Hi everyone!!! Happy Easter! It's been a LONG time since I've written anything on this blog! I haven't played any tournaments since September 2019 so I haven't really had anything golf related to post about!
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Hello everyone!! I hope all is well! Well as "well" as you can be amidst this worldwide pandemic!
It's a new decade. A new season. Actually my 5th season on the Symetra Tour! And I'm not going to lie, calling myself a veteran now is really weird. As many of you know, I don't have great status on the Symetra Tour this year so I won't be getting into a lot of tournaments. But I'm just going to cut to the chase because most people would probably like to know what's going on inside my head being a touring golf professional with the sports world basically at a complete standstill right now. I'm going to give you a little inside info that players don't always talk about. Every year at the beginning of the season (usually first event), we have a huge players meeting at the course. I happened to be in Florida this year at the time so I attended the meeting. And because this year is the Symetra Tour's 40th anniversary, we had special guests – Eloise Trainor who started the tour 40 years ago and Mike Whan, LPGA commissioner. We talk about the usual stuff like rules changes, introducing staff, important regulations, etc.. But this year Mike Whan (not Mike Nichols who is the Symetra Tour business officer), got up and gave it to us straight. He talked about LPGA Qualifying School changes, Ladies European Tour becoming a part of the LPGA and the future plans of the LPGA, the use of range finders on the Symetra Tour and very likely the LPGA Tour in the future, sponsorship, purse sizes, and most importantly COVID-19 and its potential future impact for the Symetra and LPGA Tours. At the time of this meeting, COVID-19 was not considered "serious" in the U.S.. But over in Asia, everything was already on lockdown. Mike explained a few things in what determines tournaments being cancelled or postponed, but what it comes down to is how serious the local and federal governments and health officials of a country feel the situation is concerning the spread of COVID-19. At the time, he said he had no foreseeable plans to cancel/postpone any more LPGA or Symetra Tour events besides the Asia swing that had already been cancelled on the LPGA. But he said it all comes with a caveat, "the situation is day by day". And he was 100% spot on. Less than a week later, both California events on the Symetra Tour were cancelled and it didn’t come as a surprise to me. The situation had escalated very quickly in Europe and had already made its way over to the U.S. rapidly with little resistance. As of right now, I have a feeling more Symetra events will be cancelled because in the span of 3 weeks since we first had our meeting, the U.S. went from under 200 cases to over 43,000 cases and the number is growing rapidly. As many of you know, pretty much all professional golf tours, have cancelled/postponed events through at least the end of April including the year's first majors – the Masters and the ANA Inspiration. It's unprecedented, but it needed to be done. I, personally, wasn't expecting to get into an event until the end of May at the earliest, so in reality, my season hasn't actually started yet. My take on the whole situation is that as an organization, the LPGA/Symetra Tour acted pretty quickly and decisively on what needed to be done according to what the government and other major league sports organizations decided to do. I support any further cancellations and postponements they have to make because health and safety comes first for players, staff and fans. We are not a contact sport, but being interactive and social during tournaments is a huge part of what we do. I do think the situation with COVID-19, in general, should have been taken more seriously way back in January when we first knew about it, but this is not a time to think about "should haves". We just need to do everything we can to make sure that the virus doesn't continue to spread; those who do have it are monitored and treated properly; and we support health care workers by being personally and socially responsible by not giving them more work that could've been prevented. As for myself, I will practice in my house in Canada. The dome I usually practice at is closed until further notice. My golf course won't be opening until mid-April -- barring any other instructions from the government to close if necessary. And I will not be travelling to the U.S. because our borders have been shut down to non-essential travel. Don't worry about me though because I actually work at Walmart Canada part time so I'm not broke! And yes, I will be taking a lot of health and safety precautions as I work to help customers. The golf world will survive this. The sports world will survive. The economy will survive this. The earth and environment will probably thrive because of less pollution. But the bottom line is that some people will not survive this. And we are trying to prevent that number from rising any higher than it already has. It's at unprecedented times like these where we remember we really are all in this together as citizens of Earth. There are no countries, no races, no economic status that this virus will not effect. I honestly could care less about golf right now. It's something I love to do, but as a person, I want to make sure my family, friends, co-workers, community members, and other people in general are doing okay. And I hope you feel the same. Thank you for reading my first and very unconventional post of the year! Remember to spread love and compassion during these difficult times and not germs! God bless us all! G.O.L.F. I'm not sure but I'm going to find out.
