Road to Open Qualifying | Chasing the U.S. Open in 2025

The journey begins. After months of intense preparation, we’re officially kicking off the 2025 season with sights set on qualifying for the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont!

This offseason was all about the grind—we worked with a Tour-level coach to dial in my swing, a fitness expert to build golf-specific strength, a mental game specialist to sharpen focus under pressure, and a PGA Tour Champions caddie to elevate green reading and course management.

Now it’s time to put it all to the test.

Subscribe to follow the full journey—practice rounds, qualifiers, behind-the-scenes, and everything in between.

📍 Filmed at Shaker Ridge Golf Club
🎯 Goal: Earn a spot in the 2025 U.S. Open
⛳️ Let’s make this season count.

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This season on road to open qualifying. We spent the offseason grinding in preparation for the 2025 US and Canadian Open qualifiers. We worked with a tour coach on my mechanics, a fitness expert on my conditioning, a mental preparation expert, and a PGA Tour champions caddy refining green reading and course management knowledge. The season is finally here and we get to put all of this to the test. It all comes down to this. [Music] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] [Music] What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the channel. It is US Open qualifying time. So, I am down here in Albany, New York. This is the closest regional qualifier to Montreal. Qualifier being hosted at Shaker Ridge Golf Club here in Albany. It’s a good course. played it here two, three years ago. Just a shade under 6,900 yards, a par 71. So, uh, two par fives, three par threes, a lot of par fours, good layout, very tricky greens, and I seriously struggled on the greens here a few years ago, and somebody in the comment section of one of my YouTube videos actually helped me with some local knowledge. It seems that, I don’t know if you can hear that, but there was an airport right next to us. Everything breaks towards said airport. So, thank you to that commenter because I had a chance to test that out during my practice round today and it makes total sense. The one unfortunate thing right now is that although today was beautiful, it has been very wet down here recently. So, the course is soaked. A lot of plugged balls and we have already been told that we will be playing the ball down tomorrow. It’s just kind of the USGA’s way of doing it. Doesn’t matter how wet the golf course is, you play the ball down. They want to make it as tough as possible because they want the best of the best to make it into the US Open proper. So, a little update from me on my end. I’ve been playing some good golf recently. Preparations been going well since the tournament last week. Happy with the progress that I’ve made. Unfortunately, 2 days ago, my recent injury flared up again. Uh to the point where I didn’t even know if I was going to play the practice round today. I was in so much pain when Matt and I left Montreal this morning. I was able to play the practice round. I’m not going to lie, it’s not great. But when I was on the course, it really didn’t feel too bad. Now that I am off the course and I’m not moving as much and my body is cooling down, it is tight. It is painful and I have a lot of work to do tonight just to rehab it and get it in the best shape possible for tomorrow. So, stretching, foam rolling, ice bath, all of the above. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will have me feeling better in the morning because right now it is not feeling great. Obviously not ideal to be going into a US Open qualifier not feeling at 100%. But the situation is what it is. I just hope I get the opportunity to play tomorrow because to uh to come all the way down here and not even get a chance to try to qualify would suck. Anyways guys, that’s it for now. I got to go take care of my glute and back. But we’ll catch up with you guys in the morning. Morning guys. I’ll start with the good news. The sun is out. Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day down here in Albany. The bad news, Fortunately, my injury did not get any better overnight. I’m in a considerable amount of pain and discomfort this morning. Not very good mobility. I’ve been trying to get it to warm up with not much luck at this point. We’re just leaving the hotel, going to head over to the golf course. uh see how warm I can get this. And at this point, we’re uh kind of just hoping that I can get through the round today. So, keep your fingers crossed for me. So, once we got to the course, I went directly to the short game area. I figured this was going to be the best way to slowly get my body warmed up, slowly move, slowly start rotating, just getting a feel for the club, getting a feel for my mobility. I knew that the short game was going to be very important today because I definitely didn’t feel like my ball striking was going to be fantastic. Once we get over to the range, just starting with some small wedge shots. This is all feeling pretty good. But once I start to make a slightly bigger swing, yeah, you’re going to see that that didn’t go very well. Basically, the issue at this point is that I believe I’m dealing with tendinitis in my right glute. So, as a right-handed player, when I load up into my right side, because the glute isn’t functioning properly due to the pain and discomfort that I’m experiencing, I can’t really push off of my right leg as well as I normally