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 old saying, “You drive for show and putt for dough,” is definitely the adage of the week for us as we finished up the Senior-Junior Championship on Friday, Jan. 25.

After the first two rounds, we needed to make up some ground to have a nice finish for the first tournament of the year for us. We started out the third round tied for 37^th and slipped back some after posting a 2-under-par 70 for the third round. We hit the ball so much better than 2-under, so it was really frustrating.

As a team in the third round, we hit 17 greens and only made two birdies. It was like every time the ball looked like it was going in, it stopped just short or broke just out of the hole.

The greens at the course were what we call very grainy. What that means it that the grass tends to grow and face a certain direction. So when you are into the grain, the putts are very slow. And when you’re down grain, they are faster. So when you are going cross-grain, the putts will break much more.

After the third round, we did some practice putting to get our confidence back, and it seemed to help. The last round had us teeing off early in the morning, and a cold front had moved in with windy conditions. So we felt like if we could post a good score, we would move up into the top 20.

On our first hole Friday morning, I made about a 20-footer for birdie, which got us off to a good start. Larry then birdied No. 3, and it looked like we off to the races.

After that birdie, we did not have another birdie until the 16^th hole and threw in a bogey on No. 12 for us to finish at 2-under for the final round. It was just so frustrating having a lot of birdie putts under 15 feet and not making any.

We finished the tournament 13-under par and tied for 46^th. For full results, click here.

All in all, the main thing was that we both had fun playing. I hope Larry gets out and plays a few of the PGA Champions Tour events. Larry is still one of the best strikers of the ball I have seen play, and at 68 years old he still has very good length off the tee and an arsenal of golf shots in his bag.

The main thing I am taking away from this tournament is that I need to improve my putting. With the chipping lesson Larry gave me, I feel like I am going to be able to save a lot of shots around the greens the next time I tee it in a tournament.

Jeff Schroeder
PGA Professional
Brickyard Crossing