Just an update on my quest. Good News Driver consistently 244-258. So I started the season at 215. Bad news: my trusty wedge game has been way off. Issue is ball striking…I’m actually good L-R of pin, I can still fire the ball at my target, it’s distance shorts- longs. Last week on our #9 hit a nice drive 264…left 75 to back target and hit my 54 20 yds past/over the green right over the stick. My strength is now my weakness. See my post about 9-3 drill in Practice. Back to the drawing board!
Finally made it out to play Rustic Canyon yesterday. It’s a course that’s been in the top 10 of several “best value” lists recently and I can now agree it’s well deserved. Unlike any other course I’ve played as they just sort of laid a links course on top of a chaparral valley floor. Long holes with generous fairways, but if you miss you’re in waste areas with no easy escapes. I hit the ball okay, but fairways and GIR stats wouldn’t tell the story. The greens are large with tons of natural mounds and very difficult to read. Most greens also have “pre-green” where I was still grabbing my putter. I had several 50-100’ putts and I wasn’t always getting up and down, so I finished with 39 putts on the day and 43 shots with the rest of the bag.
I’ll definitely come back to the course and it should be a must play if you’re in the area.
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Survived my first competition round! Theres another thread about playing in my first real competition and I loved it! I grinded with the putter and made a bunch of nervy 3-4 footers to save pars and bogeys.
The bad news is I played the four par 5s in +10, taking a 9 on my third hole of the day. On most of those holes my brain shut down and I compounded mistakes on top of each other. I played the other 14 holes solid for me, and went 49/42 for a 91 (I play off a 12 handicap for perspective).
My driver wasn’t my friend most of the day, so I went 3 wood often. I birdied my last hole, going safe off the tee and hitting a hybrid to about 30 feet, then dripped in a delicate left to right downhiller for birdie.
Resting up the rest of the day, back at it tomorrow at 7:30!
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Second day of the club championship, came out on fire with my wedges. First hole had to hack an iron out of the rough, leavin it 100 yards in. Stuck it to 1 foot for a kick in par.
Unfortunately that was pretty much the highlight. Certainly some other good shots, it was a strikes and gutters round. But the holes that were bad were baaaaaad. Which leads to a confession (cue the confession music Lenny): I four putted a green for double bogey. I was too aggressive with the birdie try, maybe 45 feet or so. Left myself a 6 foot downhiller that just missed, and I was frustrated and didn’t focus and lipped the 3rd putt.
Taught me an important lesson in taking a breath and resetting before every shot, no matter what came before it. Overall had a good time, learned if I can keep my head together I can handle more competitive golf.
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Every stroke counts the same in competition, one of those lessons everybody has to learn (and constantly relearn).
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So today we played a Shamble on a 6300 yard par 72. If you don’t know what a Shamble is, you both tee off, then you pick the best tee shot and play your own ball from there. Here are my scores and whose tee shot we used
1: 3 (-1) B
2: 4 (-1) B
3: 5 (+1) Me
4: 3 (E) B
5: 5 (+1) B
6: 4 (-1) Me
7: 4 (E) B
8: 3 (E) B
9: 4 (E) B
10: 6 (+2) Me
11: 3 (-1) B
12: 4 (-1) B
13: 5 (+1) B
14: 3 (E) Me
15: 3 (-1) B
16: 2 (-1) B
17: 3 (-2) B
18: 3 (-1) B
B is my partner Bradly. He played D2 college golf and absolutely rips it. Flies it 280 or so and is really accurate.
So playing mostly from his tee shots, I shot a 67 (-5) on a course where my best round ever is a 73 on my own ball.
If you’ve ever wondered why @jon and others stress getting better off the tee and getting better with your long game in general, this is perfect evidence to support that. I’m a low single digit player, but put me in a good spot off the tee all day, with a lot of wedges, and I can go really low. I would have easily been 10 shots worse playing my own tee shots.
Drive for show and dough!!!
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What happened on 10? 
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Ha! Terrible 2nd into a bunker, terrible bunker shot, pitch to 20 feet, 2 putts.
