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This San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap covers June 27, 2026 — SCGA One Day Series, Individual Net at San Juan Hills Golf Club. A one-hour drive south from San Diego, plantar fasciitis gnawing at my right heel the entire way, and three out-of-bounds drives that turned what could have been a 71 into a 77. That’s the round in one sentence. But the data tells a deeper story — and it’s one worth documenting.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: The Course Setup
San Juan Hills plays to a 70.5 rating and 127 slope from the blue tees at 6,317 yards. It’s not a brute of a course — but it has teeth. The fairways are tight enough that a right-to-left miss with driver gets punished severely, and there are out-of-bounds stakes that feel like they’re positioned specifically to find hooks. Which, today, they did. Three times.
I left early, hit Starbucks on the drive down, did my 15-minute pre-round yoga routine at home before I left — right heel hurt too much to walk the course, so I took a cart again. Plantar fasciitis has been the unwelcome guest at every tournament since it showed up. I’m managing it, not curing it. But I’m still competing, which is something.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: How the Round Started
Five straight pars to open. If you’ve followed my SCGA tournament rounds this year, you know how rare that is. Settled start, controlled swings, managing the scorecard — exactly what I’ve been working on. Through 5 holes I was sitting at even par and feeling like a 73 was absolutely in play.
Then hole 6 happened.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Hole 6 Where the Round Changed
The 6th is a 563-yard par 5 with out-of-bounds left and right and a dogleg left with a blind tee shot. You have to commit. I didn’t. I tried to swing easier, tried to guide it left around the corner — and hooked it out of bounds left. Under stroke-and-distance rules that’s re-tee, lose one stroke and distance. I walked back to the cart, grabbed my 7-wood, and hit it perfectly. Made a double bogey 7.
That’s the pattern I keep coming back to: when I try to steer the driver, I produce exactly the miss I’m trying to avoid. The swing speed work I’ve been doing with the Stack System is building real clubhead speed — 111 mph personal best just 11 days ago — but driver accuracy at tournament pace is still the leak.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Holes 7 and 9 Three-Putt Problem
Hole 7 is a 175-yard par 3. Hit my 7-iron to 26 feet. Three-putt bogey. Hole 9 is a 193-yard par 3. Hit 5-iron to 42 feet. Three-putt bogey. Two par 3s, two quality iron shots that found the green, two bogeys. That’s a 2-stroke gift to the field I should not be giving.
The putting numbers on the day actually came out at +0.3 SG vs. scratch — so Arccos sees the two three-putts as essentially offset by good putting elsewhere. But in a tournament round, three-putts at 26 and 42 feet aren’t catastrophic; they’re just the reminder that from outside 25 feet, the goal is lag, not make. My average first-putt distance today was around 30 feet, which means I was hitting greens but not giving myself realistic birdie looks.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Hole 10 First Birdie
368-yard par 4. Hit driver 294 yards — my 111 mph speed does produce big numbers when I commit — and left myself 74 yards. Full 60-degree lob wedge to 6 feet. Drained the putt. First birdie of the day, and a reminder that when the driver works, everything else gets easier. From 74 yards with a clean lie, I’m in attack mode. That’s a very different decision tree than from 130 yards with a questionable lie.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Hole 12 The Loud One
483-yard par 5. Hit driver 253 yards, leaving 240 to the pin. That’s a 3-wood number for me — and I hooked it left out of bounds. Into someone’s backyard. I heard it hit something metallic, a loud bang. Better metallic than glass. Dropped under stroke-and-distance, knocked the next 3-wood past the pin to 18 feet, chipped to 2 feet, and made bogey 6. Given the OB, a bogey-6 there is actually damage limitation executed well. But the OB itself cost the round.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Hole 16 Second Birdie
170-yard par 3. Hit 7-iron to 21 feet. Made the birdie putt. The iron game on par 3s gave me legitimate looks all day — it just didn’t convert enough of them into momentum earlier in the round.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Hole 17 The Third OB
517-yard par 5, out-of-bounds left and right. Hooked the drive out of bounds left again. Re-teed. Lost a stroke and distance. Made double bogey 7. Three OB drives in one round — holes 6, 12, and 17 — all left hooks. That’s not a random scatter pattern. That’s a repeating miss under tournament pressure.