Hi everyone! This will be my last blog for the season and I know I say it a lot, but get ready for an essay! At the beginning of August, I played in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Battle Creek, Michigan. I love both of these tournaments and have played well at both in the past. But, to cut to the chase, these were future-deciding tournaments. If I played well enough, I wouldn't have to go to LPGA Stage 1 Qualifying School. So there was some added pressure at the back of mind knowing this. Turns out I played exactly the same in both. I shot 1-under the 1st round and 4-over the 2nd round to miss both cuts. I wouldn't say I played poorly. I just didn't play well enough. But because I didn't make the cut at either of these tournaments, I had to go straight to Stage 1 which happened the week after Battle Creek. Unfortunately, this was also the same week as the CP Women's Open in Aurora so I was a little disappointed that I couldn't play that since it was so close to home. I might know where I want to go on the road that is life, but where it is actually going is still a mystery. For all of those who don't know about LPGA Stage 1 Qualifying School, it is probably the most strenuous golf tournament ever. It happens out in Rancho Mirage/Palm Desert, California over 7 days where it is usually over 40 degrees Celsius every day. You play 3 different courses which means you have to play 3 different practice rounds. And then the actual tournament is 4 days. You get a cart to ride in, but it's mostly because they don't want people passing out from walking for 4 days in that heat. Then there's the double cut. There were about 360 players this year and they cut to 156 players or less after the 3rd round. Then there is another cut after the 4th round to 90 players and ties (this number changes every year) to see who will move onto Stage 2 which happens in October in Florida. All of this is just a real test of stamina for anyone who attempts Stage 1 and sometimes it feels like a huge cattle call. Now this is where the real story begins… My 1st round was on the Dinah Shore Course at Mission Hills, and I shot even par which was pretty decent. My 2nd round was on the Palmer Course at Mission Hills, and I shot 5-over. After that round, my mom and I sat down and were really trying to figure out why this pattern kept occurring -- I would play well when I had an afternoon round and then worse during a morning round. It's a pattern that had been happening all year. We thought maybe I wasn't a morning person, but after thinking about it for a while I realized something. Maybe it was my allergy medication. You see, I got an allergic reaction when I was playing last year. So I went to see an allergist and found out that I was allergic to a lot of things that grow outside on a golf course. Apparently, I had become allergic to things I hadn't been allergic to before so my doctor suggested to take an allergy medication. But it's one side-effect is drowsiness. My doctor said if I took it in the evening, it shouldn’t affect me that much the next day. At first, I took it on-and-off, but then I noticed I would still get allergies so I started to take it regularly. And it's not such a weird coincidence looking back now, but when I started taking it correlates directly with how my golf performance has been – not as stellar. After this realization, I was finally able to put my finger on exactly what was happening the next day when I decided to not take my allergy meds. For my 3rd round, I played at Marriott's Shadow Ridge and shot 4-under!!! I hadn't shot 4-under or better in a tournament round in over 2 years and it was like a lightbulb went off in my brain. My arms didn't feel like lead when I swung, and I could feel that I hadn't been swinging with as much power as I had thought. But the biggest difference was thought clarity! I wasn't sleepy or drowsy at all! I was fully aware of everything – how I felt, how I wanted to execute shots, and how to get into "the zone" if I needed to take it up a notch. All of this was a huge revelation to me. So if there is a lesson here, it's "always test to see how medication can and will affect you mentally, physically and emotionally". The label on it doesn't tell you the whole story. After this amazing day which had allowed me to make the cut to the 4th round, I thought everything was finally aligning for me. I just had to go out and play relatively stress free in the final round because I did have about a 4 shot cushion. The morning of the final round, I woke up with a sore shoulder and neck, and I couldn't really turn my head more than 10 degrees in each direction without pain. I told my mom and we massaged and stretched it out because I luckily had an afternoon round. I thought it was getting better until we started to drive to the course. I had this overwhelming nausea take over me like I was incredibly car sick, and my neck pain increased tremendously. We got to the course and I just rested for a few minutes. I thought it was getting better, but it really wasn't. So I went into the clubhouse where it was cooler, took an ibuprofen and tried to not feel sick. My mom suggested I think about withdrawing and I honestly and strongly considered it because