Yeah! I made the Sports page of the Decatur Herald Review today!

Round 2 at the Tate & Lyle Players Championship is complete, and I made the cut on the number! I played better today with 69, but still feel like I left a lot of putts out on the course! I've got a lot of ground to make up in the next two rounds, but I'm hitting the ball great and know there are a bunch of birdies out there for the taking!

Here is my Superstar photo in the newspaper this morning! Unfortunately, I was in the lip of this bunker and ended up making bogey! This hole owes me two birdies now! Notice the rocks and mud turds flying out with the sand...oh wait...there was no sand, just turds!



Teeing off bright and early tomorrow! 8:20am Notice: My caddie will be there at 7:55am (no later, haha)

Time off the course!

After a long, hot day on the course today (95 degrees), our awesome host family took us to dinner at Robbie's!



Rachel dared to taste some of Larry's escargo, only if Larry agreed to taste a spoonful of Australian Vegemite when we got back to the house! Rachel's reaction after tasting snails for the first time is priceless! She is a lot braver than I am!



Now headed back to the house for some leftover bday cake! My favorite!!!

A special surprise from my pro-am group from Lamar Billboards!

With over 3 inches of rain within a 45 minute time period late last night, added with all the rain from earlier this week, the course here in Decatur is now completely under water! We tried as hard as we could to get the pro-am in today, but with only 9 holes being playable, we somehow fit 24 pro-am groups on a crazy mix of 9 holes! To help spread the groups out, they added a set of skill challenges including a Big Break Wall to hit flop shots over! My group did awesome on the Big Break flop shot; however, I didn't help out to much there, oops!

I had a wonderful surprise today from my pro-am group! I have played with this group from Lamar Billboards every year at our event in Kansas City. However, we got rained out of that pro-am last month too! The rain and storms seem to be the popular trend this season! I have had to wear my rainsuit so much this summer, I don't even have a sock tan-line yet!! So, my Kansas City buddies surprised me and drove up here to play with me in Decatur! We had so much fun and even shot 6 under on the 9 holes we played! As far as the tournament starting on time tomorrow, they have alread pushed the tee time back an hour and a half! The Futures Tour staff is going to see how far the water has receded first thing tomorrow morning and then make a decision about whether the course is even semi-playable??

Check out these pictures I took on the course today! Just take note, that this course normally has NO WATER at all!

#6 Tee Box under water!


Hole #5 to the right and Hole #6 fairway running adjacent, but completely under water! They have been talking about just trying to make the Par 5 a 170 yard Par 3.


Hole #2 with a new river running through it! This originally was a Par 5, but the newly formed lake is right in the landing zone for the second shot.

Tate & Lyle VIP Outing at Country Club of Decatur.

Thank you to my awesome team that helped us to a smooth 2nd place finish! Country Club of Decatur was in awesome shape and our friends at Tate & Lyle were incredible hosts! Thank you for making our day so much fun! Plus, I learned all the ins and outs of using corn to make all of our wonderful sweeteners!!! I love sugar, so thank goodness for companies like Tate & Lyle! They have the biggest market share of "high intensity sweeteners" like my favorite SPLENDA!!!
The Tate & Lyle Players Championship starts tomorrow here in Decatur. Watch me on live scoring at www.duramedfuturestour.com.



My awesome team! Bob, Al, me, Steve, and Tom! Thanks guys for a great day of golf!

Susan B Komen- "Walk a Healthy 18"

It's great to be back in Decatur, IL!!! Unfortunately, I think some of our bad luck with weather has followed us here! However, the rain didn't put a damper on the Susan B. Komen- Walk a Healthy 18, which took place out at Hickory Point Golf Club on Monday! More than 500 people all sporting their new lime green t-shirts, participated by walking the golf course to promote making healthy decisions. A few of my fellow Futures Tour members and I, were out there cheering them on and signing autographs on their t-shirts! We had a lot of fun getting to meet some of Decatur's locals! We got to cheer them on, which was nice for a change, since they are so supportive in coming out to cheer us on every year!

A little taste of Cincinnati!