would, which prevents me from getting to my left side, which moves the low point of my swing arc back and tends to have me hit shots pretty heavy. So, I start to get a feel. You know, I’m trying to essentially change my swing to make it work. You can see that it’s not super consistent as I hit one fat and then one very thin, but I’m just trying to build up a feel, see what I can do with the mobility that I have. Take a step back and try to stretch it out a little bit. I mean, I’m I know that this is going to be a long day at this point, but we’re here at this point. We’re technically able to play, even though arguably maybe we shouldn’t, but we’re going to give it a try. It is a beautiful day down in Albany. It’s not going to get overly warm until later in the afternoon. It was definitely a little bit cool in the morning and we had an 8:30 tea time. It was going to be a very windy day. Had some very, very heavy gusts of wind throughout the day. and actually the opposite wind direction that from that that we played in the practice round. So, that was going to be a little bit tricky. You can see as I get into the longer clubs, I’m starting to get a little bit more warm. I’m starting to move a little bit better. Definitely striking the ball well, I’d say better than I expected, but it’s not great. I can still feel that I’m having a hard time generating any kind of power. So, I’m going to spend a lot of today kind of guessing how far my clubs are going, which is never really a comfortable feeling. Pretty hard to trust your shots if you’re not sure how far they’re going to go. [Music] And we will finish off our warm up over on the putting green. Just trying to get a feel for the pace. Now, if you’ve seen my previous video, you know that I have a new putter in the bag this year. It’s a putter that I feel very, very comfortable with. Very easy for me to align. Very easy for me to start my putts on my intended line. And this is going to have to be another club that’s going to be very important to me today because I don’t expect to hit a ton of greens. I’m going to have to rely on my short game. I’m going to have to convert a lot of short putts if I want to keep myself in this thing cuz I know that going out and essentially taking the course down through ball striking is just not a realistic expectation today based on my physical limitations. Now we’re just up the straight. So just after 8:20, we head up to the first tea, go through all the rules for the day, get our pin sheets, meet our playing partners, and at 8:30, we are given the all clear to go ahead and start our round. I was first hit in our group. This first hole is a par4, 428 yds, slightly downhill from the tea, back uphill to the green. You can see that there is water down the right hand side and there is the entrance or road driveway down the left. This was back into the wind. I’d hit driver in my practice round, but I wanted to make sure I was taking the water out of play. So, I decided to hit 3-wood this morning. And I’m basically trying to start this just at the right side of that fairway bunker. It shouldn’t be enough club to reach the bunker with the wind. That’s just a pretty safe line there. Pretty safe club. Pretty decent contact all things considered. It did turn over on me a little bit. This is definitely going to go a little further left than I would have liked. Just left that bunker a little bit behind it. All in all, pretty decent shape though. We had 164 y into the green. I’m hitting an eight iron. This pin was slightly at the back of the green, slightly on the right hand side. You’re going to see there was a big false front. Now, I wanted to get over that false front, but I also didn’t want to bring long into play. And not knowing how far my ball was going to be going, I didn’t want to hit the seven and bring long into play. Eight did come up a little bit short, though. Catches the false front. Rolls back off the green. So, I have this little chip over the false front from the rough in the front right of the green. Really good contact. Just hit that a little too hard. It luckily did hit the pin. bounced a little bit off to the left. We got a little more work for par here than we would like. You know, this is about a 12T putt going back across the green. Now, this is clearly going to break to my right, but the airport is to my left. So, I have to keep that in mind and know that this isn’t going to break quite as much as you see. That airport is going to kind of hold the putt up a little bit. Really nice conversion there. Good solid par to start the day. That’s good for the confidence. Big for momentum to have saved par there on the first hole. That’s going to keep us at even as we head on to the second hole, which is another par4. 