For the first time in 3 years my league got cancelled last night. Standing water on multiple greens, think the estimate has been over 7 inches of rain in the past weekish. So hopin to squeeze in a little practice and maybe a quick 9 over the next few days
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Thatās a fun format.
With your dad, any round is a good round. Good for you
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A tale as old as timeā¦ a tale of 2 ninesā¦ front nine I made 5 easy pars to start the roundā¦ nothing major to noteā¦ slid out on a shot on the 6th hole in the wet grass, missed the green with my 4th shot and got up and down for bogeyā¦ up and down for bogey on a recovery from a terrible drive in 8 and an Ok three putt on 9 for a 3 over 39ā¦ I hadnāt broken 40 on the front all yearā¦ was excited for the backā¦
And then I boarded the bogey train and didnāt get off until the 17th holeā¦ 39 / 43 for a disappointing 82.
Iām actually impressed that my back nine wasnāt worse as I was all over the placeā¦
I didnāt warm up for the round and slapped a new shaft in my driver before teeing offā¦ itās coming back outā¦ up and down game was pretty strongā¦ Iām happy with the directional trend of my round and my overall ball strikingā¦ my focus wasnāt great on the back and I wasnāt committed on multiple shots.
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So a couple things, I have not shot in the 80s for 8 str8 rounds, My short game has perked a bit and Iāve been riding a hot putter. Best round was a 73, 8 GIR, 1 Birdie, 0 Dbls, 4 Bogs, 6 saves, 29 putts, I only made one putt over 10 ft. The 6 saves, I didnāt have a putt over 3ft. I have made one major change to the bagā¦10 years ago I demoed an Adams UL 9088. I fell in love but it was outta my price range at the time. So I bought a fast 10. I was on eBay 2 weeks ago and low and behold I came across a brand new 9088 9.5* stiff shaft 46.5" long, only hit once out of a pro shop basement in Mass. For $50 free shipping. So yea I bought it, I couldnāt resist. I have been avg 238 off the tee with my TM M2 my first swing with the 9088 pumped slightly right of the fairway 254, 2nd swing 278 split the fw. So yea that has found a home. It only weighs 10ozā¦ if I can get a bit of minor improvement with putter and start seeing approaches that gets my wedge in hand, I might be doing something in the Senior Division of my club this year. Qualifier is Saturday.
Pleased to pull a 90 out of the hat today, on a very, very soggy course. Strike was not king, but scrambled, salvaged and scrounged decent enough.
4 pars, 10 bogeys, 4 doubles
7 FWās (missed 4 others by 5ā or less)
4 GIRās, 34 putts
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I reckon if i could improve my driving, fairway woods, hybrids, irons, wedges and putting then i could get my handicap down too 
Like you working hard with my coach. Had a lesson yesterday and heās really happy with where my backswing is now so we started work on path yesterday and the changes heās trying to make felt really alien to me though i understand his logic so will grind hard to get there. The good news is that he thinks iām not too far from dramatically reducing my handicap so got to trust the process!
Off to St Georges tomorrow evening for Saturdays play which iām mega excited about as never been to a professional tournament before and will sneak in a cheeky practice session and 18 on the way back Sundayā¦wish me luck as i donāt think iāll break 100 with the new swing changes bedding in!
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Totally (in my case) un-scientific and not proven by my own data yet, but having recently read Mark Broadieās book and listening to the most recent Sweet Spot podcast from @jon and @Adamyounggolf - it totally resonates with me.
Not saying chipping and putting isnāt important (it is)ā¦but for me to continue to reduce my handicap (I was a 20 about 5 years ago and am now hovering around 11-12). I really need to:
- Be a consistent iron player and use strategy suited to my dispersion pattern (regardless of ego)
- Add more distance and accuracy to my drives
Iāve seen time and again that my good driving/ball striking days much more often result in good scores (even when chipping and putting is off) than the reverse.
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First competitive round in 2 months or so, after my knee blowout (rehab kicking my butt!). New course for me. Some good shots, some rust. Some nerves!
Started well, but felt the round getting away from me. So I took a page each from @jon and @Adamyounggolf.
My new take: Golf is a Series of Mental Lapses. Sorry, @jon, stealing your primary concept and sprinkling on a pinch of my own seasoning. Hit it, Learn from it, Forget it. I focused on staying in Think Box until committed plus my one swing thought. Then āBBQā stepping into ballš. Deep breath, swing and observe.
