GolfNewsRI

GolfNewsRI is excited to partner with former Moses Brown star Will Dickson to chronicle his journey through professional golf. 

The journal is in Will’s own words, pictures and videos.

Anything written in italics is GolfNewsRI, as we chime in with some details and try to fill some gaps. 

We hope you enjoy the ride….

Setting Up

In the midst of a rough stretch, Will Dickson begins the week with a Korn Ferry Tour Monday Q in Florida. 

He then drives to Alabama for a G-Pro Tour event. 

By the end of this installment, things begin to look up for the Moses Brown grad. 

Korn Ferry Tour Lecom Suncoast Classic Monday Q

April 17, 2023 – Florida

Last Monday was the Lecom Suncoast Korn Ferry Tour Monday Q at Laurel Oak in Sarasota, Florida. It was a course that I played before last year. I played pretty well in this Monday last year. It’s a good course. It’s a lot better than most Monday courses. 

It’s definitely a little bit more challenging, but clearly the scores didn’t reflect that. There was a bunch of really good scores and,  it was windy, it was warm. The greens were really firm and fast. So you just have to play some really good golf. I clearly didn’t, however, I almost took some positives actually away from shooting 5-over. I just felt like I hit the ball good. 

I actually hit the ball pretty well and I just didn’t give myself any easy birdie opportunities and, my putting was pretty poor. I had 34 putts, but I hit nine fairways, and 13 greens. The ball striking was there,  just wasn’t as sharp as you needed to be in a Monday qualifier.

But, it was fun, you know, my, my sister actually lives in Naples, Florida so she was able to come up and watch. She has a little baby girl, Henley, who’s 18 months old.  So they were able to come up and watch me. And so it was, it was really cool to see them. You know any time you can see family when you’re on the road, that’s often a nice surprise. It wasn’t as bad of a day as the score indicated. But, obviously not what we want. 

G-Pro Tour Huntsville Open

April 19-21, Huntsville Alabama

So woke up the next morning, Tuesday, at about 5 a.m. and drove 11 hours to Huntsville, Alabama for the G-Pro Tour’s Huntsville Open at Huntsville Country Club. 

I played this course last year in the same tournament and really enjoyed it. It’s a shorter course, some dog legs where I can take advantage of my length, like going up and over, you know, the corners, the par fives are all reachable. 

It played really firm and fast so that added a level of creativity and imagination that I feel like suits my game pretty well. Obviously, the scores I shot were reflective of that. I knew the scores were gonna be low at the start of the week. So you just have to try to stay patient because when you know the scores are this low, if you start out slow or you’re not making as many birdies as you as you know, you can, it’s very easy to press and try to force it. 

So staying patient was gonna be key and I feel like I did that pretty well. I only made three or four or a handful of bogies all week. 

You know, to finish at 18-under for three days, no matter what course you’re playing. I’ll take that. 

So 1st and 2nd day were real solid. Two rounds of 66 was nothing great, but good enough to make the cut and put myself into contention. 

So the third round was the final round was just a really fun day. Overall. I got out, the tee  time was pretty early 8: a.m. It was nice and calm  and I couldn’t have gotten off to a better start, you know, the first three holes and I knew right away I was gonna have a chance to do something really cool and shoot a really low score. I think the lead was 14-under at that point, it crossed my mind, ok, I’m looking at the board, you know, if I could get two more coming in, get to 20-under post that and then just sit in the clubhouse and wait for the guys to come in. 

I felt like that would be a good number to get to. And and see what happens. Unfortunately, I bogeyed 15, par 16, 17 and, but ended up birding 18, which in the grand scheme of things was a big birdie because it separated me from from the pack of 17-unders and kept me in second,. 

So, any time you can finish runner up, it’s not terrible. Pay wise, definitely puts a couple of bucks in the, in the wallet, which is nice. It was a really fun week here in Huntsville. Huntsville is a really cool place. It’s kind of nestled in between a couple of mountains here in Alabama, which you wouldn’t really think about a whole lot.

But it’s really pretty, when the sun sets, it goes over the mountain range. It’s also where NASA and I think Roxy Martin and a bunch of space companies are located. So it’s a pretty neat town.

I think there’s a minor league AAA baseball team that’s right here in Huntsville, (the Rocket City Trash Pandas) I think it might be the Angels farm team (correct). They just built a brand new stadium here. They have a really nice stadium.

I might go to a little baseball game. There’s some cool restaurants, there’s some cool breweries, We won’t be doing a whole lot of that but the restaurants are nice.

There’s some local food that’s really good, It’s a neat little town. It’s got a little bit of a northeast flavor, almost like the golf courses are tree lined. It kind of feels like the northeast of the little mountain range.

Just the, the elevation is not as flat.

Overall, we’ve got this Air B-N-B we’re staying at for the whole week. So we’re getting a taste of Huntsville here. I’m staying with Tyler Strafaci who won the US Am, when he was at Georgia Tech and he was my teammate there for four years at Georgia Tech. 

It’s been a good week. We’ve had, had some fun and looking forward to a couple of days of rest and relaxation here today and tomorrow and just getting ready for the Monday qualifier, which is gonna be at the same course that we played this week. 

I got lucky this Monday. So there’s two locations obviously for each Monday Q. This location  the same course as the Huntsville Open. So it’s a 50-50 shot, whether you get this course or another course. Yeah, I, I got this location. 

So  makes for an easy couple of days of just kind of sitting back and watching the sports game, getting some rest and just trying to do the same thing Monday, just make a bunch of birdies and we’ll see what happens.

I probably know the course just as well as anybody in the field after playing this year and last year, all on the same golf course. So, feel good. This might be the week where we break through.

 I’ve really enjoyed my time here, hopefully we can make this stay a little bit longer.

Will Dickson will compete in this week’s Korn Ferry Tour Monday Q for the HomeTown Lenders Championship.