I felt so nauseous and couldn't really move my neck let alone swing a golf club! But I decided that I was not going to withdraw because that definitely meant I would have almost no status for the 2020 Symetra Tour season. So I knew that this was basically going to be an all or nothing kind of day – try my best and hope for the best. But it was now about 30 minutes to my tee time and I needed to do something because I was not ready to play at all. So I decided to chug some Powerade and that seemed to help. I took some more ibuprofen and made up another drink with amino acids and chugged that as I walked to the range. I probably spent 15 minutes warming up where I hit 10 balls, 5 chips and 10 putts. I still had a to figure out how I was going to hit the ball though because it was actually quite painful to swing, but I just left it up to God as my tee time was rapidly approaching. So off my 1st tee at Dinah Shore I went. And the first 8 holes were pretty much a disaster, and I looked ridiculous. I had to bend all the way down (like a little child basically) to stick the tee in the ground, fix pitch marks, and mark my ball so my neck wouldn't stretch. And when I lined up my shots, I had to turn my whole body to see the target because my head couldn't turn. I was probably quite a sight to see. I was 6-over though 8 holes, but I felt like I had figured out how to swing by the 9th hole and/or the ibuprofen was kicking in??? I'm not sure. I managed to salvage a total score of 5-over, but turns out that this left me one shot out of making the cut. After all that, I didn't know if I was mad or relieved to be honest. I was mad because it was 1 shot (!!!), but also relieved because it made sense. If I was supposed to make it, then the neck thing wouldn't have happened. I had cracked the code with my allergy meds the previous day, but that was more like a life lesson and an answer to another prayer I had asked the previous week. Sidestory: In Battle Creek, I had met with my fellowship group before the tournament started and we talked a lot about how God works in our lives and what that looks like. And for some reason Stage 1 came up, and I told the group "I don't know why I have to go to Stage 1, but maybe it's because I need to LEARN something." And I kid you not, when my mom and I finally figured out my allergy meds thing, that sentence echoed resoundingly through my mind and it all became worth it. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but I will remember that above anything else from 2019 LPGA Stage 1 Qualifying School. God always has a plan for everything. I became more sure of where the road was taking me, but it was still perplexing nonetheless. Right after Stage 1, we had to fly back to Chicago where we had left our car and drive to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My neck began to feel much better, but since it was really windy in Sioux Falls, I was afraid my allergies would act up. So I took my allergy meds the night before my 1st round. Though that may seem like an unwise decision since I knew what it would do, I had to know beyond reasonable doubt what was happening. And everything happened exactly as expected. I was not as aware or alert in my decision making, my arms felt like lead, and I felt sleepy. Not really great things when you're trying to play competitive golf for a living! So after that 6-over par round and further confirmation, I now knew for sure. Fast forward to the next week in Garden City, Kansas. I had a pretty good feeling that this would probably be my last Symetra Tour event of the year since the field sizes of the tournaments were staring to shrink and I wasn't high enough on the money list to get into the tour championship. So I knew I had to play well to try and make an impact if I could. The 1st round was windy (like it usually is in Garden City) so I came in at 2-over which wasn't terrible, but I needed to do some work to make the cut the next day. And the 2nd round was just another testament to me finally figuring it all out. The last time I shot 5-under 67 was almost 2.5 years ago! I just felt so different. I felt like I could execute what I wanted and that I could MAKE putts – like will them into the hole almost. I was in a different zone level in my brain which I had tapped into 2 weeks prior at Stage 1, but not since 2 years prior to that. The greatest thing too was that even though there was a 2 hour storm delay in the middle of the round, I was able to walk back onto the course and continue with that same zone. The next day, I ended up shooting even to finish T23rd for my best finish of the year. And it was a great way to cap off the season. It wasn't enough to get me into anymore tournaments, but it was enough for me. Does the road stop here? Or is there another path I have not seen yet? I recently played my last official competitive round for the season at a Monday qualifier for the LPGA IWIT Championship in Indianapolis and though I didn't qualify, it was an interesting experience to be at an LPGA site again. I got to see some of my friends who have graduated to the LPGA Tour and be reminded of the goal that many female touring professional want to achieve. Overall, it's been a very interesting year. In