366 yd uphill. This one playing slightly downwind. Again, I am hitting 3-wood off the tee. Driver is just a little bit aggressive on this hole and really not necessary. You can hit three wood and still have a wedge into the green. I’m going to try and start this up the right side. Again, this turns left on me pretty heavily. And then it’s going to take a pretty big bounce to the left as well. Luckily though, it did stay in bounds. At least we thought it had from the T. I would go ahead and hit a provisional just in case because I do not want to have to walk back down to the tea. And this swing was definitely not going left. This was a little bit open face, a little bit out of the heel, not a very solid strike. But at this point, I just wanted to make sure that I was putting something in play. So, as we thought, my initial 3-wood had stayed in play pretty close to the boundary line, but I am in play. Left rough. I have a shot. I had 104 yards here. Left going uphill. Few yards uphill here. Now pin is kind of front left and I know going uphill downwind out of the rough it’s going to be hard to stop this close. Felt like I’d hit a pretty good shot when it landed. I thought it might have actually been pretty close. Unfortunately did release past the uh the flag quite a bit. As wet as this course is, they managed to get the greens quite firm, which was fun. It’s always fun to play on firm, tough conditions. So long birdie effort here on the second hole going downhill breaking to the right down grain and going towards the airport. So you’re going to see how quick that putt is. That thing just never stopped. Really nice pace control there though. For a long time thought that had a chance to go in, but I’m very happy to leave it right next to the hole. Go ahead and tap in for my par. So, even though the ball striking hasn’t been stellar at this point, I feel like we’re doing an okay job of not taking ourselves out of it early. We just want to continue that. The third hole is another par4. 435 yds straight away downwind again. Now, again, I’m hitting 3-wood. And you might ask why. You’re going to see after I hit this 3-wood, there’s a bit of a ledge that the ball’s going to finish on. Once you go down that ledge, there was a creek on the left and right side of the fairway. Driver brings that into play. 3-wood doesn’t. This was a great swing right where I wanted to leave it. Right up on the top of that ledge. That’s going to put me in good position to hit a a nice second shot into this challenging par4. This is definitely not an easy hole. So, I had 159 yards here. And this is a swing where I knew that the day was going to be long cuz this is just a nice comfortable nine iron down wind. This should get there every day of the week. Pretty good line and came up well short. Like I hit that well, but as soon as I looked up and saw the flight, I knew it did not have a chance of getting to the [Music] green. So that ball plugged in the bank. You can see that the officials tried to do the best they could marking up ground under repair in the wet areas. I managed to avoid the wet area, but my ball plugged nonetheless. So, I’m chipping uphill. A little bit shortsided here. The pin’s only nine on from the front. Luckily, I am on an ups slope, so I can just kind of pop this up to the front of the green and let it release up the hill. Now, thought I’d played that shot very, very well. The flight I was looking for. I hit my landing spot. It just didn’t really release as much as I expected. And that’s going to leave us about 9 ft here for par going uphill. I had it pretty straight, maybe breaking a little bit left. This is into the grain away from the airport. So, this is a very, very slow putt. After how quick the putt was on the previous hole, I’m just not able to adjust and hit that hard enough. It also did break right on me. That’s an unfortunate bogey after the good T-shot. Bogeies are going to happen. Know it’s a part of the game. That’s one that I wish I could have back though. Definitely should have hit eight iron from the fairway. You know, obviously being an Monday morning quarterback makes it a little bit easier now. Remember in the moment thinking eight iron was going to be way too much club. Onto the fourth hole. Short par three. This playing 136 yards today. A little bit downhill, a little bit back into the wind. This is a flighted pitching wedge that I’m hitting. Hit it really nice right at the flag. I felt great about that strike. You can see it’s a good shot, but again, came well short of actually hitting the yardage and getting it close to the flag. So, I’ve left myself a good 22 ft putt here up the hill. Now, this is strange cuz it’s uphill but towards the airport. So, this is going to be sneaky [Music] fast and put a good roll on it. Bit of a misread. Didn’t see that going right. Still not sure how that went right. Pretty good for pace though. It puts us in a good position to be able to tap in for our par. And after letting my playing partners finish up, I step in, convert the par, remain at one over par after four holes. Why all this? The fifth hole is the first par five that we are going to play today. It is a 570 yard par five. This would wind off the right. Straight away off the tee, there’s a late dog leg to the right on the hole. Now that the tracers in this video are a little weird because of the camera angle Matt had to use. That ball did not draw nearly that much. So, excuse that if you will. Good drive down the left side. I still had about 290 yards in here. So, I’m just hitting a sixiron, playing for position, laying up so that to give myself a wedge in and attack the hole that way. Again, not knowing how far I’m hitting the ball. I’m not going to try and hit a 3-wood up over some trees with a creek short. So, after the layup, I’ve got 103 yards left here. This is my sand wedge. And if you remember the issues I was having on the driving range, well, there it is again. Unable to push off of my right leg. Can’t get to my left side. Hit well behind the ball. That little creek almost came into play on my third shot. That was jarring. Definitely not a good feeling to hit that kind of shot from that position. So, that has left me a little bit short of the green. I’m pitching back up the hill. This is my lob wedge. So, this is chipping up the slope. I believe this is going to turn to the left, but apparently the airport managed to pull this one to the right. Now, yes, it was a little short regardless, but I’m still just as much as I know about that airport effect now, at times it’s just it it’s it’s flabbergasting how much it can affect the ball on the greens. Really truly is something else. So, we’ve got this 8ft putt here to save our par on this par five. This is a little bit uphill. It should break from right to left. One of my playing partners just put it on a very similar line, so I had a good read on this. Good stroke, good pace, and just dove left at the end, which I didn’t see. I didn’t see it when my playing partner putted. