Into The Deep, Deep West

"Enter the freeway"

"Stay on this road for 3,300 miles"

Over the past couple weeks, I have put some mileage on my car and had quite the experience while doing it. After leaving Hobe Sound, FL for the winter I've had many pit stops on the way to Vancouver. They include: Tampa, Memphis, Iowa, Montana, Washington, and finally Vancouver, B.C.

For those who are unaware of why I'm in Canadian territory: I went to Canadin qualifying school in March, and gained conditional status for PGA Tour Canada. Essentially what this means is that I missed getting a card by a couple shots, but there is still a possibility I will play some tournaments on this tour. So, for a month, I will be going from tournament to tournament, hoping to get in, and if I dont, trying to Monday qualify into the event. My reasoning for this is what the tour calls a reshuffle. After the 4th and 8th events, there is a "reshuffle" of everyone's status for the tour. This status is based on how much money a player has made. So my tentative (I always say tentative) plan is to try and raise my status in the first four events, and try to raise my status. In doing so by just passing 10-15 players I would be able to play without worry of getting into tournaments for the remainder of the season.

Alright, enough with the details. Maybe you're thinking, "What would posses a guy to drive 3,300 miles to try and qualify for something that only might happen?"

Well, that's what I'm about to tell you. 

During my final round of qualifying school things were not going my way. Going into the last hole sitting at +3 for the day and -2 for the tournament, I felt like a wounded boxer at the end of a long fight. I had just battled my guts out for 71 holes and on the final day I couldn't get anything going my way. While I shot my worst score that day, somehow it felt like I had done great work to be +3 on the final hole. Some days golf is like that. As I walked off the final green I pretty much already knew where I would stand for the tour. Dropping 3 shots would take me out of having a card, and put me into conditional status territory, which I explained earlier. Scenarios started running through my head; should go to Canada? Would it be with it? Could I afford it? How many tournaments will I get?

My mind was going nuts and so I did what I know has worked for me, pray. I simply stated and asked that if I'm supposed to go, then I knew He would take care of the details. Maybe 15 seconds, simple as that.

I'm amazed at how quickly God can work things out. The next day I was about to leave work, but for some reason decided to stay an extra 20 minutes to help out someone who seemed to be in a log jam. While doing this I ran across a two good friends that I hadn't seen in 3-4 weeks and we got to talking about what just happened to me at qualifying school. These friends told me they wanted to help me out and felt I should go to Canada and not have to sleep in my car. (You can laugh)

So here I am in Vancouver, amazed at where God is taking me in this journey . 

Driving across South Dakota and Montana, nervous and excited I thought about the story in Luke where Jesus says to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." 

For those who don't know, Jesus was using Simons boat to preach to people on the shore, after Simon had a long day of catching zero fish in the shallow water. When Jesus dropped this line, Simon probably thought he was crazy. Simon was an expert fisherman, and knew exactly where the fish usually are at certain times of the day. From his experience there was no chance they would catch a single fish in the deep water that time of day.

They caught so many fish their nets started tearing and the boat almost sank.

As I walked off the last green of qualifying school I was considering staying in the shallow water. Tournaments around home in Iowa, things people and places I'm used to. May is a slow month for pro golf in the Midwest and I would spend a lot of time practicing getting ready for June through August. On paper that sounds great.  I was trying to tell myself the risk wouldn't be worth it.  Through the work of my friends He has told me to go the the deep water.

As I write this I just went through my first Monday qualifier unsuccessfully. I learned a good lesson though that I'll apply next time. 

Obviously my aim is to play the best I can, get into tournaments and win tournaments. That's why I practice hard and that's part of why I love competition so much. That's why I'll spend the next 5 days at the course sharpening my game. But what I'm realizing is to be open to the idea that God may have extra plans for me here, some that I could have never seen coming. The idea of that makes me smile. I can't wait to see what He has in store in the deep water. I hope it's so great my boat can't even float :)

The journey continues,

Thank you for following!

God Bless!