The Arccos data confirms it: driving SG came in at −3.9 for the round. For context, my season average driving SG is around −0.9. Today was more than four times worse than my normal driving performance. The right-miss penalty pattern I’ve documented before flipped to a left-miss pattern under pressure — which is consistent with what happens when I try to steer away from trouble and overcook the release.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Hole 18 Bogey to Close
Bogey on 18 to finish. Not the clean closing par I wanted after making birdie on 16. After the double on 17 the mental reset wasn’t quite complete — and the scorecard shows it. One more thing to carry forward: closing out a round after a penalty hole is its own skill, and it needs work.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: The Full Scorecard
Here’s how the round broke down hole by hole:
| Hole | Par | Yards | Score | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–5 | — | — | E (5 pars) | Strong opening stretch |
| 6 | 5 | 563 | +2 (7) | OB tee shot, re-tee, 7-wood recovery |
| 7 | 3 | 175 | +1 (4) | 7-iron to 26 ft, 3-putt |
| 8 | — | — | E | Par |
| 9 | 3 | 193 | +1 (4) | 5-iron to 42 ft, 3-putt |
| 10 | 4 | 368 | −1 (3) | 294 yd drive, 74 yd LW to 6 ft, birdie |
| 11 | — | — | E | Par |
| 12 | 5 | 483 | +1 (6) | OB 3-wood, recovery to 18 ft, chip to 2 ft |
| 13–15 | — | — | E | Pars |
| 16 | 3 | 170 | −1 (2) | 7-iron to 21 ft, birdie putt |
| 17 | 5 | 517 | +2 (7) | OB hook left, re-tee, double bogey |
| 18 | — | — | +1 (bogey) | Bogey to finish |
| TOTAL | 71 | 6,317 | 77 (+6) | 2 birdies, 5 bogeys, 2 doubles |
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Arccos Strokes Gained Breakdown
The Arccos dashboard showed an overall SG of −4.2 for the round vs. a scratch baseline. Here’s how it split:
- Driving: −3.9 — Three OB penalties, all left hooks. This single category explains the round.
- Approach: not broken out separately this round — But the iron play to par 3s was consistently solid: 26 ft, 42 ft, 21 ft. The miss was hitting greens from too far out to create birdie pressure.
- Short Game: −0.7 — Held up. Solid wedge play and the chip to 2 feet on 12 kept this number manageable.
- Putting: +0.3 — Positive. Made both birdies, managed the two three-putts well given the distances involved.
The math is brutal and clear. Take away the three OB drives — even assuming bogey on each hole instead of double — and the score is 71. Par at a 70.5-rated course. That’s competitive in any SCGA One Day Series field.
Instead, each OB cost a minimum of 2 extra strokes vs. a bogey outcome. Three OBs = roughly 6 extra strokes. 71 became 77. That’s the entire story of June 27, 2026 at San Juan Hills.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: The Swing Speed Paradox
Here’s the tension I’m sitting with after today: I hit my personal best swing speed of 111 mph in Stack System Program 7 just eleven days ago. The 294-yard drive on hole 10 is real — that speed is producing real distance. But three OB left hooks on the same round prove that raw speed without commitment and shape control is a liability under tournament pressure.
The pattern is specific: when I try to steer the driver to avoid OB, I lose the athletic swing, the clubface rotates through too aggressively, and I hook it. Into exactly the OB I was trying to avoid. It’s the golf equivalent of target fixation — where thinking about what you don’t want to do is the most reliable way to do it.
The Stack System training is working. The speed is there. What Program 8 — which I’m currently in — needs to produce is not more speed but more trust. The ability to make a committed, full swing at a driver when there’s OB left and right and tournament money on the line. That’s the next layer of the work.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: The Plantar Fasciitis Factor
I need to acknowledge this because it’s real and it’s affecting my game. Plantar fasciitis in my right heel has been a presence at every tournament for the past several weeks. I limped the whole course again today, riding a cart throughout. Walking 18 is not currently an option.