the weirdest ways I have been reminded that you really don't have control over what the outcome of your choices will be. You can work hard and do all the right things expecting a certain outcome, but that might not be the outcome you get at all. Maybe it's not the right time or not the right opportunity. But the key is to be okay with it all no matter what the outcome is, and march on. To preface my future, this is what I can tell you. I pretty much will have the same status on the Symetra Tour in 2020 as this year, but maybe 15 spots worse. I will get into some events like this year, but it will be a challenge again nonetheless. I don't know if other opportunities will arise or what I will decide to do, but as for the title of this blog post goes, the road leads anywhere – anywhere I want it to go. Thanks for reading! I cannot thank all of you enough who have stuck with me for another year! I know the past 2 years have been pretty gloomy recaps, but your support and encouragement are sincerely appreciated! Have a great rest of 2019! P.S. If you didn't quite follow, I tried something new in this blog post where the sentences in italics are my inner thoughts of what my answer to the title's question would be at that specific time/situation in my journey. G.O.L.F. Hi everyone! It's been kind of a whirlwind since I last sat down to write a blog post and somehow, 6 tournaments later, I find myself wondering how blessed I have been!
Let's turn back the clock and get this essay rolling! First up, The Island Resort Championship. One of my favourite tournaments on the Symetra Tour. The people are great. The course is pure. Upper Michigan is gorgeous. And the hospitality is above and beyond. What most people don't know is that I actually didn't get into this event until the day before it started. My mother and I decided to "take a vacation" to Harris, Michigan because we thought "at least if I don't get into the tournament, it will be a beautiful vacation". But luckily for me I got in! I played decently, but the island green got me during the 1st round. Next up was the Prasco Charity Championship in Ohio. I actually knew I would be playing in this tournament so I was mentally more prepared. And once again, I played well except for one hole where I decided to hit 3 trees in a row. I guess I just wanted to find some shade and get relief from the heat and humidity! (Sidenote: Shout out to Trevor, who is a transplanted Canadian now living near Cincinnati, for following me on the course for 2 days!) Then it was a week off from the Symetra Tour, but I decided to play the DCM PGA Women's Championship of Canada that was at my home course once again! Shout out to the Ladies Golf Club of Toronto because they did some amazing work to get the course into great shape and the food got rave reviews from every player I talked to! As for the actual golf, I didn't play badly by my standards though I would've liked to make some more putts. But when you play with someone who ends up having 11 birdies and shooting 63 (-9) the final day to win the tournament, you always tend to think you played a lot worse than you did. Congratulations Rebecca Lee-Bentham on the win and welcome back to the tour life! That off week also consisted of me being the maid of honour in my friend's wedding so "off week" turned into the craziest week of the past 6 weeks! The next Symetra tournament I played in was the biggest surprise of them all. I didn't expect to get into the Donald Ross Classic at all this year because it's one of the biggest purses on tour. And it made me sad because it's only 1 hour and 15 minutes from where I went to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I've probably played that course over 25 times and it has always felt like "French Lick, Indiana" is just an extension of the IU campus for me. So when I got a call from Dave Harner (tournament director) the Saturday before the tournament telling me that his original sponsor's exemption had dropped out and I would get the spot, I was like "NO WAY!". So there I found myself happily driving down those all too familiar roads and teeing it up on an all too familiar course that it felt like I had already won. Unfortunately, my ball decided that it really enjoyed the views from the edge of the cup looking down to the bottom of the hole rather than just going down there itself. But like I said, just being there was more than I could've asked for. Next up was the Danielle Downey Credit Union Classic in Rochester, New York. I often call this tournament "home turf" because it is the closest event to home for me and the course feels like a GTA (Greater Toronto Area) course. I also didn't find out that I got into this event until the Sunday before the tournament started so I was just taking it all in stride. But this was a critical event for me. I had made 2 cuts already this year so I knew I would be reshuffled into a higher category on the Symetra Tour priority list after the conclusion of this event. But I needed to improve my position. The 5-iron I hit into my 36th par 3 hole was probably one of the best shots I have ever hit in my life. I don't think I will ever forget the sound and feeling of striking that ball so purely and seeing it draw perfectly