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t go in. I hit the putt I was looking to hit. And you can see that I’m already starting to labor a little bit, getting my ball out of the hole there. So, we’re two over early. It’s not great, but Matt and I were chatting between shots and we know that the conditions are tough and we believe that even par is likely going to get through to the second stage. So, we want to fight. We’re going to try our best to stay in this. Six is a par4, 405 yds. Dog legs to the right. I’m hitting hybrid and I hit this well. Just pushed it down the right a little bit. Hard for me to commit to going far enough left on this hole. That is going to find the right rough, but it is okay. I will have a shot into the green from there. As you can see, I did find another one of these wet spots that the officials had marked up from there. So, I’m able to take relief outside of the wet area, which they deemed ground under repair. You can see how wet that area there is. Now, this is kind of lucky because I do get to clean off my ball. Obviously, I don’t get to place it. It still is a drop. But at least I know that the ball is going to be clean and not covered in mud. So, I have 140 yards in here to this pin, which is basically middle of the green, but hugging the left side. So, I want to play this a little bit out towards the middle of the green. That was a pitching wedge. Soft pitching wedge, a little downwind. Expected the wind to kind of bring that in a little bit. It didn’t. It also went a lot further than I expected. That’s one of the few times today where I’m going to go past the flag. So, I’ve left myself a pretty long putt here. Now, the airport is to the left of the screen from this angle. I know that it’s going to pull and I know the green’s trying to grow that way. Hard for me to put it far enough out to the right as you’ll see cuz this thing is just going to hook left. Like again, really good for pace. Wow. Not even close on the line. I’ve still got a little bit of work to do here to save my par. And having had a bit of a shaky start, this is not the kind of putt that we can afford to miss in this moment. Really nice solid putt there. Keeps us at two over. Keeps us in the game. Onto the seventh hole. The seventh hole is another par4 at dog legs to the left. This is 420 yd back into the wind. That swing felt terrible coming through impact. I was sure that I had pull hooked that ball. Clearly, I did something at the last second to save it. I wouldn’t even be able to tell you what because that ended up going down the fairway right on my line. So we will take that again. We find ground under repair. So pick up the ball, clean it off, take a drop in the nearest point. So I have 164 yards in for my second shot. To give you an idea of how windy it is, I hit lob wedge into this hole the previous day. Today I’m hitting a sixiron. Now it’s not necessarily full. I’m trying to keep it under the wind. Trying to draw it in. Didn’t really draw it. Just kind of hung out to the right. That finishes in the rough up above the bunker. You can see me checking my divot line. And still not sure how that didn’t draw. The ball was well above my feet. Now I’m showing Matt what club I hit because he knew that I hit lob wedge in the previous day. And there you can see my ball. There was some pretty juicy rough in parts of this course. So, I’ve got a long chip going from the front left or sorry, front right to kind of the back left of the green here. This is my lob wedge cuz I need to take some speed through that rough. All in all, really nice shot from that lie. Very hard to judge how the ball’s going to come out and how it’s going to release once it hits the green. I managed to leave that a little bit below the hole, which is going to give me an easier putt here to save my par and keep going with the day. And again, after my playing partners have finished the hole, I have this probably 4 and 1/2 or 5ft putt here for my par going uphill, breaking a little bit to my left. The airport is also to my left, so I have to keep that in mind. Really nice, confident putting stroke there. Really solid up and down. So, the ball striking is definitely a bit shaky, but we’re battling and we’re finding a way to keep ourselves in this. I just have to continue making pars or better to get my score down a little bit, get us closer to that even par mark. The eighth hole is a 423 yd par4 again into the wind. Yes, James. And this was a better swing than the previous hole was the flight I was looking for on the line I was looking for. That one felt good and we needed that. So, we found the fairway. We’ve got 140 yards left in here to this middle flag on the right side of the green. Again, into the wind. I’m going to hit eight iron from 140 yards. Like on the previous hole, it’s not a full eight iron. It’s trying to flight this down a little bit. And