Confessions 12 --- Exploding Heads

[Matt J]

Hale, focus on staying relaxed. No tension, not even in your jaw or shoulders. Very tough to do.

 

I bet you were getting tense, then you hit a bad one, tweak your setup a little, make another tense swing, rinse, repeat...

 

Easy to do. Every day is a new opportunity, sleep on the bad ball striking and forget it happened.

[Halebopp]

You nailed it, Matt! Want to fly over and caddie for me? :D

 

I had to go play anther round today and things didn't improve much on the front nine. I tried everything from changing shaft lean, club path on takeaway, wrist hinge, distance from ball at address and whatnot. It wasn't until the back nine when I hit one approach shot very relaxed and it worked. After that I played par/bogey golf all the way back to the clubhouse. I didn't get completely rid of the hooks but after figuring out the real problem those stayed on the fringes as opposed to the trees.

 

That I should be able to fix tomorrow as there's a scheduled group lesson at our club but no one else has signed up yet. I might have a personal tune-up session with the pro. The only thing missing is the caddie but there aren't many volunteers who'd like to head to the course to caddie at around 6:30 on a Saturday morning.

 

What I don't like about the club championships this year is that it's the same weekend as the Solheim Cup. With Ryder Cup it's right behind the Masters as the most anticipated golf tournament of the season for me. The Open (on this side of the pond) is the biggest one but the Masters signal the start of the golf season so the build up for the Open isn't as massive. I need to miss the cut so I can stay up late into the night watching the ladies battle it out.

[Matt J]

I'd be pleased to serve as you caddie, Halebopp. Too bad the commute is a little too far. ;)

 

Just turned the lovely ladies on while I drink my coffee.

[PapaJohick]

Oh Hale I just noticed, how do you like those PMP wedges?

been looking at those lately

[Halebopp]

Matt, the four balls aren't looking good for Euros. :(

 

Papa, you should ask someone who can actually use wedges as a weapon rather than as a must-do when you're too close to the green for a PW but too far out for a putter. :D

 

I have to say they don't spin quite as much as Mizuno MP-T4 or the T5 and either Rick Shiels or Mark Crossfield was saying the same thing. Otherwise I've liked them and considering I can get two of those for the price of one Mizuno, they're certainly worth it. If you have chance to test the tour grind models, I have to say I was very impressed by them when I demoed them in dry, tight conditions. I see you have the PM grind but having tested both more than once, I'd definitely take the PMP Tour Grind over the PM. I have the wide-soled versions but I'm not completely convinced of their supposed extra forgivness. When it comes to feel, shape etc. I have no complaints. So, if you have a chance, do try them! Those black Mizuno S18 do look intriguing though. If the JPX Tours were designed for Koepka, those were designed for Batman.

 

I wrote a bit of a rant of what happened today but I deleted it. Let's just say a friend wanted to play today so I changed my practice plans and he went on to enjoy the time on the course enough to break the shaft of his 917 driver. A loss-loss day for me, the day before the main event of the season for me when I could've been practicing on my own and not wasting my time with the grown-up baby and listening to his f words and complaints or searching for his errant "practice balls".

[PapaJohick]

Thanks for the info on the wedges. They have certainly been on my radar for a bit, but not sure if I want to part with my Callaway wedges just yet.... Those S18 wedges sure do look sharp though. I have used one Mizuno wedge and it was nice, but I couldn't really get what I needed out of it playability wise. It was very head heavy feel wise and Just didn't give me the confidence in it like I needed.

 

Sucks that your friend kinda ruined your final day to practice for the big day.

 

I just found out from the course I call my "club" (part time member) is having their championship the weekend (Sept 23 & 24th) before my trip to Vegas with Wilson so that is awesome! I will have to start gearing up my rounds/practice though. went out the other day and I hit the driver great, but irons weren't cooperating. Neither was the putter, but I chalk that up to using a putter I haven't used in a long time. It's on the chopping block now and going to trade it and a couple other clubs in tomorrow haha. Need a smaller bag to fit in the travel bag.

[Halebopp]

Well, there's not too much to tell about the day in regards to good golf but driving home I was happy. It's a great event to participate in. Playing two rounds a day in a tournament really adds a special feel to it especially when the second round is played on the more difficult, tight course, which can really be brutal. You're left with funny stories of survival and struggles. The stories might not be funny on the spot though.