towards the flag giving me an 8 foot putt that I needed to 2-putt to make the cut (woohoo!). Those are the moments and shots that bring me back to the golf course over and over again. Last up was the CDPHP Open in Albany, New York. To sum things up, I played awesome except for one hole. And even though I ended up with a quad bogey on that hole which didn't help me make the cut, it's an interesting story to tell now: I get to the 2nd hole of my 2nd round and I hit a little bit of a flared shot to the right off the tee. I assumed it would be okay because it wasn't that far right. So I go up to find my ball and I do. The ball is resting on the edge of some long grass and bushes on a severe uphill so I end up only hitting it 10 yards. But when I go up to hit the next shot, I realize that the ball I hit wasn't my ball. For a few seconds I think that maybe I had hit my ball and it had hit another ball in the long grass and this is the ball that popped out. But I rule that out once I see no other ball. So I pick up my ball that really isn't my ball to see how on Earth I could've mistaken it for my ball. That's when I realize that the mistake I made was pretty easy to do. I had been hitting a Titleist 4. The wrong ball I hit was also a Titleist 4. I have a red cross marked on the left side of the number of my ball. This wrong ball also had a faded red cross on the left side of the number. And it just happened to be facing that side up when I went to hit it the first time. Otherwise, my ball and this wrong ball had nothing else in common in terms of markings since I try to be Picasso when I mark my golf balls so this doesn't happen. After realizing all of this, I still have to find my original ball, but I have no idea where it had gone. So I have to count it as lost. So back to the tee I go and I end up parring the hole with my 2nd tee ball. After getting some help from a rules official, we figured out that I received a 2 shot penalty for hitting the wrong ball on top of the original doubly bogey 6 I made so that's how I ended up with quad bogey 8. I have never hit the wrong ball in a competition before, so this was a new experience for me. I wouldn't recommend doing it, but I can tell you that you'll live if it does happen to you. Just a small bump in the road. Over the past 6 weeks, I think the biggest two lessons I have learned can be summed up in one phrase: Your score is worth a thousand words. This past stretch of tournaments by score tells a very different story than what I have experienced. I can confidently say that I have played some of the most "proficient golf" of my life the past 6 weeks, but my score definitely wouldn't tell you that. I only made 1 of 5 cuts. So that definitely looks pretty bad, but I feel like my success level is a 9 out of 10. From here on out I want to be able to tell myself "your score is worth a thousand words" after every round. It's a journey and a learning experience. So in a thousand words or more, tell yourself what you have done well and also what you can learn. Don't just stop at score. Stopping at score is like defining your life only by the money you make. It's just a small part of the whole story. Give yourself the chance to define yourself by more than just a number. And with those 1000 words, I can tell you about the "proficient golf" I have played. This may sound like an odd thing to say for a professional golfer, but putting together a string of rounds (more than 2 rounds in a row) where I can say "those were all really decent" doesn't happen a lot and is a great step for me. It's not just the score I'm talking about. It's the quality of shot making and putting, and also the endurance of my swing. Up until this year, one of the biggest obstacles for me happens on round 3 or 4 (or even round 2, yikes!) of a tournament and it's the feeling that "I've lost my swing". It would happen every tournament, and I didn't know how to stop this situation from happening. But somehow, I think, through focusing on everything except for the technical/mechanical elements of my swing, I've been able to swing without the "I've lost my swing" feeling for this whole 6 week stretch of tournaments! Granted not every shot was perfect and I did hit the odd "what on earth was that shot?!", but it's a feeling I HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE! It's like breathing new life into a situation that I thought would never be resolved. Hallelujah! Overall, these past 6 weeks have been unexpected in the best ways possible. They have flown by so fast and I have experienced so much. But through it all, there is no doubt that there is still more to come. So here's to more of letting go and letting God! Thanks for reading! And as always, I greatly appreciate it! :) G.O.L.F. Happy almost summer everyone! I know I haven't written anything for a while and it's been because I haven't really had anything worthwhile to write about! But now I have some good stuff! Find a comfy chair and let the essay begin! :)
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About:Join me on my golfing journey! Mostly entertaining but there are some life lessons to be had :)
AuthorElizabeth Tong Archives
March 2020
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