Always tough to have a round like that. If I can ask though, how much of it was the mechanics of the driver and how much might have been the mental game? I’m guessing club championship is one of the “higher stakes” rounds you’ve had since coming back from injury, so could that have thrown things off? (doing things like gripping too hard, getting out of routine, etc.)
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It was both. Everything else in my game held up really well…
Driver has been a struggle all season, and the extra pressure exposed it.
I’ve got a new project for the next few weeks, and it’s learning to keep the ball in play with driver… I’m not sure if it’s a 70% swing or some basic mechanical changes yet…
I actually just switched shafts in my driver, and my new / old shaft has a mcc+4 grip on it… I’d forgotten how much I like that grip, and it might just be a simple change to better improve my club face control.
My path and my contact were both fine. Not great, but playable… if my face control had been Ok, I think I would have been fine.
Hmmm… i appreciate you doing some of that homework
Interesting that an 8 handicap is so much worse from 20 ft than scratch
Definitely low hanging fruit there to drop handi (first putt speed from 15 to 25 ft or something like that)
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I feel you. I played the first round of our club championship yesterday and completely ejected. It was an incredibly frustrating experience and I can chalk it almost entirely up to a total mental breakdown. I assigned a lot of importance to this event (I’m new to the club, have one of the lowest handicaps, and definitely heard the chatter around the bar about people wanting to see how I would do) and I wasn’t up to the task. My routine disintegrated, my temper was very uncharacteristically volatile, and everything was happening very quickly. It was like an out of body experience and it was not fun.
I’ve played in many many tournaments in my life but not many in the last 10 years or so. I was hoping I would be able to draw upon my experience and be more comfortable but that didn’t happen. My days of playing in college against (and once beating!) Tiger Woods meant nothing today - that was a different guy. The fact is that my current experience and preparation does not match my expectations. I have been working hard on my technique and I have improved but I have not been good about practicing in a way that prepares me for stressful situations. A guy I know who played at a high level preaches that you have to make your practice very hard so that playing feels really easy. Sounds good but I have no idea how to actually do that.
I’m getting burnt out a bit and need to transition to the off season. I have some fun golf coming (going to Cypress!) but I really want a break. I still want desperately to get a lot better so that I can perform up to my expectations and I think my skill level is getting there. I need to work out a plan for the next several months to hone in my routine so that it’s natural and automatic and figure out a way to make practice really hard. That, along with continuing to improve my skill, seems like the only way to get myself to the next level.
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Beat tiger? Do tell… pac 12 golf?
Pat perez was on colt knost podcast and tells the story about how tigers rise was absolutely meteoric. I think Perez beat him maybe 2 years before he won the masters and said the transformation in between didn’t seem human
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No, I played at a school on the east coast. We were pretty good and one year got invited to play at a tournament at the Olympic Club Lake course and Stanford was there. Tiger had a blah weekend and I played great including a 68 in the second round. Watching guys from those big time schools made it pretty clear to me that any pro aspirations I might have had (I had none) were ludicrous.
One of my teammates played in high school with Pat Perez. He told lots of stories about how insanely good he was. Again, a good reminder of how high the skill levels can go in this game.
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Yep.
I played travel baseball with shelby miller (rhp) and multiple D1 guys. Played against Anthony Rendon, Robbie Grossman and a few others who ended up clocking some time on the big leagues.
It was very apparent that I needed to focus on school!
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I played a high school baseball tournament once against a left handed pitcher named Robbie Reed…he never played pro ball, but played baseball and basketball at Michigan. I’m a lefty also.
1st pitch was 95 right down the middle…I barely saw it. 2nd pitch was 97…somehow I fouled it off. Next pitch was a nasty curve that buckled me in half. I walked back to the bench knowing I’d never play major college baseball…let alone pro.
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It is pretty interesting how different 89-90 is from 95-96
Separates the wheat from the chaff really quickly… a vanderbilt commit threw a 95 mph fastball off the back of my ribs… makes you think about how bad you want to own the inside half of the plate!
The pros now have taken it to another level with how many mlb pitchers can sit 97+ for multiple innings
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I misspoke. Re listened to the first half of the interview.
Tiger was a complete stud in junior golf but making the jump to pro golf at age 20 was unheard of. I am not sure that anyone besides, Tiger, Earl and Butch thought he was about to do what he was going to do.