Next, marinate in @Adamyounggolf clubface/strike adjustment
awareness.
Then, quickly back to my process: use yb, gps and laser (my ācaddieā tools) to get strategy for next shot.
takeaways: 1) a bit of rust! 2) itās easier to ānot give up on your roundā when I promptly follow my process, forget how my ball wound up here, just focus on this shot. 3) stay āexternalā as much as possible; I did not use clubface/swingpath adjustments sparingly enough, tending to over-correct.
All in all a good, not great round. Played some good holes, had one āblowopā hole but kinda expected at least one after injury. Very proud I persisted with the round and feel I have the tools to do so. Thanks @jon, @Adamyounggolf and whole forum!
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Golf is such a funny game to meā¦ if you drive the ball well, you have less recovery shots from the trees and easier looks at the greenā¦ If you hit those shots on the green, you have to scramble less and all the sudden 18 two putts is a no sweat 72.
Obviously, itās not that EASY, but it is that simpleā¦ Everything around the green is basically a recovery from the mistakes you made when you werenāt around the green!
I donāt know if that comes across as glib, but Iām being earnestā¦ One of the big things that has helped me focus on my game is realizing that the longer yardage stuff is where you easily bleed strokes, they just donāt become apparent until you are around the greenā¦
My one double yesterday came after I flared a hybrid into the rough and behind a treeā¦ I played the next shot poorly (tried to get it under the tree and failed) and then never really recoveredā¦ had I just put the lay up hybrid INTO the fairway (or close to it!) I wouldnāt have been in the position to make that mistakeā¦
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Teed off at 0837 on Thursday. Only about 70m of visibility in thick fog. Drilled a drive to the middle of the fairway then a 7i to the front fringe and chipped to a back pin holing out for birdie. Then had 6 bogies 9 doubles and two triples. Brilliant first hole then only had one easy par chance and missed a 1m putt. A round to forget apart from the first hole. That takes me to 5 holed shots in 19 rounds for the month. 3 chip ins and 2 pitch ins. The fog lifted after 5 holes. Last Monday the whole round was foggy.
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You may have addressed this in the past, but what stellar skills you have around the green! Iām interested in your club selection - do you have one āfaithfulā club you chip with and manipulate the loft as neededā¦or do you chip with multiple clubs depending on the situation? Are you typically a āgo high to the holeā or ābump and rollā type of player?
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@TSmith Hi Trevor, I always use my sand iron. I hit my chips with a flat left wrist and the hands leading the club through just brushing the ground. I have forward shaft lean making my chips come out low. If I donāt push my hands forward as much I get high pop up chips that land and run like I did when I holed out on the first yesterday. Sometimes I chip when already on the green if I have a very difficult putt like the 4th where a putt would have to go over a bunker from the front right to a pin on the right further up the green, Generally I can do this without damaging the green. My sand iron has a curved sole and I am sure that is what makes my sand iron very easy to chip with. It may be just psychological. Either way I am not parting with it. It doesnāt match my set and comes out of a old set of blades I had stolen way back in 1992. Luckily the sand iron was out of the bag.
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Played poorly yesterday. Was very grouchy on the course. All three phases of my game were b- or c. Attitude was an F
Setting the sticks down for a few weeks
Papageorgio out
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Recharge. Breaks are necessary. Youāll come back more relaxed and enjoy it more.
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Last night at league I played well. A pretty clean -2, 34. Youād think I won my match. You thought wrong. The 5(!!) hdcp I played against made three birdies and a hole-in-one en route to a 32 (net 27!!!).
I suppose I couldāve been annoyed that I ran into the round of a lifetime, but damn it was fun. Hole-in-ones are so rare and so much fun. Including my own, itās only the 4th Iāve ever witnessed in 27 years of playing. This guy was flushing it all night. His avg proximity had to have been inside 8 feet. Just a fun round to be witness to. His best score by 5 shots. He had never even shot par. One of those rounds you chase your whole life. Something I think a lot of people need to remember is out there. Just keep swinging.
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@okiwiz thank you. Iāve gone back and forth between using just my sandwedge for most everything (except for obvious lobs), and using my 8 and 9 irons to bump and run (more of a āRule of 12ā style of chipping). It feels like both can be very successful, and Iāve always been better (than the rest of my game) around the greens.