 

The conditions were pretty bad today and only two players broke 80 on the difficult course. Amazingly the top guy broke the course record of even par with a -1.

[glk]

Whew. Arrived chucktown 8/16. Arrived Titusville, fla 8/17. Picked up our son who flew in from San Diego. 8/18 Watched rocket launch and toured Kennedy space center for the 2nd time. Arrived Ct 8/18. Going back to Tennessee since weather marginal for eclipse and gonna be sunny back home though totality happens at our Ct town home but about 30 miles from our Kodak house. Yes 99.77% in Kodak but it doesn't count as totality! We have a plan. Be back to chucktown by Wednesday since son flies back Thursday and we have anniversary plans at hall's chophouse on Saturday. Start my barista job at Starbucks the following week. So no golf. Damn is it miserable in Charleston. But I've been playing pretty decent. Actually shot 80 for the first in a month and it took a heat fatigued double on 18. . Shooting in the 70s gives new meaning to breaking 80. Lol. Joining Tyler Ferrell's website was a good move. And I even have a free video lesson coming. He has already helped me deal with the ball sitting up on Bermuda via email. Move it forward.

 

Stay cool and don't look at the sun.

[dan360]

Hit my irons great today. Putted really well, too. Glad those two parts of the bag are still OK.

 

It's hard to break 90 from the "intermediate tips" when every drive is either OB or in a hazard. Argh my driver game is smelly.

 

All that said Salish Cliffs is about perfect right now....

[PapaJohick]

G,

It's been hot as all get out here man. We've had to restrict or cancel out door practices all week and look to do the same this week. I've only gotten out a couple times in the past two months. Need to get out a lot more this month to prepare for next haha. We will see.

[glk]

G,

It's been hot as all get out here man. We've had to restrict or cancel out door practices all week and look to do the same this week. I've only gotten out a couple times in the past two months. Need to get out a lot more this month to prepare for next haha. We will see.

Back in Kodak. Gonna be full sun. Man don't know how you handle it in ctown. Here we see 90s and 70 dew points. It's been stupid humid. Last night at 8 it was 84 with deposing of 81 and heat index of 98. Pretty much the same when we left this morning. Oppressive isn't strong enough to describe it. Golf in a cart would be insane almost anytime.

[PapaJohick]

I made the mistake (well forced to due to time) of playing last week starting at like 3ish? haha talk about insane. It was 92* with about 85% humidity i think. Reel feel/heat index was about 110. :( The worst thing was the course didn't put water bottles in my cooler for some reason (this course supplies 2 bottles per person)..... I was dying until I got to the first water station haha. No beer that day

[Halebopp]

I don't think we've had a single day this year when the temperature would've climbed to even 77 degrees Fahrenheit, 75 maybe. The climate change is making our winters warmer and summers colder. That means that if we get snow, it'll melt and freeze and cause great damage to golf courses. The greens keepers have to work hard to keep the greens clear of ice and then we need to play in crappy weather.

 

Anyhoo, I got a round in today, I only put half the irons in my carry bag (1&5 woods, 4, 6, 8, P, wedges and putter) and beat my friend 3&1. I made 9 pars, 6 bogeys (3 of them were atrocious 3-putts) and three bad holes. Almost holed a couple of pitch shots and hit three of the most marvelous, effortless tee shots I can recall, one with a driver and another with the 5 wood. They were nice little draws that went high and long without any feel of me hitting the ball, just swinging easy.

 

The golf gods must've played a cruel joke on me for the championships week for the second year running. :D

 

A couple of interesting mental notes I made during the round was that when my friend was putting first from the same direction, his putt always confirmed my thought of the break on the green. Thus I got careless with my own putt thinking it was easy, didn't go through my routine and would eventually miss the putt. The same thing happened on a couple of approach shots, the friend would go first and miss the green. After that point I only thought about how I had an easy job of simply putting the ball on the green with an 8 iron. Needless to say I would go on to miss the greens also as I wasn't completely concentrating on the swing and aim.

 

We've played seven matches this year and I'm down 4-3. We were supposed to play Ryder Cup - the one who gets to 14½ first wins but time might run out for us to get there.