I think we kind of take for granted how good he was but it is pretty unbelievable to go from college golf to a tiger slam in a few short years
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But the mentality of baseball has evolved as well. Pitchers aren’t throwing complete games. It’s ok if they gas. They don’t have to face Barry bonds or tony Gwynn three times per game.
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Everyone who was playing junior and amateur golf at that time knew he was by far the best player of our time. He won everything so it was pretty hard to miss. But, I don’t think anyone expected the immediate success on tour or that he would become the greatest of all time. It’s kind of hard to expect that of anyone.
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Highest Win Percentage (Minimum of 200 starts on PGA TOUR)
Player # of Starts Wins Win %
Woods, Tiger 359 82 22.80%
Hogan, Ben 300 64 21.30%
Nelson, Byron 287 52 18.10%
Snead, Sam 585 82 14.00%
Picard, Henry 201 26 12.90%
Nicklaus, Jack 595 73 12.20%
Sarazen, Gene 316 38 12.00%
Middlecoff, Cary 346 39 11.30%
Numbers are pretty clear…
Yep. I am sure there could be an entire “crazy tiger stat” thread… think there was a twitter thing
I believe hogan played two tournaments and missed one green over an 8 round stretch
I may have that a bit wrong but something ridiculous like that
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We took a ride yesterday out of CT just into NY to play Centennial in Carmel. The course is a bit high end with respect to the clubhouse, practice areas and scenery, but the greens (and many tee boxes) were horrible. They said they had aerated 3 weeks earlier, but it looked like it was done yesterday and done badly. The greens were the slowest and bumpiest I’ve ever been on and I’ve played my share of munis. I’m honestly not sure I can recall any greens that were worse in my 25 years of playing golf.
Too bad because the layout itself is very scenic with big elevation changes and the course winds through the woods and you feel like you’re by yourself out there…swore I heard some banjo music at one point.
Any way I could only muster low 90’s even though I hit the ball well. The low round was 91 and it was just all the 3 and even 4 and 5 putting that was going on. It’s also one of those courses with insane rough and with all the uphill and downhill I would need a few rounds to pick a club and know where to miss.
Still we had a good time and it didn’t rain until the round was over.
Played my normal Tuesday arvo 2 ball round. Front nine I was on fire. First ball birdied the first and the second ball chipped in for par. Ended up with 3 birdies and 7 pars for 8 over. Then it all fell apart on the back nine with only 4 pars and a birdie. The first ball had 5 doubles and the second had a double and a triple for 20 over. Ended up shooting 88/80(par 70) Highlight was the second ball. Seven one putts, a chip in and no three putts for 27 putts. One of those one putts was hitting too much club and hooking into a back bunker and then getting up and down from 2ft below the hole.
My league season ended last night, pretty happy with how I finished the year out (40/42/42). Golf’s a funny sport, last week I hit the ball better and shot a 42. This week my ballstriking was definitely a little worse, but I hit some big putts and got up and down a few times to score better.
Driving is still the biggest thing holding me back. I have my old set of irons in my basement, I may sell those to fund a driver fitting. My swing certainly needs work too, but I also have never been properly fit for a driver and I’d love to have that mental comfort on the tee.
77 with two doubles and an eagle… mediocre front nine, solid back nine… one big mistake on each side (doubles on both)… both were a direct result of bad decisions with a wedge in my hand…
Started off yesterday with a double (OB) and a bogey. Our first hole is a short par 4. You either need to hit it 180-200, or carry it 240 to go for the green. I usually lay up but we had a little help so I went for it. My ball caught a tree and shot 20 yards right OB.
Anyway, I hit it to 5 feet on 3, and missed, then I hit it to 8 feet on 4 and missed. So I’m +3 thru 4, and I’m on the verge of being on tilt because of the 2 short missed that compounded my early mistake.
On 5 tee I decided making 16 pars in a row would be cool, so I adjusted my mindset to “just make par.” I parred the rest of the holes on the front 9, then the first 3 on the back 9. On 13 I made a 12 footer for birdie, then made a 10 footer for birdie on 14.
I parred in to shoot +1.
Mindset is so important. Pars are good scores.
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Shot even 72 yesterday and finished 4th in my foursome 
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