Mike Report Day Two of the Bell Canadian Open

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:55:16

"Friday was a tough day on the golf course, a day when I thought I could have posted a fairly low score, but wasn't able to. The wind wasn't quite as strong as it was on Thursday, but it was still very tough going. The greens are really getting firm now. I suspect we're not going to get any rain for the rest of the weekend, so it's going to play difficult on the weekend, which is great. The tougher, the better as far as I'm concerned.
All afternoon, you could see how the ball was really releasing on the greens. Even our good shots that are nice and high in the air are coming in there and bouncing like it's on the driveway.

On my first nine, I was thinking I would be able to get some birdies in the tank. I was driving the ball well and hitting a lot of greens. But I didn't really get anything out of it. The back nine was different. The last few holes here at Ancaster are quite tough so that makes it hard to score down the stretch. I really made some nice saves coming in and held my round together. At the end of the day, despite not getting as much out of my round as I would have liked, I am only three shots behind and still very much in the thick of it here at the Bell Canadian Open. All I want to do is to make sure I have a chance come Sunday and so far, I'm on course. A good sign for me today was my back, which was feeling about as well as it has since I tweaked it about a month ago. I felt as if I could make a full, aggressive swing. I had it worked on Thursday night and that made a lot of difference. It didn't get tired down the stretch as it had earlier this week.

The crowd was really amazing again on Friday. At one point in my round, one of my playing partners, Chris Riley, came up to me and joked that he was getting worn out by all the cheering. He said he'd never seen anything like it. Ovation after ovation was really something. It's been electric; it's been a lot of fun. The crowd has been really pulling for me and I'm trying to grind it out for them. Once again, the ovation when I walked up on 18 was almost unbelievable. I really wanted to sink my birdie putt for them but it just burned the lip. The gallery is actually so big that sometimes I had to back off or ask them to stop moving when Chris and my other playing partner Loren Roberts were making their shots, but I know they're enthusiastic about the tournament and for the most part, they're really great and respectful of all the players out here.

Saturday will be another challenging day out there. I'm going to have to pick and choose the right spots and see where the pin is on each individual hole and see what ones I feel comfortable going at. When the greens get this firm, when you get a mid- to long-iron in there, you have to play for 50 feet of run out. You really have to think your way around out there. I don't think it's any surprise that you're seeing some of the veteran players like Fred Funk, Tom Lehman, Brad Faxon and Paul Azinger up the leaderboard. Experience is a big asset when the course is playing like this. For me, obviously I'd like to be a little better. But I'm in a good position. If I can just iron out a few things with my golf swing, I haven't felt very comfortable yet. But I've shown signs that I'm real close.

As always, thanks for your support.
Mike
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