Well here goes my first post as a contributor to The Breakfast Ball Blog. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is James Feutz and I am a 21-year-old junior playing golf at the University of Pacific in Stockton, California.

I grew up just outside of Seattle, Washington (Yes this means I am a die hard Seahawks fan) and attended Bellarmine Prep High School in Tacoma, Washington. In the summer before my junior year at Bellarmine I committed to play my college golf at UNLV. After graduation I packed up and headed for Vegas, taking a long list of junior golf accomplishments with me.

My first two years in Vegas went by, as they say, “Like a weekend in Vegas.” I met some amazing people, made some great memories, but lost track of what I was really there to do. Although my grades were good, my golf was not, and the connection between the golf program and myself just wasn’t there.

I reevaluated what I really wanted to do in my life and got to work. From January of 2014 to the start of school in September I lost 40 pounds and worked relentlessly on my game, in an effort to return to the top form that I once possessed in junior golf.

Unfortunately by this time in my career at UNLV I had dug myself into a hole impossible to climb out of and I knew a big change would be needed if I wanted to have a successful college career and pave a path to the PGA Tour. Due to the lack of support I was getting at UNLV and the distractions that Vegas brought along with it, I decided that the best thing for me as a person and as an athlete was to transfer to a new program.

After several discussions with my coach and other people associate with the program, I made the decision to step away from the team at UNLV. My plan was originally to finish second semester at UNLV this year and transfer somewhere in the fall of 2015 and play the last two years of my collegiate career.

As the emails to coaches started flying, every school that was interested wanted my to transfer at the end of the semester and start in the spring semester of 2015. I narrowed down my choices and weighed my options based on coaches, strength of schedule, weather, academics, and more.

The school that stuck out the most to me was the University of Pacific in Stockton, California. Coach Chris Hill and I had several conversations, which led to me taking a visit. After touring the campus, seeing the practice facilities, and getting to know Coach Hill and his philosophies as a coach, I gave my commitment at the end of my visit.

Pacific had everything I was looking for. It’s a strong academic school with great practice facilities, great weather, a great tournament schedule, and a coach that truly cares about each and every one of his players being the best they can be, while not putting excess pressure on them to perform.

I have now been in Stockton for a month, and I am a couple weeks into my classes and practices. One of the things that I really like about my schedule here at Pacific is that I have relatively the same schedule every day.

Monday-Friday I have class at 8:00 am and I am done with class at 10:45 on Monday-Wednesday-Friday and at 9:45 on Tuesday and Thursday. Monday-Friday we have qualifying or practice at 1 pm with workouts on Tuesday and Thursday from 10:30-12:00 accompanied by yoga at 6 am on Wednesday mornings.

This is in contrast to the schedule I had at UNLV, which had workouts at 5:30 am Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with class the majority of the day on Mondays and Wednesdays. That’s right, we only went to class two days a week for the most part.

There were no set practices at UNLV, which is good for some people, but I am happy to be at a program that has scheduled team practices.

We are just now starting our spring season which is composed of 8 tournaments plus NCAA regional championships and NCAA national championships pending our play the rest of the season. Below is a copy of our spring schedule accompanied by the courses that will host the tournaments.

I could not be more excited to be a part of a program as I am to be a member of the Pacific Tigers men’s golf team. In the fall, the team went from around 160^th in the collegiate rankings to inside the top 80. We are looking to make another jump like that in the spring and build Pacific into a national championship caliber team.

In addition to that, one of my teammates, Byron Meth, will be competing in this year’s Masters Tournament at Augusta National.

With regards to this as somewhat as an intro piece of who I am and how I got to where I am now, I will be writing other pieces for the blog on many different topics related to the game of golf.

I will be writing practice drill posts for everything from driving, iron play, chipping, putting, and most importantly, the mental game! I am open to any and all suggestions if there is something you are struggling with and would like some help with.