Jordan has a VERY difficult opening round at the PGA Jr. Championship and will have to work hard on Wednesday to get back above the projected cut line. (Click for details).

With rain and thunderstorms threatening all afternoon to shut down play Jordan shoots +8 (79) during a very warm and unforgiving opening round at Congressional. The golf gods were not shining their light on B Monday afternoon as putt after putt did not fall. No way to sugar-coat this one, T to green was fine. Action on the carpet was not pretty.

The drives were about as far as she has ever hit them keeping up with Mia Hammond one of the top ranked and hardest hitting players in the world that Jordan was paired up with during the opening round. Irons were fairly crisp and on target. Putt after putt would skim the cup or lip out. A pair each of double bogeys and three putts certainly did not help the cause.

By 3pm on Monday the greens that had been baking away in the 90 plus degree heat were like cement when the balls hit with nothing able to stay on. Ball after ball would hit the carpet only to roll off or at least roll away from the spot where it impacted the playing surface. Greens were lightning fast and pin placements were complicated. To be fair, every player had the same course to play but those who played later in the day (156 girls played so T times yesterday were from 7:15 am until 2:45 pm) had drier more unforgiving and faster greens then those with earlier ones and the scores proved that out. Tuesday should be the same with even higher temperatures approaching 100 degrees in the late afternoon. T times are flip-flopped so those that played later yesterday should have the advantage today with the earlier start times and those that were earlier yesterday will have the issues that the late starters had yesterday. A bit of a tongue twister but you get the idea.

After the round which ended at 6:45 B went to practice on the putting green to make sure that she was all squared away for round two and would have stayed there all night but they threw her off at 7:07 as the facility is supposed to get closed and locked up by 7:00. Jordan’s T time is at 8:49am on Wednesday off of hole number 10 of the Gold course, the Championship track at Congressional. She will have some ground to make up to get above the cut line (currently projected to be +3) and return for Thursdays semi-final round of 60. Still well within her abilities, Coach Carl feels that if she can shoot somewhere close to par she should get there. If she simply goes out there and plays her game without reservation and just lets them fly like she does, she will do it.

That’s all for now. Sorry for the late blog. After the round Jordan, David, and dad grabbed dinner at Mortons which is conveniently located in the hotel lobby then proceeded to crash after the 19,873 steps in the oppressive Washington DC July heat. This was the third straight day of being on their feet for over 8 hours and sleep came easily and hard. Thank you for all of the interest yesterday (blog was read over 200 times) and the incredible continued support for Jordan. We will be back later to bring you up to date.

The reason everyone showed up.