Update from Cali

Hello all! :) We are in California and we are loving it! Although it has been awfully hot (114 degrees) we are still enjoying ourselves!

Yesterday was Day 1 in Cali! We played a practice round at the tournament course in the morning and got some practice in before the round. Afterwards we came back to the hotel and just hung out in the room for a little bit taking a nap and gaining some energy back :) We also went grocery shopping and took a ride around town before coming back and watching some Olympics before getting some rest for round 1!

Today was Round 1 of the NWGA q-school prep event and luckily we had a morning tee time so we got our round in before the sun really beat down on us. I ended the day with a 1 over par 73. I played solidly all the way around making a lot of pars so hopefully the next two rounds I can take it low and make some more birdies! I have an afternoon tee time tomorrow so we're going to the movies tonight then going to watch some Olympics before getting some sleep for round 2!

Thank you for all the continued support; it really means the world to me! You can follow the tournament by clicking on the Live Scoring button on my website! Also, feel free to check out my GoFundMe page :)

www.jelsholz.com

xoxo
Jen

California Bound

Hello :) So for those of you that are following along on my journey I thought I'd give you a small update on me and my thoughts about the next two weeks.

Tomorrow my parents and I fly out to Palm Springs, California where we will be there for two weeks! Next week Tuesday-Thursday, 8/16-8/18, I will be playing in the Q-school prep event hosted by the NWGA Tour. After that I will have the weekend to relax and prepare for the biggest tournament of my summer so far, Stage 1 of LPGA Qualifying School. Round 1 of Q-school begins 8/25 and everyone will play three rounds then there will be a cut then the 4th round will be on that Sunday and a certain number of players will make the cut and head to Stage 2.

With all that being said, I'll be honest...I'm a little nervous. But if there's one thing I've learned about nerves it's that they aren't a bad thing. It just means I care about what's happening, but I also have to shake those nerves off once I get going. I am also very excited. How can I not be?! I wake up every morning and I get to go outside and play the sport that I love. Every day I get to wake up and push myself to be the absolute best athlete I can be.

I love quotes and I love being inspired by people and their stories. The Olympics came at the perfect time for me. I love not only watching sports, but I love watching the passion these athletes have. I'm an emotional person already, but if I see someone crying out of pure happiness I tend to join them from the other side of the television screen. These athletes have worked for years and have dedicated their lives to their sport and that motivates me to want to be my absolute best.

God has given me this amazing talent and I don't know exactly where He is leading me, but for right now I am taking what He's giving me and doing my best to bring honor and glory to His name.

I'll be blogging throughout these next two weeks and keeping ya'll up to date about what's going on, but some exciting news! My mom will be blogging while she's in California with me :) So look forward to those as well! I'll be putting the links up for live scoring on my website if you want to check that out! www.jelsholz.com But for now thank you for all the support and I'm looking forward to the weeks to come!

xoxo

Golf, Golf, Golf

In all honesty, I'm not very good at blog posts about golf. I do have a golf journal, but thinking about it now I haven't written in it about my golf rounds in a while :/ Writing to me is all about my creative juices flowing and words just coming out and onto the paper. I've never been good just writing about my golf rounds. I talk to my dad a lot about how a round went, and we talk about the improvements I need to make for the next time, but it's hard to write about them, but none the less I'm going to try and write about my golf tournaments more often! Especially for those of you who are following my golf career :)

I was on the road the past two weeks playing in a couple different tournaments. I went and played up at Boyne Mountain in the Michigan Tournament of Champions. It is a really cool event because players who play in it have won a Michigan sanctioned event! Since I won the GAM Women's Championship and the Michigan Women's Amateur during the summer of 2014 I get a lifetime invite to the tournament! What makes it so unique is that both men and women play against each other and they use four different set of tees! I have never played against men in a tournament, I have only played with my dad and some of his buddies at our home golf course just for fun so it was a cool experience! I played really well shooting 73,74,71 for a two over par total which left me in a tie for 22nd place. (Plus I beat some men so that is always fun!:)

Earlier this week, mom and I went down to Defiance, Ohio to play in the Ohio Women's Open. I again played well shooting 74, 71 (par 71) for a three over par total and that was good enough for 4th place!

I've seen a lot of improvements in my game over the past few months and I'm really excited to see what's to come! I have one more week of good practice before I head out to California for q-school! I'll actually be playing in a prep event hosted by the NWGA tour the week before q-school so we're going to be out there for just over two weeks, but it'll be a good adventure :)

As I'm sure some of you know golf is an expensive sport and playing professional is not cheap so because of this fact I thought it time to ask for some help. I have set up a GoFundMe account for anyone who feels lead to give. The link is below and I would appreciate any little thing! (Even just a quick visit to the site:)

https://www.gofundme.com/jelsholz

Thank you all and have a blessed day :)

Walk with me

I have always been told to never allow anyone to get in the way of my dreams (in my mom's advice it was always  to not allow boys to get in my way.) And I believe that to be true in many regards. God has a plan for each and every one of us here on earth. He has known what we were to do before we were born; He knows what will happen to us today before we know.