[PapaJohick]

The past two rounds have had some real breakthroughs for me....

 

For one, my putting is coming back haha. It's like we're one again and I'm seeing lines. It's fantastic. Not 100% but even with 2 3 putts yesterday I only had 32 putts. Mad some pretty big 5-7 footers for bogey or par and many tap in bogeys after long par putts.

 

Two: I'm finally starting to seriously work on my posture. I feel more upright. I'm a little closer to the ball. Arms seem to be hanging somewhat nicely haha. It's working too. Drives are more explosive and a more predictable ballflight. Not sure what it looks like yet as I haven't videoed it. Need to soon though to see what it looks like. It's helping with irons as well. Being more confident the ball will be struck clearly is a huge plus.

 

[Matt J]

Qualifying for the Southern Oregon Match Olay today at 12:30. Wish me luck fellas!

[PapaJohick]

Good luck Mattie! You're going to kill it

[Pigems]

Qualifying for the Southern Oregon Match Olay today at 12:30. Wish me luck fellas!

 

In the words of Rob Schneider...

[Pigems]

Had a weird round Saturday. Played 9 holes with my Son and had a really odd round. We played 9 holes and I had the worst ball striking day of the season, I was miss hitting everything, not terrible miss hits but worse than I'm used to. But here's the odd part, I One putted the first 5 holes. Granted none of them were birdie putts, but 3 were to save par and 2 to save bogey. All were between 6'-12' so nothing crazy long or short but I've never ever done anything like that before. I'm usually lucky to have one or two one putts over 18 holes, let alone 9. I Wound up shooting 39 on that day with 6 pars and 3 bogeys and putting was the only reason. Heck I had to chip out of the trees once and had a penalty stroke on one of the par 5's lol. So even though I hacked the ball around the entire course basically, I wound up with a better than average score for me. It was just an odd round, really odd lol. I'll take 39 any day though :)

[BicknellCC]

Had a weird round Saturday. Played 9 holes with my Son and had a really odd round. We played 9 holes and I had the worst ball striking day of the season, I was miss hitting everything, not terrible miss hits but worse than I'm used to. But here's the odd part, I One putted the first 5 holes. Granted none of them were birdie putts, but 3 were to save par and 2 to save bogey. All were between 6'-12' so nothing crazy long or short but I've never ever done anything like that before. I'm usually lucky to have one or two one putts over 18 holes, let alone 9. I Wound up shooting 39 on that day with 6 pars and 3 bogeys and putting was the only reason. Heck I had to chip out of the trees once and had a penalty stroke on one of the par 5's lol. So even though I hacked the ball around the entire course basically, I wound up with a better than average score for me. It was just an odd round, really odd lol. I'll take 39 any day though :)

 

 

Hi Pige,

 

One putting can cover up a lot of bad shots for sure. I also have days when I'm not hitting full shots very well, but my chipping and putting make up for it.

Ole buddy Reason may tell us there is a lesson to be learned here.

[Matt J]

Didn't really play exceptionally well, but no penalty strokes, no doubles, and only 1 three putt landed me with a 77 and in the real tournament, the Championship Flight.

 

Thanks for the well wishes, you guys are the best.

[dan360]

Didn't really play exceptionally well, but no penalty strokes, no doubles, and only 1 three putt landed me with a 77 and in the real tournament, the Championship Flight.

 

Thanks for the well wishes, you guys are the best.

 

 

[Matt J]

I guess I'm tied for 6th with half the field qualifying today.

 

Figured some stats from yesterday to see what I could improve...

 

FIR's 12 - didn't feel like I hit driver particularly well but didn't hit any OB and got a couple lucky bounces

 

GIR's 11 - proximity to the hole was great, only 1 3 putt but I took some chances I probably won't take in a match, added the 56 back into the bag two rounds ago, getting used to it, definitely a 4 wedge course

 

putts - 29 although I putted worse than that, not many makes from 8 to 12 and some misses within 5 feet, definitely working on putting

 

up and downs - didn't convert 1, need to work on my short game, usually a better part of my game

 

Well, I got my normal Wed game at 1 moved over to a semi-private local track. Wish we weren't playing for money as I'd like to relax but at least I get to ride.

