Going For Par

In case there’s any question as to why I’m excited about golf these days, check out this graph of my strokes over par from May 2009 to today:

This chart is from oobgolf. In the top-left corner is a score of 96 (+24) followed by another score of 104 (+32).

Up until the last few months, those were my typical, average scores. I broke 90 once a few years ago, but at one point I actually got frustrated with the lack of improvement and stopped playing altogether for about a year and a half. At the urging of friends, I picked the game back up this year around the April/May timeframe and decided to do something about my poor play.

In the bottom right of the chart is the score of 75 (+3), which I just posted yesterday, approximately 3 months later. It’s neat how I’m seeing a sharp drop in scores after the Tour Academy, especially after my scores were pretty level (or even slightly rising) for about two months after the initial decline.

When viewing this chart, what’s there to not be excited about?

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I haven’t been keeping up with the blog very well the last two weeks, but that’s probably because I’ve been busy golfing!

Last post I recapped last week and how I finished off Sunday with a 78 (+6) round of golf. Well, I did better this week. You can see my scorecards on oobgolf:

• Tuesday, Indigo Lakes: http://www.oobgolf.com/golfers/score.php?id=676556
• Friday, Cypress Head: http://www.oobgolf.com/golfers/score.php?id=683623

On Tuesday I shot a 39 (+3) during the 9-hole round, which is my best Tuesday score so far this year. To add to the great score, I made an eagle on the first par-5. I started with a 280 yard drive, leaving me about 196 yards to the pin (pin in the front) and about 210 to the center of the green. Read more »

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It’s been a full golf weekend – and really a full golf week. So much golf that I’ve had trouble keeping up with it on this blog.

To start, the 9-hole Tuesday round went fairly well as I shot a 43. It could have been, or really should have been, less than 40. I’m still in the process of applying what I learned at the Tour Academy, and sometimes that application doesn’t go so well. On Tuesday it was the chipping and short pitch shots. I can count at least 4 shots I screwed up on pretty bad (the ball went anywhere from a few inches to 2 feet), but right after the screw up I would try it again and get awesome results. So, take away those 4 shots and I’m at 39. Good stuff.

I was happy with the round on Tuesday and felt that I played better than my score indicated. I’m happy with the progress. On the negative side, Tuesday was the day I realized that with the new swing my club distances are all messed up, and I need to re-evaluate/learn them. For instance, I hit a PW (pitching wedge) 150 yards out of the rough on a downhill lie to land over the green and in bushes on one particular hole (another shot that shouldn’t have been added to the score). My PW used to be 125-ish yards. Now I use it for shots between 140 and 150 yards – at least, that’s what I’m learning to do now.

On Saturday a couple of us went to LPGA International to play on the Champions course. A few weeks ago we played on the Legends course, but until Saturday I had never played on Champions. From what we hear, Champions is the easier of the two. I can agree with that. I think it’s the links-style, which makes it more difficult to lose your ball unless you hit it in the water or really screw up on your swing. Read more »

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I can’t say enough good things about the Tour Academy experience I went through Monday through Wednesday of this past week. Attending the academy is the best thing I could have done for my own enjoyment of the game of golf, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to get more enjoyment out of the game. My instructor was awesome, and I’m hoping to get some private instruction from him in the near future (more on that later).

Physically, I’m still sort of recovering from the massive amount of golf I took in. Not only did I do a lot of drills and take a lot of swings each day, but temperatures were in the low to mid-90’s with a heat index around 110 degrees. I think I went through at least a dozen water bottles a day to stay hydrated.

I went into the academy with the mindset that I would only get out of it what I put into it, which I believe is generally true with anything involving education. We were allowed to get to the academy early to practice, so I took advantage of that. We were given a booklet of all the information we were learning, so I took notes. If I wasn’t sure about something, I asked questions. When playing on the course each day, instead of just “having fun”, I took the opportunity to practice the things I had learned. Besides, that was more fun for me anyway. Read more »

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During my last round my caddie took a few snapshots of my swing. One of the pictures reminded me of a similar shot of Tiger on Golf.com. The timing of the swings is pretty close – close enough for comparison.

So I took my picture and put it next to Tiger:

The angle from the camera is slightly different (mine is angled slightly behind; Tiger is head on), but it’s close.

A lot of things are similar, and I think a few key things are different. I see three major differences:

1. Left wrist – I have a bad habit of not letting my wrist cock straight so that my forearm and top of my hand are in a straight line. Tiger’s is straight and cocking toward his thumb; mine is cocking toward my forearm. If you look at the clubhead you can see the effect this is having (Tiger’s is near vertical, mine is rotated to the sky more). I’ve heard mixed analysis on the importance of this, but I do know that I get better results when I cock my wrist like Tiger’s instead of the way I have it in this picture. Another aspect of this could be the placement of my right elbow. Mine is stick out, away from my body. Tiger has his right elbow tucked nicely inline with his left arm.
2. Center of gravity – My weight is more on my front foot (left) than Tiger’s. This could be a side effect of my left ankle rolling (the 3rd difference), but either way my weight should be shifted a little more to the center of my body.
3. Left ankle roll – If I remember right, Jack Nicklaus did/does this, but that doesn’t mean I should do it. I don’t know why I do this, other than to take pressure off my left knee as I turn my shoulders. It’s a bad habit I need to stop. I have a feeling it’s taking away some of my power and control, and like many golf pro’s say, the golf swing is complex enough, so why bother adding more moving parts than necessary.

Otherwise, I like my left arm angle, shoulder turn, head, and hip turn. We’ll see how the swing differs after some instruction.

