The round at Turnbull went so-so. I played well at times, but my ability to concentrate on every shot for every hole was poor. The end-result was a 14-over par 86. You can see my scorecard by clicking here.
It was a slow start, as usual. I was +4 after the first two holes. It didn’t really get better after that, though, as I was +9 after the first 9 holes.
The culprit was my 3-wood. At Turnbull Bay the 3-wood is the club I tee off with on almost every par-4 and a couple par-5′s. Usually my 3-wood is an easy club for me to hit where I want, perhaps with the occasional fade.
For this round, however, my tee shots with the 3-wood were setting me up in a bad position from the start of every hole. If I wasn’t pulling the ball left, then I was slicing it right. It was a very strange day for one of my most consistent clubs.
And like usual, I started off the day pulling my irons. Not sure why I start off that way other than my timing not being right. It usually takes a few holes before I start hitting my irons where I want with the occasional push to the right.
The back 9 was better, but the only real difference from the front 9 was that I never made worse than a bogey. Now if I could only eliminate those bogeys…
I did make a birdie on a par 5 to end my 3 week birdie drought. Naturally it was on the most difficult hole on the course – featured hole 13 – which starts off with a tee shot that needs to carry about 200 yards to clear water before it reaches the fairway.
I started off the hole with my Driver, hitting the ball around 280 yards, which is about average for that club. It was one of my better tee shots of the day with a slight draw that sent the ball rolling up the fairway hill.
From this location SkyCaddie let me know I still had 250 yards to go to the green. It also let me know that the layup spot was around 160 yards. Lately I’ve been a little more conservative and would normally play the layup shot, but I’ve been learning how to hit my longer irons more consistently (the 3-iron and 4-iron), so I decided to “go for it” – I wanted a birdie.
I pull out the 3-iron, take a practice swing, address the ball, remind myself to “let the club do the work”, and swing. What a sight to see a 3-iron shot go straight for once. By the time we got up to the green I saw that I had been short of the green about 15 yards. I made a comment to one of the guys in my group that now I know I hit my 3-iron about 235 yards – it’s the first time I’ve ever hit it that well to know how far I hit it.
I concentrated a lot on the chip. This past week I’ve spent a lot of time on my chipping practice, focusing on the feel of the ball off the club while aiming for the ball to land on a certain spot on the green.
For this chip I aimed for a spot on the green that was a little lighter than the rest of the green. I needed the ball to run up the green since the hole was on the other side, so I started my swing and kept my hands ahead of the club-head the whole way through – next thing I know I have a great chip rolling slightly past the cup, settling around 7 feet from the hole.
So this was my birdie putt. If you recall, on Tuesday I missed a birdie putt in a similar situation where I had a short putt in the 6 to 8 foot range for birdie and missed it because I didn’t hit the ball well. That thought certainly crossed my mind as I prepared to putt for this birdie.
I read the green and noticed that it had a slight left-to-right slope, but it wasn’t much. I’ve had the most trouble reading these types of putts, and usually I’ll think there’s more break than there really is, so I’ll miss the cup entirely as the ball never breaks as I expect.
I decided to aim for the left edge of the cup, thinking that it’s going to break right, but not much, so worst case I won’t miss it left but if it breaks more than I think it will I’ll miss it slightly right. To help minimize the break I decide to putt a little more speed on the putt than I normally might.
After planning out my putt strategy for this birdie opportunity, I address the ball, swing back slightly, swing forward, and watch the ball go right to the center of the cup and fall in the hole for my first birdie in weeks. Finally. I think I even said “finally”.
Obviously that was the highlight of the round, perhaps because I stayed focused on every shot of the hole. I need to ratchet up my mental game. Just for this round alone I can count 6 or 7 shots where I know I didn’t concentrate like I should and it ended up costing me additional shots. If I think about it, those 6 or 7 shots are enough to put me in the 70′s.
So in addition to getting the consistency in my swing, the next big thrust in my golf journey is going to be the mental game. As I’ve preached before, I need to concentrate on every shot of every hole if I want to play better. At some point, especially at the professional level, the mental game becomes the limiting factor in performance.