Matchplay Losers Bracket

Being a loser actually made me a winner or something

I documented my first-round match a few weeks back. Due to my defeat, I ended up in the loser’s bracket. That round was my first round of the year, since then I have had a few lessons, continued to practice, and squeezed in three very mediocre to poor rounds of golf.

Personally, I really didn’t have high hopes coming into this. My swing right now from lessons is wildly inconsistent and the mistakes I am making aren’t the usual mistakes I am used to. Overall, it’s a good thing, but playing a competitive match it’s harder for me to minimize my mistakes not playing to guard against my slice or other past common mistakes. Also, when I am hitting it correctly, I am hitting the same distance I was hitting it in the summer even in the colder weather. So, judging distance is kind of a guessing game right now for me. Again though, this is positive, I am seeing a distance increase because of swing mechanics.

But the whole point of doing this match play tournament is getting myself over a mental hump and possibly having some fun, but who tracks that?

This time around I did not start up, I was dead out of the gate. In fact, I had a disastrous start losing the first four holes, including conceding the first two because of multiple lost balls. Instead of feeling down and beating myself up, I looked at it objectively. Two of my lost balls were because of bad luck, one ball probably plugged, and the other hit the cart path and probably bounced into basically a burn pile. I had to pound into my head that it’s about the next shot, not what has happened in the past.

I didn’t play the fifth hole particularly well, but my opponent conceded because of his own meltdown. Then I turned things around scoring a par on a par 3 which set in motion me going four over par over the next 7 holes, which included three pars. With this run, I stormed back from being four down to up one. I lost the 12th hole to fall back to even and then we pushed the next two.

From there I imploded on every.single.hole I played poorly on in my first-round matchup to be closed out on 17 yet again. Just shitting the bed absolutely on the 15,16,17, with double bogey or worse on every one of those holes.

I’m proud that I didn’t crumble when I was down but annoyed with the fact when I had pressure back on me, I folded.

I’ll sign up for more match play in the spring, but for now, I am happy to just work on what I am learning and focus on that. The only “competitive” golf I have coming up is a two-man scramble and a four-man scramble, which should be lower pressure.