PGA 36 Hole Challenge at Dundonald

Another visit to the Ayrshire coast and another very blustery couple of days. I suppose it’s good practice but doesn’t make it any easier.
I did manage to get some decent conversations over the two days and this made it worthwhile.

On the first day, I was playing with two players I’d never met before, both young professionals and decent players. As we played the front 9 I spoke with one of them at length about LGMS and he seemed quite surprised about what we do.
I asked if he had a faith and his answer was quite amusing but encouraging. He mentioned he didn’t have any faith but thought maybe he should get one.
I simply replied I was always there to help with that and he smiled. 

We all were hitting the fairways with our drives but it was so difficult to hit the greens due to the crosswinds and we dropped a lot of shots simply by missing the many plateau greens.
I didn’t let it bother me as I was happy to be out there and thought I would use this as an exercise in staying perfectly calm with no frustration.
I thought if I could keep the ball in play and do my best then that was a win. That helped.
We did a little better on the back 9 and I thought we were all playing so much better than our scores so I encouraged everyone to just enjoy the rest of the round and we did that for the remainder of the game.
No scores to write home about but we all really enjoyed each other’s company and did the best we could. Sometimes that’s all you can hope for in certain conditions. 

When looking at the leaderboard you can see the players who play a lot rise to the top because they know what they are doing in most conditions, but not too many. 

On the second day, I met up with an old acquaintance who I played with a few years back but hadn’t seen since.
As we started the round he immediately asked about the ‘events’ I did and I knew he was talking about LGMS.
It was good he remembered and I got to fill him in on how we have our own site and trying to build things back up after Covid. A good start to the day, but the wind wasn’t going away and knew it was going to be a tricky round again. 

We both hit the ball decent off the tee but again it was so difficult to get the balls close to the hole. It was very easy to drop shots despite not necessarily hitting bad shots, but again I refused to let it get to me as I was keeping the ball in play and still felt good about my swing.
I trust in what I’m doing and the more I do it I know it’ll get there.
We both discussed this towards the end of the round and weren’t too hard on ourselves as we finished with the same balls we started with.
Another enjoyable day despite the scoring and I don’t feel too many changes are needed.

We sat and had a drink after the round and had some really good conversations about both our lives and where we’re at now.
We hope to play with each other in some mini-tour events over the summer and this was a good consolidation of friendship. 

A pleasing end to the tournament and one of the most pleasing things was I didn’t get frustrated once over the two days. That’s decent growth and hopefully a good example to others.
I know it will help me going forward and I thank God for the calm he has instilled in me. 

We keep going,

Vincent Brown, PGA Professional, Logos Golf Ministries Scotland, Ambassador to the Tartan Tour