Editor’s Note: Brickyard Crossing PGA Head Professional Jeff Schroeder is blogging from the PGA Winter Championships sponsored by Taylor Made-Adidas in Port St. Lucie, Fla. He is playing in the tournament with friend and former Champions Tour standout Larry Ziegler.
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The first two rounds of the tournament are done, and we have successfully made the cut. The field started with 144 two-man teams and has been cut to the low 65 teams and ties. Our scores for the two rounds were 68-67, for a 9-under total of 135. The leading team is at 128, which is 16-under par. So we need to do some making up to get in the hunt for the championship.
Our first round on Tuesday, Jan. 22 was somewhat uneventful. We started out with eight straight pars, and then I happened to chip in on our ninth hole for our first birdie.
I have to thank my partner, Larry Ziegler, for the great chipping lesson he gave me before we played. He noticed something as we were warming up for our round, and it has made a huge difference in my short game. He basically got me to stop trying to help the ball up and had me somewhat “pop it” to get the ball to come off the club face faster, but with control.
After the chip-in, we birdied holes 12, 13 and 15 to shoot a first-round score of 68. The wind blew pretty good but not as hard as the past few days, and the course played very fair. The bottom line is we need to make more putts. We are giving ourselves good opportunities but are not able to convert the putts for birdies.
Day 2, on Wednesday, Jan. 23, started out a lot better. Larry birdied No. 2, which is probably the toughest hole on the front. On hole No. 3, we both misclubbed and left them short of the green. Larry chipped first and almost chipped it in for birdie. Remember the chipping lesson Larry gave me, well, if I did not chip it in again for birdie!
So we got off to a good start and finished off the front nine with two more birdies for a 4-under 32 score. On the back nine, we kind of stalled and had birdies on Nos. 11 and 16, but we had a bogey on the par-3 17th thanks to my three-putt.
Overall, we played pretty solid. Larry has hit a lot of good shots, but the old putter is just not cooperating for him. If his putter gets warm, we could shoot a really low round and move up the leader board. We were tied for 33rd after two rounds, and a good, low round of 8- or 9-under would really help us.
If you would like to see the scores, click here.
Jeff Schroeder
PGA Professional
Brickyard Crossing