I was debating between hitting the seven. And as it turns out, I should have hit the seven because as good as that shot was, it was still quite short of the flag. Mentally though, I just couldn’t convince myself to hit a seven iron from 140 yards. So, we’ve got this long birdie effort. You can see that this is down grain breaking from left to right, but the airport is on my left. So, that’s going to hold up the brake a little bit. It’s not going to break nearly as much as you would expect based on what you see and what you feel underfoot. got this going on my line. Felt like the the pace was pretty good. Just left it a little bit short, but you can see that that was curling in there nicely. All in all, pretty solid effort from that distance. And I’m going to be able to go in, clean up for my par again, keeping us at two over par. [Music] The ninth hole is a short par4 340 yd downhill went kind of off the right. I’m hitting four iron here. Unfortunately, just pulled this again. That’s a strange tracer. It really didn’t draw that much. It was more of a straight pull. That puts me in the left fairway bunker with 121 yards in. I’m hitting a little pitching wedge here. I didn’t think the gap wedge was the right play. Good contact on a pretty good line. A little left of the pin, but when this came down, I really thought that I’d left myself a nice uphill look at birdie. I was pretty shocked to see that once I got to the green, I was actually off the back. So again, we’re going to have to scramble here. It’s a bit of a touchy shot. Right off the back edge. Ball is sitting down in this kind of thick, lush rough here. I’ve got my lob wedge. You can see that my practice swings. I’m accelerating quite aggressively, stopping my follow through quite short. Just got to kind of bump this out of this rough. Land it on the green. Let it release. This should break a little bit from left to right. Really, really nice execution. Didn’t quite get it on my line, and I did expect it to break a little bit more than that, but all in all, nice shot there. Good recovery. Leaves me about 3 3 and 1/2 ft here for my par. Now, this is a very important putt here. I feel like going onto the back nine at two over, I’ve still got a chance to get myself back into this. Going at three over would be tough. We’re able to roll that in. Two over on the front nry. Obviously, it’s not great, but all things considered and the condition my body is in, we will take it. The 10th hole is a 405 yd par4 going uphill down wind today. I’m hitting driver. I hit this quite good, but this ball just came off the club with no spin. See that? It lands in that bunker. It was only about 265 to carry that bunker downwind. There’s no reason for that to be in play. Now, I know I’m not creating a ton of speed because of my injury, but a 265 carry should not even be a question. The spin rate on that drive really hurt me. So, in that bunker, unfortunately, pretty close to the lip. I still have 125 yards here going significantly uphill. This is playing about 7 yards up. So, I’m hitting a gap wedge and I know that I’m really not going to get it to the green, but pulling out pitching wedge brought that front lip into play. So, I’m just going to try to muscle this out and up the hill as far as I can. I did catch a little bit of sand first again on an ups slope with the condition that my body’s in. Very hard to get to the left side, but it’s up there somewhere a little bit out to the right. But we are going to have a chance to get up and down here even though this is a bit of a tricky situation because I’ve got 34 yards going uphill going downwind. So it’s going to be hard to stop this on the green. Really nice execution. Threw it up in the air trying to use the trajectory to stop it and it actually stopped a lot quicker than I expected it to. I really didn’t foresee that happening. So, I’ve left myself a little bit of extra work here for my par. Again, all of these putts right now so crucial. About 8 and 1/2 ft here going up the hill away from the airport. So, this is going to be slow and breaking a little bit from left to right again. And that was another great stroke. Did exactly what I was trying to do. Just did not see it breaking that hard to the right. So again, every drop shot right now is a big deal because I’m not going to be giving myself many very good looks at birdie based on the way that I’m striking the ball playing through this injury. So, I have got to try and keep these bogeies off the card and find a way to make some birdies coming in to get back into this thing. The 11th hole is a really nice short par4, 382 yds. Goes downhill to the fairway and then there’s water short of the green. This was playing back into the wind today, so I elected to hit 3-wood. Normally, I’d be more likely to hit my hybrid here. And like on the first and second hole, it’s a good strike, but it turns left on me again. Not that drastic. Another weird tracer. Sorry about that, guys. But that is going to finish in the left rough. Now, I’m fine there. It’s not the end of the world, but I do have a pretty hairy lie. And with 128 yards in and water short, I’m hitting nine iron, especially going back into this wind because I just want to make sure that I don’t come up short. Now I do pull that nine iron left out of that lie. Rough. Just kind of grab the hoszle and turn the face over. It was pin high, but now I’ve got a bunker shot where doesn’t seem to be a lot of sand. I’ve got a green that slopes away from me a little bit with water on the other side and I just