Blog: Warren on the wind, equipment, practice and family  Special to PGA TOUR.com Editor's note: Charles Warren, who won the 1997 NCAA title while playing for Clemson, is coming off his second consecutive $1 million season on the PGA TOUR. Warren, who tied for sixth at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic on Sunday, will be writing a monthly blog for PGATOUR.com. Here is his first installment.  Charles Warren tied for sixth last week at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. (WireImage)
I haven't talked to anyone who played in wind that was worse that we had on Sunday at the Classic Course. When I got to the 18th, I didn't think we could possibly play any longer. I saw the roofs of two ShotLink towers fly off. The rules guys did an unbelievable job of just getting the round in. I managed to shoot 72, which was pretty good considering just six guys broke par that day. It was one of those rounds, though. I hit two perfect shots on No. 10 and the wind beat the ball down into the pond. It resulted in a stupid double bogey, but as I told my caddy, you have to realize everyone is having the same kind of problems. So all in all, I was definitely pleased. Going into the first tournament of the year you never know what to expect. I actually think that's the reason I played well. The same thing happened last year at the Sony Open in Hawaii, where I tied for seventh in my first event of the season. I had no expectations at all. So the challenge is to maintain that mindset and just work hard. I got to Phoenix on Wednesday, and I spent Thursday and Friday at Ping working on my equipment and my game. Plus, we have a 3-month-old and we needed to get him adapted to a different time zone. But he did great, which made it easy on my wife and me. We drove over to Palm Springs on Saturday. One of my teammates at Clemson, Lucas Glover, and I played our practice rounds together. We had some pretty competitive matches, too. He won lunch on Sunday when we played La Quinta and Bermuda Dunes, and I won on Monday when we played PGA West. Tuesday we played the Classic Course with Harrison Frazar and Joe Ogilvie -- I think we got beat that day. But it's fun to mix things up a little. Practice rounds can be monotonous. I worked hard during the offseason on my chipping, wedge game and putting, and I felt like I saw some results last week. My ball striking has always been there. If my short game would improve, though, I feel like I could get to where I am able to contend out here, not just finish in the top 10. It's easy to play golf when you're hitting it well. But I needed to find a way to turn those 73s into 69s. The days you're not hitting it good, those are the days you should shoot 71 and when you hit it well, you can turn that into 65s or 67s. So I spent the first week in January during the Mercedes-Benz Championship at Sea Island with my teacher, Todd Anderson, and my sports psychologist, Morris Pickens. Todd is big on statistics, and he said if I could get better with my chipping around the greens and my wedges from 60 yards and in it would make a huge difference. So during those five days, we spent the majority of our time on my short game. That's how I'm going to have to approach my practice time on the West Coast, too. I need to work hard on my chipping, wedges and putting and try to maintain my ball striking ability.
You can hit balls and shape shots on the range, but when you practice your short game you have to get very creative. Todd and I worked a lot on technique and getting the ball to come off the club at the same speed. Morris put together a lot of drills for me. We'd put shafts on the green at different intervals and chip to them. We'd create a box out of tees on the green and try to hit shots over the box, in the box, everywhere, varying the height and direction. It really helped me to be more visual. I don't think I've done enough visualization in the past. This has gotten me to hit more precise shots. Another thing we really worked hard on was not straying from the shot. At the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and FBR Open in Phoenix, you have a lot of greens with that spongy poannua. You have to approach your chips and wedges a little bit different. You have to pick a height and a spot and stick to it. I think all of this will help me be more efficient with my practice time, too. That's what I need to strive for, particularly with my wife and son Charlie out here with me. The biggest thing is to learn how to best utilize my time. Morris has been helping me with that. There are a bunch of us who work with him -- Lucas, Zach Johnson, John Rollins, Jonathan Byrd. I've been with Morris since 2002. He has helped me a lot with time management, pre-shot routine, how to approach certain stretches -- things like that. One of the things I need to do out here on the West Coast is use the mindset I had last week. Hard work and low expectations worked well for me. I don't want to come into this week at the Buick Invitational with the assumption that I will play well. I need to put in good, hard work and come out to the first tee with that uneasy nervousness. I need to play hard and realize at the end of the week things will work out. It seems like before -- other than winning back-to-back on the Nationwide Tour -- I'd have a good finish, then miss the cut. I'd put pressure on myself when I didn't play well. So I need to use the experience I have now and not get ahead of myself. I want to keep the mentality I had this time last year -- and at the start of last week. It all has to do with learning yourself and what works for you. It's really great to have my family out here with me. I couldn't imagine being out on TOUR and being away from my son. He changes every day, it seems. I've missed a lot already, and he's not even 4 months old yet. But I'm fortunate to do this for a living and be able to take my family with me. There are a lot of young families out here, too. Zach and I counted last year -- there were 36 wives who were pregnant. So many of Kelly's and my friends are having babies right now, it's a fun time for all of us. We share stories and the girls get to hang out. In fact, a group of us were having dinner here last year and Amanda Byrd announced that she and Jonathan were pregnant. I think almost everyone at the table has had babies since -- except Lucas and Jennifer, and we're not putting pressure on them yet. So it's special time for all of us, and to top it all off, we're out here making our living playing the game we love. |
