My tournament experience was limited. Last fall I played in a three-day member-guest tournament at Metacomet Country Club and played horrendously. Fortunately, I had a partner I could rely on when I was in my pocket and while I hit a few tremendous shots, I hit more tremendously bad.
When you pick up golf on your own - and you're poor - it's a learn-by-fire process. I eliminated my slice by coming over the top of the ball and hitting it hard left, then having it cut right. My putting stroke is deceleration at its finest. Chipping and putting is an on-again, off-again affair. I learned from players I caddied for, learned from pros I worked with and took in every tip I could.
Before the Am qualifier, I talked with several professional players, a few amateurs and friends who played in events about what to expect. The answer was about the same.
It doesn't matter what someone tells you; you can only prepare by playing in as many events as possible.
"Try and have fun. Just play your game," said Amber Weller, who played in the New England Women's Open at Weekapaug one week before I made my Am debut. "Stay within yourself. Don't try and show off."
"Just pretend you're at your own course. That's what I always do," said Anna Grzebien, who won the NEWO. "You've hit thousands of shots, thousands of putts. Just make yourself as comfortable as possible."
Here was the problem. Me showing off meant the one-in-ten drive I smoke 310 down the fairway. Of Grzebien's thousand of practice shots, 995 of them are straight; I was looking a percentage significantly lower than that.
So I did what anyone would do - and something I never really tried before.
Practice.
PRACTICE ALMOST PERFECT
My career practicing is limited. I don't enjoy hitting balls. I don't have a draw, a fade, a cut or a punch I can work on. I hit the ball in a general direction and hope I don't shank, whiff or top the shot.
Somewhere between the e-mail from Ward and the tournament, I developed a mean shank with my irons. I was hitting balls on an angle that defied physics.
I had confidence in five clubs - my driver, 3-wood, lob wedge, sand wedge (more on that later) and my trusty 8-iron.
If you've played Laurel Lanes, you'd probably want more confidence in the clubs I didn't mention than the ones I did.
"Just hit 3-wood," said Susan Bond, the head pro at Weekapaug who finished second behind Grzebien at the NEWO. "It's pretty tight there; it's all about position."
At North Kingstown, I started hitting irons straight - somewhat straight, somewhere near the geography I was aiming at. I was also feeling under the weather that day and was a little loose from a few recovery drinks I had, but it gave me a little bit of confidence heading to what I was sure would be the end of my golfing career.
THE MORNING OF
My goal the day of the tournament was simple. I wasn't going to be the best player, but I was definitely going to be the best dressed.
I wore a pair of baby blue golf pants - in honor of my fashion hero Ian Poulter - and a white mock turtleneck. I looked, and felt, like a golfer.
When I picked up my caddy - Corey Silva, an East Providence sophomore who was worth his weight in gold with his tips, jokes and ability to find balls I hit in the woods - we started formulating a game plan.
I wanted to shoot 85. He wanted to not walk diagonally all day long.
On the range before the round, I listened to Cory, who managed to alter my swing from John Daly 2006 to a smooth '04 Daly.
I also remembered perhaps the best tip I was given in my interviews and applied it to my warmup on the range.
"Have a routine. That really helps," NK sophomore Samantha Morrell told me after she won the girls state individual title. "Get behind the ball; take so many practice swings, so many waggles. The same thing every time."
After the range, I went to the practice green. My tee time was 12:57 and I gave myself 20 minutes to putt and chip.
My hands were shaking. I couldn't have a drink - I believe it's a violation of RIGA rules - but I threw in a wad of citrus Skoal, sucking every last drop out to get the tobacco in my system to calm the nerves.
Disgusting? Yes. Effective? Well, not as much as I would have liked.
Next thing I knew, my group was being called to the first tee.
FIRST-TEE JITTERS
Next time you play with your friends, think about how you feel on that first tee.
You're happy you're not working. You're with good company. You may have a drink in your hand, ready to start your weekend on a good note. If you hit a ball out of bounds, top a drive 20 yards or whiff, you take another shot and play it as your first.
