T50 Nathan UEBERGANG (+1) 72 73

Results

Tomorrow I will be teeing it up at the Toshin Challenge, a Challenge Tour event. As I re-ranked 35th in the last re-rank, I won’t be guaranteed anymore starts on the Japan Tour in the season ending smaller field events. So in the following two weeks after this Challenge event I will attend the Coca-Cola Tokai Classic and Canon Open monday qualifiers as a last ditched effort to move up the money list.

T60 Nathan UEBERGANG (+6) 69 72 73 80

Results

3RD ROUND
It’s a great tournament setup here at the ANA Open. The kids are fully catered for behind the driving range… I might go paint some Pikachu’s tomorrow and jump around in the blow up castle.

4TH ROUND
Yep, I would have been better off with the kiddies painting pickachu’s today. But, on a serious note I did hit a lot of super shot this week, especially with the long irons. Also, as most of you would have seen, I did get off to a good start during the final round. I was -1 through 7 finding many a way to get the ball in the hole from some poor drives.

Unfortunately my poor driving caught up with me on the 17th where some tree trouble led to a double bogey. I tried to stay patient and keep playing good shots but a bad break on my second shot to the 5th probably derailed me. When I got to the green to see how close my shot had finished, my ball was no where to be seen. It had actually ended up back down the hill in the rough dead behind a tree. My ball had struck right at the top of a gangly thin tree guarding the front left of the green. A bad break but you’re always going to get them and I still did managed to make a par there.

The next hole was the killer. On the 6th I tried to hit a stinger into the wind. It came out low as desired but had a little fade on it. It stuck the tree guarding the left edge of the fairway and ricochet straight left about 15m and managed to go OB. That did annoy me. Another couple metres to the right through the air and I would have been just off the fairway. I didn’t get over it and it affected my play on the last three holes.

Moral of the story: I still have to learn to move on from bad breaks especially when the shot wasn’t that great in the first place. On the course you have to reach a state where what’s happened in the past is left behind and you deal with the shot in the present.

T 56 Nathan P Uebergang QLD (+6) 77

Results

T 12 Nathan P Uebergang QLD (-1) 69

Results

60 Nathan UEBERGANG (+18) 75 70 83 74

Results

FINAL ROUND
Well that was the last leg of this trip to Japan. I’m heading home for a week to play a couple pro-ams, then I’ll be back in Japan the following week for the ANA Open which is my last confirmed start on the Japan Tour.

3RD ROUND
Well, you may have guessed it, I had another driver cave in during todays 3rd round. So disappointing. I had a feeling it was going towards the end of the second round. At the time I had no back up heads as all three of them are flattened/caved.

I started to get some awkward flights during the front nine, so when I made the turn I checked if my delivery of new heads had arrived at the clubhouse. They had. I then got the rules officials out and after a bit of deliberation they allowed me to change heads on the 3rd hole. By then I was too far gone mentally.

I must say it is very hard to tell when a driver face is actually caving. A bit of a flat spot forms (the face loses it’s bulge and roll) then it gradually grows and gets worse.

Wow!! I can’t believe I got into the event today. Early Monday I was 10th reserve looking like no hope of getting in. I was sitting at my computer getting ready to change my flights. Then later Monday afternoon I checked the latest play-field status and I was up to 2nd reserve. THAT actually gave me some hope. Maybe I should hang around for a few days and see what happens. You never know.

So being a reserve I turned up early Thursday morning and sat around. To keep myself busy I played on Craig Parry’s Nintendo DS, ate a MASSIVE breakfast, hit a few balls on the range…. then, at around 11:30 the JGTO staff came up to me and said, “Nathan, your tee time is 12:20. Good luck!”

The Fujisenkei Classic is the last event before the second rerank. I need to do something here to keep my season alive in Japan. Time to make the most of the opportunity, I say 🙂