Does the PF affect my swing? Probably. Ground force production in the golf swing starts with foot pressure — and protecting a painful right heel means I’m not loading and pushing off through impact the way I normally would. That could be a contributing factor to the left hook pattern, if the altered footwork is changing my release timing. It’s worth noting even if I can’t prove the mechanism. I’m treating it, staying patient, and competing anyway.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: What It Proved About My Game
The things that didn’t lose me strokes today are worth naming, because they represent real progress from where this journey started:
- Iron play on par 3s was sharp. Three iron shots to greens, all leaving makeable or lag-able putts. The speed and strength work has not hurt ball-striking — if anything, the extra speed gives me cleaner contact windows.
- Wedge play was clean. The 74-yard lob wedge to 6 feet on hole 10 is the kind of shot I couldn’t execute reliably two years ago at a 7 handicap. That’s a 3 handicap shot.
- Putting was positive. +0.3 SG on the greens is a good result. I didn’t give strokes away with the flat stick today.
- Recovery was functional. After the OB on 6, I hit the 7-wood perfectly for the re-tee. After the OB on 12, I knocked the 3-wood past the pin and got up-and-down to bogey. The mental reset after penalties is improving.
- I competed through real physical pain. 77 at 70.5/127 with plantar fasciitis, three OBs, and a cart round isn’t a performance I’m proud of — but I had two birdies and never quit. The competitive instinct didn’t waver.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: The One Adjustment That Matters
I don’t need to overhaul anything after today. The course management lesson is singular: on tight driving holes with OB, commit to a shot shape and trust it fully, or take driver out of play entirely. There is no safe middle ground. Trying to guide it — swinging easier, steering away from trouble — is the most reliable route to the exact miss you’re avoiding.
On hole 6, I should have either committed to a full driver with a slight draw setup or hit 3-wood and accepted a longer second shot. Instead I tried to finesse a driver. Same thing on 12 and 17. Same result all three times. Three times in one round isn’t a fluke — it’s a pattern that’s now very clearly documented.
Next tournament is July 13 at Pala Mesa Resort — Net Team Chapman format. Different format, different pressure profile, but the same driver decision will be tested. The Arccos data will be watching. So will I.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: The Tracking Stack Behind These Numbers
Every number in this recap comes from Arccos Gen 4 Smart Sensors mounted in my grips, syncing automatically to the Arccos Link Pro on my belt. Strokes gained vs. scratch, approach distances, putting distances, fairway accuracy — all of it captured without a second of manual data entry during the round. Tournament results and leaderboards are tracked through Golf Genius, the platform the SCGA uses to manage One Day Series scoring. I check both after every round and they tell me exactly where I lost strokes and where I finished.
Today’s data told me what I already felt walking off 18: −3.9 driving SG. But having the number pinned to a specific category — vs. a general sense that the driver was bad — is the difference between vague frustration and targeted improvement. That’s why I track everything.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Final Thoughts
77. Three out-of-bounds. Plantar fasciitis in my right heel. One hour drive each way. And I’d do it again next week.
That’s what competing in the SCGA One Day Series at 56 looks like. Not every round is a career low 67 like Coronado last month. Some rounds are a hard 77 that hands you a very specific lesson in your own decision-making under pressure. Those rounds are data too. They go in the log. They go in the Arccos dashboard. And they go here, so the pattern is documented and the improvement is accountable.
Three OBs. Three left hooks. Three committed swings I didn’t make. Fix that one thing, and the next San Juan Hills round looks a lot different.
Program 8 continues. Pala Mesa is two weeks out. The foot will heal. The work continues.
San Juan Hills SCGA Tournament Recap: Final Results and Placement
Final placement: 9th place. Gross 77, net 74. The winning score was net 67 — a 7-shot margin. Second place came in at net 71. My three OB penalties cost roughly 6 strokes. A clean driver day and I’m contending for second place. That’s not a consolation — it’s a target. The gap between 9th and 2nd today was driver decision-making on three holes. Everything else was competitive.
— Marino | @115at56