This was a first shot I didn't want to take. My nerves were at an all-time high. I was told this was normal. I did not like normal; I wanted this to be out of the ordinary, where I'd have a moment of nirvana and hit a perfect drive.
"Don't worry about the first tee," Morrell told me. "I used to have first tee jitters. Last year I'd be worried about that and because I'd be that nervous I messed up the drive. My first drive, I take it like any other shot on the practice green, just try to swing easy and don't look up."
There is nothing easy about my swing. It is a cyclone of arms, legs and inertia of all 270 pounds I own. When it goes, it goes far and, sometimes, straight. I was just worried about hitting it OB and having to tee it up again.
"If that happens, go to the bag, grab another one and just go for it," Grzebien told me. "You have to play like you have nothing to lose. You can't play scared."
Easy for her to say. At Narragansett High School, she was one of the best players in the history of the state. At Duke University, she was one of the best players in the country. Now a pro, she won her first tournament.
I was just a schlep reporter, not even the best player out of all my friends.
AND SO IT BEGINS
On the first tee, I was introduced to my playing partners - Jamie Farrea, a 20-year old Portsmouth native who plays at Assumption College, and Tyler Cooke, a sophomore at Toll Gate who plays out of Potowamut Country Club.
Ward quickly went over the local rules, gave us scorecards and the order we would start on the first tee.
Farrea and Cook both smoked drives down the middle. Then I head Ward - and almost vomited, for real this time.
"Now on the tee, from East Providence," Ward said, "Eric Rueb."
I pegged my ProV1x into the ground and all I could think of was "don't go right, don't go right, don't go right."
It didn't.
It went left, into a lateral hazard.
Let the fun begin.
THE ROUND
There's nothing worse than hearing someone's shot-by-shot account of their historic round.
I will say this - I hit some pretty historic shots in my round of 98.
After dumping my ball in the hazard, I hit an 8-iron next to the green and made a bogey.
"That's a pretty good five from over there," Ward said after my round. "You smashed it pretty good out there."
On the short par-5 second hole, I hit a straight 3-wood under a tree - where was the cut when I needed it? - and made another bogey.
My lone glory came early, as I was the only one in the group to make it on the green on the 182-yard, par 3 third hole. With a glorious wind at my back, I pulled a 6-iron. Corey called me an idiot and gave me a seven and told me to swing easy. I hit it pin high, 20 feet from the hole and two-putted for par.
This was the start I wanted. A par and two bogeys. No doubles, no god-awful shots and, more importantly, on three holes, I had four putts.
"Hopefully you're putting well and you roll some in and get the adrenaline flowing," Bond told me.
I was putting well. I was only two-over, tied with Cooke at that point. I was feeling good.
It was the last time I felt good.
The FINAL 15
The last 15 holes were a blur. My cut didn't work. I didn't slice one shot. Instead, it was dead over-the-top, every ball one fairway over to the left. I think I hit three fairways of my own and about seven that weren't mine.
On four, I snap-hooked my drive so hard I never saw the ball. I followed it by smoking a provisional up the gut. Corey found my ball, sitting on a root, left of the fescue on the fourth hole. At that point, I wished Corey had to be in school.
"The worst shot you hit today, I'm going to go ahead and say that duck hook you hit on the (fourth) hole," Farrea said. "That was probably one of the worse hooks I've ever seen. It was beautiful.
"It was a thing I've never see before. If there was a tree 30 yards in front of you, you probably could have gone around it and had it come back and hit you in the ass."
After my double on four, I came to the hole I feared the most, a tight par-4, but on five, I smoked a drive on the right side of the fairway and had about 150 yards in.
I made six.
On the sixth hole, playing 240-yards dead uphill, I snapped a 3-wood left, then hit my provisional into the lateral hazard on the left. I never found the first, played the second and made an eight.
On seven I made a bogey. On eight, I hit a gorgeous drive, then overshot the green and made five.
The ninth hole was a thing of beauty. I drove it up the middle, then dead shanked a 9-iron into a patch of grass, dirt and holes. I took my sand wedge and knocked it to 30 feet.