Sometimes I honestly just go with the SW since I play on a pretty crowded course and I donāt always want to take the time to pace everything off to the hole (as required by the āRule of 12ā).
Keep up the great work!
Shot a very boring 75 todayā¦ best round at my home course and second best round of my lifeā¦
4 bogeys, 1 birdieā¦ Missed a 6 footer for eagle (it lipped out) for the one tap in birdie I had all dayā¦
4 up and downs, 1 three putt from 50 feet, 11 greens in regulationā¦ Just didnāt make big mistakes, and recovered well from my little mistakesā¦
My big mental mistakes were: Tried to get cute out of the rough with an 80 yard wedge shotā¦ hit a flyer, ended up way over the back (down a hill) and made bogeyā¦ Tried to force an 8 iron into a green where the pin was in a bad spot, and flared it right (beautiful up and down to save par) and hit a non committed recovery shot on a short par 4, and short sided myself (2 putt for bogey, drive was in the trees).
Nothing stayed close to the hole, but thatās OK. Really happy that my game is actually where I thought it wasā¦ just need some positive variance on proximity and putting, and Iāll be aces.
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Nothing boring about that. Great playing, buddy.
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Thanks! Honestly, I think my longest recovery shot was probably 20 yardsā¦ I just didnāt have any big misses on my approachā¦ a couple of dumb mental mistakes (I may have tried to drive a green and left it right in the trees)
Lots to be happy about. I hadnāt broken 80 on my home course this season, but felt I was playing good enough golf to get thereā¦ Iām just glad I was right.
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So Iāve been thinking about this for a fewā¦ some thoughts on smart golf for me:
I was hitting driver well, but not greatā¦ ball was going far, which always helps, and I had 3 punch shots all day (two on a par 5)ā¦ A couple of 2nd shots out of the rough, but I consistently got everything close to the green, and only short sided myself once (approach shot was a mistake, I got aggressive at a bad time)ā¦ but I had a putt for par on 17 holes today, with the only exception being the hole I birdiedā¦ I made 4 of them and missed 3ā¦
The par 5 that I bogeyed was a few compounding issuesā¦ Itās a dumb hole that Iāve complained about here, and I put my drive short and behind a treeā¦ made the safe punch to 180 yards and pured a 7 iron at the center of the greenā¦ had it landed two feet to the left, I would have had less than 20 feet for birdieā¦ instead, it stayed put and I had 50 feet and a tricky 5 footer after I missedā¦ The drive was really the catalyst for the bogey, as I could have been closer had I been able to get my 2nd shot to 150 yards or lessā¦
The other bogey on the front was a flier out of the rough from 80 yards and I tried to hit the low launch, high spin shotā¦ it went long. It was not smart. I was short sided. I ALMOST flagged the pin with a 58 back up the hillā¦ I had 8 feet and didnāt make itā¦ Say āLa Vieā
Back Nine Bogeys: Flared a driver right on a short par 4ā¦ I was trying to drive the green and force a birdieā¦ It was a dumb swing. I made a mediocre recovery shot, left myself in a bad spot and had 20 feet for parā¦ a better drive or a more committed recovery would have helpedā¦
18 was playing something like 430-440 into the windā¦ I set up to hit a low driver, and succeededā¦ it went about 220ā¦ I then had 220 into the green, which is normally 4 iron, but in this wind, I hit 3 woodā¦ it got to pin high but was way leftā¦ Decent chip, but 10 footer didnāt fallā¦
Everywhere else I had an easy 2 putt par, or made a decent chip and got up and downā¦
Went driver, 8 iron to 6 feet on a par five and got feelsy on the puttā¦ Thatās the one I think Iām most disappointed inā¦ it was an easy putt. It moved half a cup, I aimed half a cup and pushed it straight at the middleā¦ it lipped outā¦
Dumbest shot I hit was on the first par 5 on the backā¦ I always hit 3 wood because driver gets me into troubleā¦ tees were back and I though āI canāt reach trouble with my driver, and if I hit a draw, it will be gettable!āā¦ hit a nice punch out of the woods and had an easy wedge into the green (I left it 20 yards short, but thatās a different story)
So score one for smart golfā¦ and my golf hype playlistā¦