I think God puts people in our lives for a reason; whether they are meant to stay forever or whether they are just passing by, God puts them in your life for a reason. This is always something I have struggled with, mainly when friends who I thought were going to stay in my life slowly disappeared and no longer talked to me. Most of the time we want to know everything that's going to happen to us when the truth is we know nothing. Only God has that power to know everything...

The real reason I'm writing this is because I've just started a new relationship and it really gets me thinking about the people God brings in and out of my life as well as who is meant to get in my way or who is not. But in reality, the people who are brought into my life now I think are meant to walk with me, not get in my way or stop me. As I get older and experience more in my life, I realize I only need a few good people around me, my team, who is going to do anything and everything to help me follow God's plan for me and help me reach my dreams.

Pretending

"Pretending can help in so many ways."

So I'll admit it, I like to pretend. It's hard to explain, but inside my head I pretend different scenarios are happening and I play along with them. Sometimes I do it because I'm bored and other times I do it to escape reality. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and I love living in the moment, but sometimes I need a break; I think we all need a break every once in a while, but instead of laying in bed all day I tend to just pretend.

I read this quote in a book I actually never finished. Now that I think about it, I might have stopped reading the book after I read this quote because it hit me so hard. Do you ever have that happen? You read something or see something or do something that hits you so hard that you have to stop for a second and just let it sit with you...in some weird way it may even change you right then and there. That's what happened to me when I read this quote because I pretend all the time and pretending helps me; it helps me heal, re-focus, and sometimes re-energize me for what may lie ahead.

Life is hard. Sometimes things happen that throw us off the track a little, but how we handle those off road moments makes a difference. I like to pretend something else is happening so that I can escape life, even if just for a moment.

Friendship

Since the class of 2016 has graduated or is about to graduate, I have been reflecting on my college graduation which was 1 year ago, and where I am today. 

It's amazing how fast four years goes by, but it's even harder to believe that I graduated from college 1 year ago already. It was right before my senior year when I decided to play professional golf after I graduated, and it has been one wild ride so far! But one thing that I've been thinking about recently and something that has been affected after I graduated is friends.

I went to the University of Toledo not knowing anyone and counting on my teammates to be my best friends, and not just my best friends for the four years I was there, but to be my best friends for the rest of my life. Let me tell you something that no one told me: it doesn't work like that. I met a lot of great people at Toledo and I had the best teammates a girl could ask for, but when I graduated some of those friendships I thought were so great, didn't last. Don't get me wrong, I love all the girls that I got to be teammates with, I just wasn't prepared to have the cord cut with some of them.

But here's what I have learned: you only need a few good friends who really care about you. Once you have those friends you can trust 100% then hang on tight to them! My roommate down in Florida, Lindsey, has become one of my best friends and we just recently had this conversation about friendships. We both agreed that we were meant to be in each other's lives forever. 

I still struggle with the friendships that had died over the course of this past year, but I know there's room for new friendships to blossom in those empty spaces. God puts people in your life for a reason, some are meant to stay forever and some are just passing by.

Goodbye

As everyone knows, I am obsessed with Disney, and I love Disney quotes! When I found this one from Peter Pan I fell in love with it and since that day I have tried not to say "goodbye." But if you really think about it, it's hard to not say goodbye. We are, in a way, trained to say goodbye when we are leaving someone, but if you think about it, it's kind of sad to say goodbye and I think Peter said it best, "...going away means forgetting."

I bring up this topic because I'm making my way back up to Michigan for the summer and I had to leave all the people I met down in Florida, and say goodbye. Saying goodbye is hard. Especially when you realize how much of an impact those people and that place had on you. These past four months in Florida have been amazing! I have met so many great people and played some amazing golf courses that it was really hard for me to leave.

And it was hard for me to leave this girl...

Lindsey has become one of my best friends. When I first moved down to Florida, Lindsey and I hardly knew each other. We had played amateur golf in Michigan together and had seen each other at a few college tournaments, but beyond that we didn't talk much. When we were out at Q-school we hung out and had dinner together and got each other's numbers. A couple months later she texted me and asked me if I would live with her down in Florida and do this professional golf thing together, to which I responded, yes :) Being down in Florida together has been a blast and we have really enjoyed it! Lindsey comes back to Michigan mid-May so I'll see her soon!

Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited to go back home and see my family and friends in Michigan :) Right now, I'm in Toledo visiting my college teammates and it feels good to see them and hang out with them again! I'm excited to continue this crazy adventure and see what God has in store for me!

xoxo