don’t quite commit to the shot. Unfortunately, it does get onto the fringe, but we’ve got a lot of work here for par going across the screen, which as you can see slopes quite heavily from back to front, but the airport is behind me from this angle. So, that’s going to hold up the brake. You’re gonna see that I’m gonna start this putt out to the left and it never turns right. Yes, I also did hit it a little bit too firm. Never saw that. But that thing never really considered turning right, which is it’s shocking. So, unfortunately, I have this five sixfooter here for my bogey. Now, I mentioned that bogeies are not great right now. A double at the moment would be disastrous. So this right now absolutely is a mustake. Another great stroke. Drop that right into the heart of the hole. It might be a bogey putt, but converting that is still good for confidence. The 12th hole is a long par three today. Playing 227 yd pin back left on a shelf. This was downwind. So, I elected to hit five iron because if I hit four iron and it lands on that top shelf, it’s not stopping and long wasn’t pretty. So, okay shot. Honestly, didn’t hit it great. A little bit high in the face, a little bit off the toe, but I did hit hit it well enough for it to carry to the front of the green and at least release back towards that top tier. All things considered, that is not a terrible leave. And now you can see that as the day goes on, physically I’m just starting to struggle more and more. I remember being in an incredible amount of discomfort at this point in the round. So this uphill birdie putt now uphill going away from the airport. This is going to be very slow, but it is actually a little downhill once you get over the crest. This is going to turn from right to left. Really, this putt is all about pace. Hit a good putt, get it up over the slope, expecting it to release down that hill a little bit. Great read. Leave it just a little bit short, but honestly, from the position I was in there, fairly decent effort on a tough par three like this to be able to give myself inside of 2 ft from my par. I’m really not going to complain. [Music] onto the par five 13th hole today. Playing 513 yds uphill downwind. So this is the last par five on this course as there are only two. I’m going to give try and give this drive a little bit of extra gas here cuz I want to get this as far up the fairway as I can. Hit that quite well. I can see that I’m still not generating my normal speed. The unfortunate thing is that that ball somehow found a wet spot in the middle of the fairway and plugged. One of my playing partners landed about 7 yards right of where mine landed and his rolled well bounced and rolled about 20 yards up the fairway. So, this this was frustrating. This definitely affected me a little bit. Just felt like I needed a break and just couldn’t get one. See, that’s a pretty impressive plug mark right there. So, I have 236 yds in here. This is about 15 yards uphill. I’m hitting hybrid. And I do bail out of this one a little bit. Leave it a little bit short right. And even though that’s might not look like the best leave, anything long or left of this flag is going to be very, very hard to stop. So, it might not look great, but I’m actually fairly well positioned. Now, they’d marked a lot of ground under repair. This hadn’t been marked. They seem to have just marked the wet areas. I’m not going to complain. I mean, I know they do their best to mark up courses. This was a pretty bare lie, though. I mean, this you you’ve got to hit this perfect. Basically, there is no margin for error. So, I’ve got to pop this up onto the green, let it release back to the flag, and I do just that. Go. Good shot, James. Left it a little bit below the hole. Now, that was by design. I wanted to leave myself the uphill birdie putt. So, this putt here about 5 1/2 ft uphill, a little bit of right to left turn in it. Really need to get this birdie to drop to get the momentum shifted in the other direction and hopefully get the ball rolling. Yes, James. We get it done. That gets us back to three over. And we do have a few opportunities coming in that we’d like to take advantage of. Starting with the par4, 14th hole. This is a short par4, 326 yds downhill. Technically drivable, but there is a creek that runs right along the right side of the green. With how I’m swinging right now, I don’t want to take that on. I am just hitting a 4 iron. I’m going to pump this down the middle of the fairway. This is still going to give me a wedge shot in. I’m still going to have a pretty good look at birdie here though. 93 yds in here. This is my sand wedge. Kind of felt like this was a little into the wind and hit this well, but pulled it. That’s been a bit of a theme today. Missing left and long. Like definitely a lot longer than I thought that shot was going to go. So, unfortunately, I’ve put this on the back fringe. My ball is very close to the the line of the rough. You’re going to see that when I start this stroke, I have to pick the putter up a little bit more than I normally would. And in an effort to make sure that I didn’t just outright top the ball, I gave it a little bit of extra gas, a little bit too much. And how that putt didn’t break to the left is still beyond me because the whole green slopes that way and the airport was left. So, bit of a head scratcher. So, we got about 4 1/2 5 ft here for our par. Now, we just saw the ball come down the slope and really not break. So, I still think this might have a chance of breaking a little bit to the right. So, I’m