal where the Mayan ruins are for the day and then fly home, but it just didn't work out. This didn't stop us, we had back up plans, now we are going to go on a jungle canopy tour- using zip lines to go from tree to tree. This could have been one of the most fun things I have done in a long time.
I really enjoyed this. This bottom picture is of my friend Ron flying down the zip line. After the nearly 1000 meters of zip line through the jungle we rode by horse back to the place where we started. Over all I had a blast doing all of these things over the weekend, and it definatly helped ease the pain of missing the cut. Oh yeah and I did all of this with less than a 100 dollars.
What doesn't make anything sound better was that we decided to hike the most active of all of Guatemala's Volcano's, which I latter read that they have more than 15 around the counrty. Our guide, who spoke english, ( not much) told us about the history of Guatemala and its people as we were hiking up the mountain and many other things about the natural landscape and the trees and plants that were native to Guate. After about an hour and a half into the hike we came to a sign that warned us that if we go past this point we are putting ourselves in danger of gases and lava. Just what we were looking for, some excitement to get our minds off golf. Enough talking I will let my pictures do that. Next we took a taxi ride up to the Quaint and beautiful town of Anitgua. We had a lot of fun going to all the different shops in the town, just about every door way is a new shop with different things to look at. After the sun set and the street lights came on we wondered the streets for a little more had some dinner and then took the hour long taxi ride home for a fun filled day in the sun. Then on Sunday we had some big plans that fell through, we were trying to fly up to Tikal where the Mayan ruins are for the day and then fly home, but it just didn't work out. This didn't stop us, we had back up plans, now we are going to go on a jungle canopy tour- using zip lines to go from tree to tree. This could have been one of the most fun things I have done in a long time. I really enjoyed this. This bottom picture is of my friend Ron flying down the zip line. After the nearly 1000 meters of zip line through the jungle we rode by horse back to the place where we started. Over all I had a blast doing all of these things over the weekend, and it definatly helped ease the pain of missing the cut. Oh yeah and I did all of this with less than a 100 dollars.Golf in Guatemala
Hello everyone, now that I am back on the road again I will be posting more regularly. Right now I would like to let you know how my trip went down in Guatemala. I was so excited about my trip to Guate (that's what I will call Guatemala from now on) that I started brushing up on my Spanish by listening to a free podcast from iTunes. In the end the trip did not let me down, although the golf side of things could have gone much better I really enjoyed my time there and would do it all over again even if the outcome was the same. I started off the week on not such a great note, but I was up for anything. The only flights that they have from LAX to GUA are red eyes, this is not good for me since it is very hard for me to fall asleep on planes. But once I arrived to Guate everything was fine, I was tired but it worked out okay. For the first couple of days things were very routine, wake up early get down to the lobby wait for the shuttle go to the golf course play a round of golf with some practice before and after. Come back to the hotel from the golf course and have some dinner that the tour had set up for us somewhere in town.
Things were going good I felt confident about my game all around, I even hired a caddie for the week that was at some of my practice rounds so i could get to know him before the tournament. I felt prepared. The first round of the tournament I had an early draw, my first tee time was at 8:20, I get to the course with plenty of time to spare and realized that it was already windy. Usually, here at this course it is calm in the mornings and in the afternoons the wind picks up. I still felt confident about my game and my ability to play in windy conditions, but I made a couple of mistakes early underestimating the wind, and all of a sudden my confidence is shattered, not because I started out bogey, bogey, but because I had gone long on my approach shots on both hole 1 and 2. Doubt started to creep in my mind, but I tried to stay strong. I fought hard all day, but just wasn't hitting the ball very well, relying very heavy on my short game to save me, which it did but not enough. I shot a 77 on the first day, which sounds pretty bad, but under the circumstances I was only one shot of the cut line. I figured that if on the second day I could go out and shoot a couple over par I would make the cut. Well my intentions were good, but I was not able to execute my plan the way I wanted to. In the second round I hit the ball better than the first round but putted and chipped much worse, not getting up and down one time all day. That makes for a very long and frustrating day. In the end I shot a 81 the second day for a total of 158 and the cut was 152. I really felt like a good opportunity was lost to make a cut there, but there were some important lessons I learned there that week.
Things were going good I felt confident about my game all around, I even hired a caddie for the week that was at some of my practice rounds so i could get to know him before the tournament. I felt prepared. The first round of the tournament I had an early draw, my first tee time was at 8:20, I get to the course with plenty of time to spare and realized that it was already windy. Usually, here at this course it is calm in the mornings and in the afternoons the wind picks up. I still felt confident about my game and my ability to play in windy conditions, but I made a couple of mistakes early underestimating the wind, and all of a sudden my confidence is shattered, not because I started out bogey, bogey, but because I had gone long on my approach shots on both hole 1 and 2. Doubt started to creep in my mind, but I tried to stay strong. I fought hard all day, but just wasn't hitting the ball very well, relying very heavy on my short game to save me, which it did but not enough. I shot a 77 on the first day, which sounds pretty bad, but under the circumstances I was only one shot of the cut line. I figured that if on the second day I could go out and shoot a couple over par I would make the cut. Well my intentions were good, but I was not able to execute my plan the way I wanted to. In the second round I hit the ball better than the first round but putted and chipped much worse, not getting up and down one time all day. That makes for a very long and frustrating day. In the end I shot a 81 the second day for a total of 158 and the cut was 152. I really felt like a good opportunity was lost to make a cut there, but there were some important lessons I learned there that week.
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