2019 Florida Doral Publix World Junior

I just got back from my trip to Florida to play in the 2-day Doral Publix World Junior Golf Classic.  We stayed and played the Trump Doral Red Course.  I was really excited to play the tournament and have been practicing hard in preparation.  I was shooting two to four under par in my practice rounds.  I was ready!  When we arrived and played our practice round I immediately noticed a few things different than home.  First, there was a ton of water on this course - almost on every hole.  Next, the grass of the rough and putting green was really different.  The rough was very "airy" and not very dense and the greens were affected by the grain of the grass.  This type of grass is called "Bermuda" and is something I've never played on before.  Getting to the tee on the first day was exciting.  There was the current 7 and 8 year old US Kids World champions playing and kids from all over the world in attendance.  I could hear the other players talking on the range and putting green and it seemed most were not speaking English - it was a cool experience!  On day 1 of the tourney, my time was 9am, which is 6am PST, so getting up in the morning was haaard, but I managed and was excited to go.  The weather was a little breezy and overcast - a little cold but not bad compared to Washington!  I played with a kid from Cayman Islands and another from Colombia.  To get to the point, my first 3 holes did me in for the whole tournament as I went +6 on those holes.  It was tough to take as I knew winning the tournament of pretty much over.  I went on to play the rest of the tournament in +1 and and finished 7th out of 28 players.  Not bad considering the start.  The good news is that I have another year to play in this age bracket and I will be ready to try again next year!