playing this inside left trying to give it a little bit of pace. And it dove to the right and lips out. And that was heartbreaking. I felt like we’ done some good things on the last couple holes. Starting to make our way back into this thing. And that drop shot gets us back to four over with four holes to play. Starting with 15, 408 yd par4 back into wind. This is one of the two easier holes that we’re going to have coming in. So if I’m going to make a run of birdies, it’s got to start here. And it started off with a good drive. Really nice flight there down the right side of the fairway. Exactly what I was looking for. We’re going to see here I have 137 yds into a flag that’s at the back of the green into wind. I’d hit an 8 iron from 140 yards earlier and come up short. So I decide that I’m going to hit the same eight iron shot that I had hit on the eighth hole. Ball a little bit above my feet. Expecting this to draw in a little bit. Really nice contact. Great ball flight on a very good line just right at the flag and it bounces to the back of the green. James, James, you’re rough. Yes. And you will hear my frustration here. So, we’ve got this chip from the back of the green. We’ve got to find a way to get back to even par. We only have four holes left. So, basically have to hold this. Good contact. Oh, good effort. Yes, sir. Didn’t quite get it online, but it was a good try. This three-footer to save par, which is still important cuz you never know. We might haul out on one of these last holes. Anything can happen. I’m not giving up on this yet, but we got to make this putt. We do. remain at four over with three holes to play. So 16 is a very very challenging par three especially today as it’s playing into the wind. This is 201 yards to a flag that is in the back part of the green. There’s water short of the green. I’m hitting a five iron because I just want to make sure that I’m taking everything short out of play. And one of those swings where I’m unable to get off of my right side. I hit it a little bit fat. I wasn’t able to put a tracer on this, but it crossed over the water, landed on the grass, fell back into the water, but unfortunately it did not cross the hazard line. So, I’m forced to come back the other side of the water, take a drop in the drop zone, hitting my third shot from 108 yards uphill into the wind. This is a gap wedge that I’m trying to flight down. Hit that really nicely on a great line, comes up well short, and then somehow spins off the green coming out of the rough. So, I’m very frustrated at this point. And this this at this point, this has taken me out of the tournament. But I don’t quit. I still want to finish strong. Starts with this chip here with my pitching wedge going up the hill. Really nice pace control on that one. Short game today has felt very nice, even though we haven’t converted all of our up and downs. Not that you’re ever really going to convert all of your up and downs. And then check out this putt. This is about a twoft putt. And I’m gonna have to start this outside the left side of the hole. Now, good matchup of line and pace, but man, that’s just diabolical. And I’m a little dejected at this point. I’m in a lot of pain. I know I’m mathematically eliminated, but I just want to make a few good swings coming in here so I can leave with some kind of dignity. And that’s a good swing right there. Probably one of the better drives that I’d hit all day on this tough 17th hole, which is a 462 yd par4. This left me 169 yds in flag on the left side of the green. Wind off of the right and into. This was a little flighted five iron that I was trying to cut back up into the wind and I did, but the wind just didn’t really seem to hold it. So, it ends up landing on the right side of the green and rolling off the green. No surprise we haven’t hit a ton of greens today. So this chip here going across the green again with my lob wedge coming out of this thick rough. Pop it up. Let it release. Another really solid short game shot. You know that’s definitely a positive that we are taking out of today. The short game has been very strong so far this season. Even though it wasn’t amazing in my previous tournament, it’s really coming around. So, another 4-foot putt here to save another par. This one moving gently from left to right. The airport pushes it a little bit that way. Another really good stroke. Another good up and down. Very nice par save. The 18th hole is a par4, 395 yards. A little bit uphill, went kind of off the left. Decent drive here. I’m not going to pretend this was great. Was a little bit of a pull. The strike wasn’t fantastic either, but I’m in play. Managed to avoid the bunker. So, 113 yds in here. I’m hitting a soft gap wedge cuz I just don’t think there’s any chance I can get my sand wedge there in the state that I’m in. Very happy with how this shot looked. Looked really good when it landed, but you can see how much that released as it goes up onto that top shelf. You can see me just so dejected at this point. Now, it actually did end up rolling back down that slope, which was nice cuz this makes this putt significantly easier. But it is downhill, down grain, turning from right to left, and going back towards the airport. So, this is going to be quite quick. I’d love to finish with a birdie. So, I’m going to give this an effort. Great roll, great try. Just a little bit too much pace for that line. This does give us a little bit more work for par than I would have liked. About 5 ft here going back up the hill. Managed to sneak that