Saturday was a busy golf day. I started the day off with a drive to St. Augustine for a one hour lesson at the Tour Academy, followed by a drive back home, followed by a drive out to Deland to play at Victoria Hills with some friends.
The lesson was awesome, again. After adjusting to a grip change and learning the importance of various rotations through the takeaway, this lesson focused on shortening the backswing – not with less power, but with less arm movement. It’s going to take some work, but I’m excited about the improvements I was already seeing during the lesson.
It turns out that Victoria Hills has just been ranked in the Top 50 courses in the country by readers of Golf Digest (41st overall). I was certainly impressed. Rolling greens, strategic holes, and a lot of elevation change – especially for Florida. It’s the first time I’ve looked down on a green from the tee box.
Given that I had a lesson in the morning, I didn’t play bad, but I didn’t play well. I started to score for the first few holes, but after a while I realized that my swing just didn’t feel right, mainly because I kept trying to work on the things I learned in the morning. So, I stopped keeping score and settled with focusing on good shots and putts the rest of the day.
It was fun, though. The course can be tough if you make stupid choices or try to get too aggressive. The greens were very receptive to ball spin – sometimes too receptive – but they left challenging putts for anything more than 10 feet away.
This week I’ll be working on the new swing tweaks from the lesson. I have to get better by the weekend. Both Friday and Saturday I’m participating in two separate best-ball tournaments. I think this means I’ll have some sort of swing practice every day this week.