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Ha… I’ve been struggling with driver all season and feel like the rest of my game is there… I think I’m starting to build up feel with a good, repeatable swing… we will see if it holds up on the course tomorrow…
I do think driver is an often overlooked skill (probably not as much here) but I do think the “accurate” part is a huge aspect of it… as someone with 115 CHS and a swing that occasionally disappears, it doesn’t matter if you hit it 280 if you can’t ever find the fairway (and hazards are a constant worry)… If I can get my driver to mostly around the fairway and minimize my big misses, I’m confident my scores will go lower!
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Played solidly in our club championship. In my flight at least because, as a 16, I’m not really playing to be club champion lol.
I felt like I should have done better because I was killing the driver. I was hitting it past my normal spots and this was from the Blues. It was raining on us off and on and the flags were tucked so I didn’t realize I was doing decently until I got in and saw the other scores.
I do think they need to revamp our club championship if they want more members to play it. Realistically only a handful of people have a chance of being the club champion. That’s fine, but a lot of guys won’t play in it because there’s nothing really going on for the mid to high cappers. The field was light so a 16 like me ends up in a flight with 10’s and getting no strokes. I beat the other 16’s and 15’s and so on, but I lost (barely) to a 10 and a 12 in the end because I get no strokes. I like the challenge, but I thought of just skipping it myself…I won’t though because I just love playing golf.
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Our club did it pretty interesting this year. There was a championship flight, played scratch from the blues and then a regular championship, which based on entries ended up being 2 flights with a gross and net winner in each flight. It made it a good challenge and separation of golfing levels.
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Had another solid round this weekend, and finally made some putts. I played the blues with the group instead of going back to the tips by myself, and having wedges in all day certainly helps! I hit a few wild drives, but solid approach play, and made 100+ ft of putts, including 3 bombs in a row after my double (2 for birdie and 1 for par). Despite 6 birdies, I only won 1 skin, but it felt really good to close out a solid round.
Right, that’s the huge part. I hit it 250-260 and nowhere near accurately enough. I’m clearly overstating the importance of 1 day, but I feel like inside 120 yards I’m every bit as good as a scratch, to possible plus handicap golfer. But get me hitting longer clubs and I’m more like a 5-7 handicap player.
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the driver pays compound interest baby!.. hard to overstate its importance
Remember you don’t have to be THAT accurate… you do have to play a single shape though… I am still working on that face control as the dead left pull still shows up from time to time and ruins my scorecard
Left going left is my achilles heel
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Oh I agree, but I was particularly inaccurate yesterday in the Shamble. There were a couple of times we made birdie where bogey would have been a fine score from my tee shot.
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Shot a 43 / 39 for a mediocre 82, but I THINK I’ve sorted out my driver… Front nine included three BIG pulls left as I adjust to some of the stuff I’ve been working on… One hit a tree and went MIA and another just went OUT. Made par on the 2nd balls for both, but that’s still a double…
As Jake has said… finding the fairway and hitting it far make the game easier… My big drives set me up for success, and on the back nine, my misses stayed in play… I was even through 7 holes on the back and went bogey, double… Lots of dumb mistakes in 2 holes…
Hoping I can clean up the mental focus tomorrow and play better… need to make sure I bring a snack!
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Played 9 tonight in league. The highlight was coming back from 3 down with 3 to play to tie. Finished birdie Par birdie. The low was hitting a fairway and losing the ball. It’s got to be over 270 uphill through heavy rough to the woods but it was nowhere to be found. Had to walk back and hit almost identical drive about 240.
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I always struggle with lost ball in fairway. We use local rule so can drop and hit 4 but sometimes i have literally no idea where to drop.
Its good if you are familiar with course and can reasonably estimate.
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After the dizzy heights of a massive PB last Thursday the golfing gods brought me crashing back down to earth with a 101!
8 lost balls due to completely losing the ability to hit driver the primary reason, but i was playing a course for the first time and though the course was very open, the rough was so long that anything missing the first cut meant you were stuffed! I’ve gone from slicing everything to hitting duck hooks and pulls and just couldnt fix it last night.
On the plus side i putted and chipped really well and my short irons were very accurate. Off to the range today to try and fix my driver ready for another round on Friday night.
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It’s my home course and I generally don’t have the firepower to reach the woods (dogleg hole), but I have come very close to it so it’s not completely out of the question. It is more likely someone picked it up from the adjacent fairway, but we’re all in the same league so I assume/hope not.
I feel like I’ve had a lot of bad breaks on this course lately, but the golf gods let me birdie 2 of the last 3 holes so things evened out a bit.
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