into the right hand side to finish with par. That’s a round of six overpar 77. Nothing to write home about. But honestly thrilled that I was able to finish the round as there were moments in the morning where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to physically start the round. So that’s a win in itself, I guess you could say. It’s something to be proud of. Obviously very frustrating to show up at an event like this and not be able to move. We’re going to go ahead and sign our scores, make it official. a wrap for this US Open qualifier. All right, guys. That’s uh that’s a wrap for today’s round. Uh I’m not going to do a full recap right now. I’m exhausted. I’m in pain and uh I’m dying to grab some food. So, Matt and I are going to go eat and drive home. And we’ll do a uh we’ll do a full recap at some point once I’m back home. All right, guys. So, I’ve made it back home. I’ve had some time to kind of digest today’s round. Start with some positives. Proud that I competed. Proud that I finished the round. That was not an easy day. I mean, I honestly arguably shouldn’t have played in the first place. probably a point in the back nine where I knew that I was mathematically eliminated where I should have just withdrew um just to make sure that I didn’t make the injury any worse. But I I don’t I don’t like that. I don’t like doing that. I like to finish what I start. And we did that. So that’s a positive. Short game was a positive. We uh we left ourselves in some pretty awkward spots today when we missed greens and we got up and down more often than not. This has been a a huge huge change from what my short game was like last year, uh, which was poor. Yeah. Yeah, it was poor, let’s be honest. So, I’m very happy with where that aspect of my game is right now. Putting has also been um quite good. You know, I didn’t make all of the putts that I should have made today or that I’d like to make today. Obviously, statistically, you’re not going to make every like 8ft putt as much as you might want to, but even the ones that aren’t going in, I feel like I’m hitting good putts. I’m hitting my line. I’m hitting my intended pace. So, you can’t ask for much more than that. I’m I’m starting to scare the hole more often on the longer putts, which is also a very good sign. As for, you know, the negatives from today, well, obviously the ball striking, but there’s barely any point in even talking about it because it’s it’s just it’s a physical limitation at this point. I I can’t move the way my I’ve trained my body to move when I’m swinging a golf club. So, you know, every time I stood over the ball today, it’s just kind of, you know, let’s just see what happens here. Let’s see how efficiently I can move through this one. Or if I get stuck on my right side and can’t get my weight into my left foot and like, man, that is so supreme so so supremely frustrating. I mean, injuries suck. And I know like they’re they’re a part of sports. They’re a part of being a professional athlete. But, you know, just to to grind your butt off all winter, work as hard as as you as you’ve worked to get ready for events like this, and when the day comes, you just can’t physically perform. It’s brutal. Just uh it’s really really disheartening. What’s also really frustrating is that even par did end up getting through. I mean, I think, you know, they had to go to a to a playoff, but I think one guy who finished even par didn’t get through um at least as an alternate, but say like one under par would have got you in no playoff. So, I mean, yeah, the conditions were tough. There’s no doubt about that. the course wasn’t giving away a lot of birdies. Um, and bogeies were very easy to come by, especially playing in that wind. Only two guys finished under par, just to give you an idea. But it’s not like I don’t have the game to be able to do that when I’m healthy. And that’s what’s frustrating is that if I had just been healthy today, not saying I would have got through for sure, but I for damn sure would have given myself a good [Music] chance. Anyway, so yeah, I’m back home. I’m going to uh do what I can to work on this injury tonight. Roxan’s going to give me an acupuncture treatment. I’m going to take an ice bath, stretch, you know, do everything I need to do because I have another event tomorrow. It’s a it’s a 1-day East Coast Pro Tour event um at Lea Villier. And again, arguably I shouldn’t be playing, but at this point, I’m I’m registered. If I withdraw at this point, I’m not getting a refund. So, you know, unless unless I wake up tomorrow and I just can’t physically move, my plan is to go play. And you know, I I I accept that my body is in the condition that it’s in and the ball striking is going to be what it’s going to be, but I can still use this as a day to just go and keep working on my putting, keep working on my short game, keep building up the confidence in those aspects of my game, which are obviously pretty important aspects of the game. So, that’s going to be a wrap for this video. Uh, make sure you come back next week as I will have that East Coast Pro Tour event coming out live for you guys. If you’re enjoying the content, please like the video, leave me a comment down below, and if you don’t mind, subscribe to the channel. Why not? You know, we make good content here. Doesn’t cost you anything to subscribe. Helps me a great deal, though, so I’d really appreciate it. That’s a wrap for this video. Thanks a lot for watching, and as always, I’ll be back again next week with another video. Cheers, guys. [Music]