Mitch Calvert
All Christin Thomson has is questions right now.
The harder the Fort Frances native works on her golf game of late, the more things seem to go wrong.
That rang true as she watched her name plummet down the leaderboard at a CN Canadian Tour event in Guelph earlier this month.
Her confidence fell along with it as she carded rounds of 83 and 90 to wind up in 80th position.
“I know I’m way better than the scores that I’m shooting and that’s part of the problem right now,” Thomson remarked.
“It’s kind of embarrassing to shoot the scores I’m shooting.”
If there’s a silver lining to her recent struggles, it’s knowing she can be significantly better. And the hope is she can find a balance between the swing changes she’s working on and her natural ability.
“I have to get back to some medium ground between what I’m working on and what’s natural to me,” Thomson stressed.
“It’s frustrating. One thing will be there one day and then won’t be there the next.
“It’s definitely off and on, and the golf courses where we play these Canadian Tour events are difficult,” she added. “So if you aren’t on your game, you’re in trouble.”
On a positive note, Thomson shot a 79 at a U.S. Open qualifier in Wayzata, Mn. back on June 2—missing qualifying for the second stage by just two strokes.
“It was a more positive event, but things were still not entirely there,” she admitted. “I played my practice round and I drove the ball beautifully, and then the next day I couldn’t put it in the fairway but my short game was brilliant.
“I knew I didn’t have to shoot really low to qualify so I was just trying to get it up and down, but still ended up short,” she noted.
“There’s always next year,” Thomson added, tongue firmly embedded in cheek.
Thomson also had rounds of 84 and 87 to tie for 70th at a Canadian Tour event in Vancouver in late May.
“The last three [events] have been pretty bad,” she said. “I’m actually taking a bit of a break right now.
“I think the worst thing is to just keep going out there and playing because it keeps getting worse.”
The unfavourable results on the scorecard have been as much about her inner game as her outer one. She hopes a break to get her mind off things should help her regroup.
“The break before the next Canadian Tour event [July 13 at Hillsdale Golf & Country Club in Mirabel, Que.] gives me a little bit of time to get refocused,” Thomson said.
“The stuff that I’m working on, I know it’s good, but when you’re working on stuff, you can tend to get too technical and I think that’s what’s going on right now.
“When I’ve been struggling, I’ve lost confidence, and my putting has been especially bad. But I think that’s because everything has just kind of piled up,” Thomson lamented.
But she still has Dec. 2 pencilled in on her calendar. That’s the opening day of the LPGA qualifying school in Daytona, Fla. and her main focus moving forward.
