Post game analysis (part 1)

Earlier today, I finished the fourth and final round of the 2018 Tim Selinske US Masters Disc Golf Championship held at Lemon Lake Park in Crown Point, IN.

When I signed up for the event in January, my right knee was still not completely functional from the injury suffered in October and due to working many long shifts in Kenosha, WI and developing bad eating habits, my weight was over 270 lb.

Due to almost 4 months of effort, my knee regained function and my weight was back in the 250s (which is still fat) and with mostly being smart about playing too much, was able to compete.

When I arrived on the Monday before taking the whole week off work, the signage was starting to be up and I had a huge smile on my face even after getting a thorn filled branch stuck to it.

On Thursday, more was up and being at the players party was amazing to behold. There was so much nervous energy in me when I started Friday afternoon, it could power tournament Central especially after birdieing two of the first three.

However, reality kicked in and I finished poorly. After dinner, I spent a half hour putting and when I started the next day badly missing three putts, was down.

From that point, I was able to slowly rebuild confidence making one birdie putt and after tearing up my legs on a thornbush, put a drive next to the basket and had a respectable round.

Following lunch, I was putting things together and beat my best score on Red by 6 shots which was 8 better than the day before. The rating was also a personal best.

Sunday was the long but open blue course which puts a shorter thrower like me at a disadvantage. My approach game was on. Only twice on the 13 that require an approach, did I have a putt over ten feet and made them both. I birdied two of the other five and with two difficult birdie putts around a tree just miss off the front of the cage and a third around a large bush land next to the basket.

The rating was even better than the previous round and I finished 25th out of 40 as I should have ended up 34th.

I enjoyed that awesome feeling all the way home even with traffic and after a nap tried to figure out how I managed to shoot 18 shots better than expected.

I realized the answer:

I WAS OFF WORK THE WHOLE WEEK BEFORE THE EVENT AND MY LEGS WERE NOT TIRED FROM MY JOB!

That took the smile off my face as I realized that this situation is not really repeatable. I am not George Costanza and I can't spend the summer unemployed and playing disc golf.

On Tuesday, I need to be back at work.