It’s been a busy 5 months, though. I’ve now played in 4 tournaments, won 1 one of them, and am getting ready for my 5th and 6th in the next week or so. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my golf game in the process, and while my scores aren’t necessarily reflective of it, I believe I’m a much better player now than I was 5 months ago.

My problem lately has been my driver off the tee. It’s erratic, and I never know what I’m going to get on a day-to-day basis. When it works - my mishits are still in reasonable locations – I can be on fire. For instance, recently over the course of 27 holes where my driver was working well I was 5-under par.

When it doesn’t work – as in my mishits get me in trouble with water, fairway bunkers, out of bounds, lateral hazards, or trees – then I have to scramble, usually to save bogey. On the positive side I’m getting better at scrambling. According to oobgolf my scramble percentage is 47.4%.

So, in tournaments, where nervousness exacerbates everything, my tee shots have been less than desirable. I’ve taken a lot of penalties off the tee, leading to scores running up quickly. My challenge right now is to control my mental state and focus on playing against the course, not other players.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my driver swing, trying to treat it as if I’m swinging a 7-iron. A old man at the range recently mentioned to me that I have excellent rhythm and footwork with all my irons, but as soon as I pulled out my driver all that went away as I started using my upper body more. So my focus now is to start using my lower body more for my driver.

I have had some success and won a tournament. While I didn’t play well, I played better than my competitors, so I got the win. Being focused on my mental state, now I’m interested in not just winning, but playing well in tournament play and constantly giving myself a chance to win.

So that’s where I’m at now. This coming Tuesday I’m in a qualifier for the state amateur championship. If I play well and maintain a good mental approach then I know I have a real chance at qualifying. I also need to play smart and not take unnecessary risks. Based on past history for this qualifier, if I can shoot par or possibly even 1-over, then I can qualify, so I don’t necessarily need to try to blow the field out of the water. Safe, par-golf will do, and taking advantage of birdies as they appear will serve me well.

We’ll see how it goes. I’d like to keep this updated more often. Turns out some other people in the world are going through similar journeys as mine, as they try to go from mid-to-high handicappers to scratch golfers. For instance, the most recent one I heard about is Kirsten Lewis in Oregon: http://www.kirstenlewis.com/.

Back to the grind.

It’s one thing to have a hole-in-one. It’s another to have two. The thing about hole-in-one’s is that they really come down to luck. So many factors beyond our control have the line up for the ball to go into the hole from 100+ yards away. Granted, there’s a bit of skill involved in getting it close to the hole in the first place, but beyond getting it close we don’t have much control over where the ball goes.

So, congratulations to Ruth Day, the retired 64-year-old 36-handicap who shot two hole-in-one’s in the same round. We won’t see something like that again for a long time.

Here’s a chart of my latest statistics:

I took a 5-day break because over the last month I’ve played golf almost every day, and my body was telling me it needed a break. This past month has been a whirlwind of 18 holes, 9 holes, the driving range, putting green, chipping/pitching greens, and practice swinging in the backyard. When I haven’t played I’ve worked out my shoulders, back, and core.

Some who know me may ask: why the sudden interest in golf? Well, I’m fed up with playing poorly. As of the end of May 2009 my scores were averaging +23 to +33. That equates to no real improvement in my golf game in the last 3 years.

So I’m doing something about it – and it’s working. See, since the end of May my golf score has improved 20 points on average to be in the +8 to +13 range. I’ve gone from hitting and hoping to hitting and expecting. I expect to play well.

I do not yet have an official USGA handicap index – this whole idea of scoring well enough to have a handicap index worth looking at is all new to me – but I’ve been tracking my scores on GolfLink.com, and as of today my handicap is 10.7. Recent scores have been 84, 81, and 81.

That’s what this blog is about: to chronicle my progress as I start Going For Par, a name worthy of my next major goal of playing par golf. On this blog, I will track my progress, discuss my thoughts on golf, and discuss things I’m learning about the game. This should be a fun and interesting journey.

Welcome to Going For Par.