Our last night in Cincinnati, our awesome host family Maureen and Tom, treated us to dinner at their local favorite- Montgomery Inn Boathouse!!! The food was awesome and the company was even better!



A little treat they are famous for- Blackberry Chocolate Chip Icecream!



A collector's item? Evander Holyfield's ear cartilage...this is so gross! Its a good thing I did not see this until after we ate!



Here is a short clip I found of Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holdyfield!



Thanks Tom and Maureen for an absolutely awesome week! We really hope to see you guys in the near future!

Rainy Days!

Unfortunately, my tournament here in Cincinnati has ended quicker than I had expected! The weather was crazy yesterday! I woke up and it was still pouring rain and knew that the course most likely would be unplayable. It just seemed like a long day of trying to waste time really! We went to cracker barrel to at least get a good hot breakfast! (Cracker Barrel is my favorite because they serve 100% maple syrup and apple butter! Apple butter is a southern thing; it reminds me of home back in Charlotte, NC) We even went to Jungle Jim’s to walk around! It was so huge I couldn’t believe it! There was so much to see; we definitely needed more time! We were so stuffed from breakfast that we didn’t buy anything and I have accumulated so much extra stuff these past few weeks on the road, I am having trouble fitting everything into my luggage! However, I did find the candy section and couldn’t resist just getting a few jelly beans!

I finally teed off at 5:05pm. The course was really wet from all of the rain and playing much, much longer that the day before! Unfortunately, I got off to a really poor start and found myself in jail in the woods after my second shot on the first hole. A bad decision led to a triple bogie. I did manage to gather myself together and birdie the second hole, but I found it really difficult to stick to my game plan for the rest of the day! It felt like I had to hit every shot perfect because I needed to make birdies. I then started to try to force birdies and in the midst of this, made a couple more bogies! It was just one of those days!

Jungle Jim's...here I come!!!

Round 1 in Cincinnati is over and now I am crossing my fingers to get round 2 in tomorrow as the weather forecast isn’t looking too promising. Justin and I had a lot of fun today! He was the perfect caddie and made sure I had plenty of drinks and snacks ready at all times, which I thoroughly enjoyed! My favorite combo today was a new drink we found from Vitamin Water called "Dwnld" and a package of Lance lemon cookies! I normally wouldn't recommend eating cookies on the golf course, but they had a huge basket of them in the Players Area this morning and couldn't resist. I feel like I accomplished my goal for the day of staying in the present and just focusing on the process! I finished the day at even par, but I feel like I left so many birdies out on the course! I hit 14 greens in regulation, but just couldn’t seem to get the putts to fall! I’m excited for tomorrow though, because I know that I can go low on this course!

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing! Our wonderful housing, Tommy-Boy (I’ll call him), grilled us some of the best barbeque chicken we have ever had! He used his special barbeque sauce (which he gets in Tennessee, but I wasn’t supposed to mention that!) I guess it is about 99% sugar and 1% ketchup, so that didn’t work out too well for my attempt to cut back on my sugar intake (or the lemon cookies from this morning)! Oh well, it was worth it!

I tee off at 1:00pm tomorrow, so I am excited to be able to sleep in a little! My friend, Rachel, who is also staying with us this week took a trip to Jungle Jim’s Market??? I had never heard of it and looked it up on the internet and it looks awesome! Rachel is from Australia and was really excited when she found “vegemite”…yuck! I couldn’t even muster up enough courage to smell it! But, I am really excited to take a trip to Jungle Jim’s tomorrow for sure!!! I can walk around Target for hours and hours and have the best time, so this will definitely be a treat to look forward to!

I wasn't kidding when I said we love to kill time in Target! Here is a picture of one of my Texas teammates, Randi, and I in Target during a Futures Tour event in El Paso! Looks like fun, huh!

Almost Showtime!