"Always trust Mike T," Corey said, referring to the fact that my sand wedge was donated to me by Mike Tranghese, the commissioner of the Big East and a legendary short-game player at Metacomet who Corey regularly loops for.
Of course, I rolled the putt in for four - and a smooth 12-over par 47.
THE BACK NINE
What I remember most of the back was being in or around the woods on nearly every hole. On 11, I hit a 3-wood that barely cleared the trees, but I was 40-yards in and had an 8-footer for birdie, which teased the cup on the left before stopping a foot by the hole.
There were a handful of three-putts on the back, holes that would have been two-putts if I was playing with gimmies from my friends.
"You miss a 3-footer playing in a tournament and now you start thinking about it on the next hole," Ward said. "By the time you get to the fifth or sixth hole, you're five or six over and you don't even realize it. It's much different when you have to make 3-footers to qualify."
The only consolation was I avoided what I worried about the most. I didn't slow play down - at least not horribly.
While I took my time when I needed to, I tried to advance my ball ASAP. Cooke and Farrea were trying to qualify. I was trying to write a story. When I hit a ball in trouble, I punched it out as fast as possible.
"In high school I played with a lot of kids who couldn't break 55," Farrea said. "Faster player it does effect, but we weren't going anywhere today, so it kind of slowed me down right."
I also avoided the club throw, an occurrence which doesn't happen often with my friends, but when it does, leads to play-by-play commentary from my buddies on my form, release and distance.
"You didn't get mad. I could see you felt the pressure you do want to play well. You get aggravated here and there," Farrea said. "There was almost a couple throws for me to. There would have been a lot thrown if we started throwing. People would have not known what was going on if we were throwing clubs."
By the time I got to 18, all I was focused on was not shooting 100. I needed to make a triple-bogey at worst. My drive went left and ended up on the road. I debated punching it from the road but took a drop. While it would have been entertaining to hit off pavement, my club of choice would have been upset with me.
I was on the green in four, blew my lag putt three feet by - good in my book, not good in the RIGA's. I missed the 3-footer, but tapped in for seven, took my hat off and shook Cooke and Farrea's hands.
We went inside, checked the scorecards and signed. Farrea made the cut with a 77; Cooke missed it by one, shooting a 79, but I guarantee he will make plenty of them before his golf career is over. My 98 missed the cut, but I did get good news.
I didn't finish last. My 98 was one shot better than my former Metacomet co-worker, Alex Simeone, who told me earlier in the week that if I beat him, he'd quit golf forever.
More on that as it develops.
THE AFTERTHOUGHTS
For those of you who see scores in the paper and think "oh, I shoot 75 at Laurel Lanes every weekend; I would have made the cut," think again.
When you play in a tournament, every shot is important. Every shot counts. Every putt must hit the bottom of the hole. Breakfast balls don't exist. Mulligan is a curse word.
"I think there's a misperception that trying to qualify for an event, especially an RIGA state event, is a simple thing," Ward said. "It's pretty easy for a guy to play at his home club, shoot 75, 76 with his buddies Saturday morning or during the week, but when you have to putt the ball out playing with guys you might not be familiar with and you know you need to shoot a score, it's pretty difficult to do that."
"When people are practicing ... they're not putting," Farrea said. "You're standing over a 4-footer over a tournament, it feels a lot different than standing over one on Sunday morning with your boys."
What I will remember most is the pressure. While I always felt butterflies in whatever sport I played, as soon as it started, they were gone.
The qualifier was different. I was nervous on the first. I was nervous on the second. I was nervous on the third. When the nerves wore off, I played worse - more relaxed, but much, much worse.
If there was something I could equate it to, I would. I imagine the way I felt before the tournament is the way I'll feel waiting for my future bride to walk down the aisle, for my first child to be born, or even the next time I tee it up for another tournament, all of which will be way, way down the line, especially the latter.
"You just need to improve," Ward said. "... If you keep improving, you can play any time you want."
And whenever that happens, I think I won't start throwing up in my mouth until the day after I find out I'm in the tournament.