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Since it’s been raining every afternoon, I’ve been practicing my putting indoors. That’s not really an issue as long as I remember to grab my putter whenever I go play a round.

Well yesterday I forgot to do that, and I played a round without my putter. I was able to use my playing partner’s putter, but the feel was much different than I’m used to. So I missed a few putts I should have made, and usually because I hit the ball too hard.

I called yesterday’s round a practice round. It didn’t affect my handicap, and I didn’t play within the rules the entire time. Part of the reason is that I wanted to try out some shots I might not normally try without thinking about my score. Another reason is that I forgot my putter. Read more »

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I shot a 45 for the 9-hole Tuesday round on Tuesday. It would have been better, but for a little fun I started playing around and didn’t worry about my score.

For instance, on a par-5 hooking dogleg left, my tee shot clipped a tree branch, which led to my ball next to the lake that the dogleg left wraps around with an almost-open shot to the fairway on the other side. Basically, I had about a 200 yard shot I could attempt to cut across the dogleg and land on or near the green instead of getting my ball back on the fairway and playing it safe.

Since I don’t usually get to attempt these types of shots, I decided “why not?” The only issue was one tree limb that I was hoping my shot would go underneath on its way out. I grabbed my 3-iron, took my swing, and watched the ball barely scratch the bottom of the limb, followed by a beeline into the water, falling short about 3 yards of the other side of the lake.

Feeling brave, I took another one of those shots, only to hit a tree on the other side of the lake, which caused a ricochet back into the lake. Doing stuff like that adds those shots up quick.

Even though I was playing around by trying out some shots – the kind I call my ESPN shots – I included the penalties on my score and ended up with an 8 on that par-5. In some ways I was impressed I still had a triple bogey on the most difficult hole of the course despite those two water hazards.

There were a few other holes I decided to play around with on my shots and it sort of artificially inflated my score. I didn’t really mind this time, though. I had opportunities to try shots I wouldn’t normally do, and I think it’s good to practice them when you can.

Besides, it’s my last Tuesday golf outing before I head to the Tour Academy for 3 days. I figured I’d have some fun.

Since it’s been raining every afternoon I’ve been practicing putting in the living room. I use a mock cup and a yoga mat to represent the putting surface. The main issue I’ve noticed with my putting is that I can be inconsistent on the takeaway, which leads to inconsistency on the forward swing. I’ve narrowed it down to focusing on keeping my hands in sync as they move back and forth. When I keep them in sync I can put the ball wherever I want. If they get out of sync then I either push or pull the putt.

Weather permitting, I still may try to play a round on Friday. If I don’t have that chance on Friday, then I’ll probably just hit a few balls on Saturday since I probably need to take care of a few things before I head out of town.

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My Sunday round went okay with a 12-over par 84 (click the link to see the scorecard). It’s considered above my average score, according to oobgolf, but it’s not where I want to be.

In fact, if it wasn’t for the double bogey on Hole 2 or the triple bogey on Hole 3, it would have been a pretty decent day, especially since even with bogeys on those holes I would have been at 81, and if I played those holes like usual it could have been even less.

True to form, I started the round out slow. For some reason I had trouble concentrating and relaxing those first four holes. Then my tee shots were all over the place, and I was playing out of trouble most of the time on the front 9. Once I got past the first few holes I started playing pretty well – relatively, anyway. Read more »

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Tiger Woods is giving people like me a little hope. Today during the Buick Open he had a few tee shots that reminded me of my own struggles off the tee. What’s crazy is that despite the bad tee shots he’s in the lead heading into the final round. That just shows how good he is and how strong his mental approach is to the game – bad tee shot? No problem.

Probably my favorite tee shot was on the Par-4 18th Hole where he pushed the ball right onto another hole’s fairway. For his second shot he had to hit it over the trees dividing the 18th fairway and the fairway he was on. He hit a solid shot right at a tough pin location, but he came up short and barely landed in a bunker. That didn’t faze him either – a great sand shot and a short 3 foot putt later, and Tiger was sitting with a par to finish the day. It was ugly, but it worked.

Granted, the phrase “bad tee shot” is relative for Tiger Woods. As long as he doesn’t have a tree trunk two feet in front of the ball he can find a way to get the ball to the green. That’s just talent.

Regardless, Tiger gives us non-pros some hope. We hit it into the trees, bunkers, and sometimes on the next hole’s fairway on a regular basis. We dip our head on the downswing and push the ball, as Tiger has been doing this weekend. Sometimes we get frustrated that we can’t just hit the ball straight, but Tiger is showing that it’s okay if you can’t hit the ball straight off the tee – as long as you can recover quickly and play with a strong short game you’ll be fine. Read more »

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It’s that time of week. Today I shot an 8 over-par 44 for the 9-hole round for the second week in a row. Shooting 40 is just around the corner! I feel like I played better than my score indicates, though. I just had untimely bad shots. Sometimes it’s okay to have a bad shot because you can recover from it on the next shot, but today my bad shots cost me and I couldn’t recover without extra strokes.

Putting wasn’t very good, though. My guess for that is because I didn’t focus very well once I was on the green. My dad was playing with me on the course, and I had to share my putter with him which sort of changes your pre-shot routine on the green.

I’m glad of the way I was able to scramble after hitting a poor shot. Every time I had a poor shot I followed up with a series of good shots. And as I’ve been suspecting, the poor shots are coming from a lack of concentration. Nothing more, nothing less. Read more »

Filed under: 9-Hole Round Update, Progress | No Comments »