What an absolutely beautiful day…finally some clear and sunny weather! I actually had to dig through my golf bag today to find my sunscreen; it’s been awhile since I’ve needed it! Tomorrow is the first round of the Teva Championship out at King’s Island! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the rain will stay away. I have a 9:20 am starting time tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll finish before any bad weather comes in!
This week is ultra special because my husband drove up from Charlotte, NC to caddie for me! He is always so positive and energetic! I always have so much more fun when he caddies, so I know I will have an awesome day tomorrow no matter how I play! Here is a picture that was taken of us last summer at the LPGA Corning Classic!




After a quick stop for some pancakes at Bob Evans this morning, I practiced a little and then played about 12 holes just to see a few holes before tomorrow! It was a pretty relaxing day and I even played with my long-time friend Virada “Oui” Nirapathpongporn! We actually went to high school together and were roommates at the IMG David Leadbetter Sports Academy in Bradenton, FL! I spent my sophomore, junior, and senior year at the Academy before graduating and moving on to play at the University of Texas. Oui and I had a lot of fun today laughing about some of the funny things we remembered from our high school days! Its crazy to think about how much time has already passed! She is from Bangkok, Thailand and I think she told me once that her last name in Thai means “Family of Good Health?” I wish my last name meant something significant like that! The only thing I could find on Swenson was that it is “one of the oldest of all recorded surnames, pre-dating to 1086, descending from Scandinavia, and is one of the earliest settlers name in America.” Only semi-interesting, I guess!
Anyway, I’m excited about tomorrow, as the course is in incredible shape! I know if I just stay patient with myself and just stay focused on the process, then I can post a really good number! As for now, I think I will watch the 2 episodes of “Tory and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood” that I TiVo'd this morning, then off to bed! I can't wait for my toasted cinnamon-raisin english muffin in the morning to start off my day! (Thomas' "nooks and crannies" of course!)

Cincinnati- Wedding Dress Heaven!!!

I am so excited to finally get back to Cincinnati! I have an awesome host family here whom I have stayed with for the past 3 years, so it is always nice to come back to visit friends! Coming back this week really brought back some fun memories from last year while we were here playing in last years Duramed Championship out at King’s Island! At this time last year, I was planning my wedding which took place this past November and I was a little frantic trying to find my wedding dress while I was traveling full time on tour! We don’t go to many big cities (mainly smaller towns) and therefore I wasn’t having much luck finding many bridal stores. Therefore, I was completely shocked to find out that Cincinnati has the “largest bridal district in all of North America!” How lucky am I! Supposedly, even Julia Roberts took a special trip to this bridal mecca to find her wedding dress (if only I could have had her budget!) If you can only imagine, I spent almost every free minute I had away from the golf course plunging through every bridal store as quickly as possible! After seeing about 100 dresses, I found “the dress!” Here is a picture of me in my dress, dancing with my niece!



Thank you, Cincinnati, for being bridal gown heaven! Not sure what I would have done otherwise!

Also, thinking back to last year…I was lucky enough to house here with last years Champions, Whitney Wade! Unfortunately, she couldn’t come back this year to defend her title, bc ironically she was asked to the maid of honor in her best friends wedding, which is this Saturday! Last year, we had a superstition that we needed to bake brownies everynight, because after the first night’s batch Whitney played awesome! So, it became a ritual! We both felt a little sick by the end of the week, but it was all worth it! Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to make my scores any lower, so this year I think I’ll stay away from the sugar! We miss you already, Whit!!!!

Anyway, to get back on subject…we really lucked out on the weather today! It rained a little bit for the morning pro-am, but lucky for me I was at the Mason Community Center sweating off some calories on the elliptical! I guess the community center is under some major construction because it took me awhile to figure out how to just get in the front door! I saw a bunch of other Futures Tour girls working out over there! The gym regulars probably weren’t sure what was going on??? There was a surge of 25 year-old, blondes taking over the gym with our ipods, People Magazines, and Blackberry phones!
The practice round was great! The front nine moved a little slow, but I played with my best friend and University of Texas teammate, Janice Olivencia. We had a few long waits in between holes, but we found entertainment in looking at a few funny YouTube videos on our phones. One of them, I saw on “Ellen” called “unicorn after wisdom teeth.” I was laughing pretty hard! Check it out!