 

I'll keep you guys updated. But Qualifying was really my goal. I stand very little chance against most the guys in the field.

[Halebopp]

Good luck with the tournament, Matt!

 

Guess what? I did it again! I shot 79 (+8) today, this time at my home track (the easier one)! The Club Championships weekend just happened to be some sort of a black hole again this year shooting a 79 a week before and a week and a half after. :D There's a big competition at our club on Sunday (the number two event of the season for me after the Club Championships) and it'll be interesting to see if I could actually stand a chance.

 

The round was fantastic. It had been raining all day but all the forecasts said it would stop raining before 4 pm. It rained for the most of the way to the course but maybe 10 minutes before getting there it stopped and we didn't get a single drop the whole evening. We also pretty much had the course for ourselves due to the weather. Our match (played by stroke play rules though) got off to a fantastic start as I lost the first hole with a par to my friend's birdie. That really set the tone for the rest of the round, it was game on right from the start. With all the green reading, concentration and deciding what to do based on what your opponent does, we ended up playing a rather slow round (3.5 hours) but it was fantastic. Usually our matches are more about the match but as we were both playing well, the last five, six holes were actually more about our stroke play scores than about the match.

 

Funnily enough the match ended in a draw and even my friend shot 79 tying his personal course record. I made 1 birdie, 10 pars, 6 bogeys and a triple bogey with 7 FIR, 8 GIR, 3 scrambled pars and 31 putts. Driver, wedges and putter were good but the irons gave me trouble. Hopefully I'll gt another round in on Friday and can pay a visit to the range on Saturday to try and sort it out.

 

I can't wait to get out there again! :)

 

BTW. There's a very good-looking set of JPX EZ Forged with KBS Tour X stiff shafts on eBay going for 125 USD at the moment (closing in 45 minutes) but the shipping to Finland is another 75 bucks and with the customs and the taxman wanting their shares, the total would be closer to 300 USD for me, no thank you. The 2014 version is my favourite, supposedly forgiving iron and I'd love a set of those for fun. Something to start the season with.

[glk]

In nongolf news, first day at Starbucks. Making coffee, serving snacks, cleaning up, writing on those cups.

 

Golf news. Haven't played in 2 weeks. Won't play for at least 3 more days. Greens punched at club and Harvey remnants coming our way.

[DeNinny]

I confess that time off golf and WRX does wonders for my psyche. As does limiting myself to only read certain threads And tendonitis SUXORZ!!!

[Pigems]

I confess that time off golf and WRX does wonders for my psyche. As does limiting myself to only read certain threads And tendonitis SUXORZ!!!

 

Welcome back Brosef!! :D

[Halebopp]

I confess that time off golf and WRX does wonders for my psyche. As does limiting myself to only read certain threads And tendonitis SUXORZ!!!

 

Which sections did you frequent? Swing Instruction and Tour Talk? :D

[DeNinny]

I confess that time off golf and WRX does wonders for my psyche. As does limiting myself to only read certain threads And tendonitis SUXORZ!!!

 

Welcome back Brosef!! :D

 

TY, TYVM Broseverino Ballesterbros. How's that swing of yours treating you these days?

 

I confess that time off golf and WRX does wonders for my psyche. As does limiting myself to only read certain threads And tendonitis SUXORZ!!!

 

Which sections did you frequent? Swing Instruction and Tour Talk? :D

 

Oh gah no. I haven't been engaged in either one of those forums in years. The Instruction forum used to have such horrible members in there. Seriously there were some real jerks in that forum so I walked away from it years ago. And the Tour Talk forum has never really interested me to begin with. I used to frequent the Equipment forum more because the Blade users thread was in there, but then there would be other threads in there that would LOL "tempt" me to enter and lurk and then drive me nuts because the science in it was so convoluted. I can look at technical thread titles now and know better than to enter them anymore.

 

I'll just stick to this thread and a few others in the 19th forum and also PMs and take my WRXing in smaller doses now. Keep it to talking golf with my buds, basically.

 

Shot 42-44 today after a two week break. The two highlights were birdies on each side. Everything else today was soooo mediocre.

[Pigems]

Funny you asked Den, I shot my best round of the season today at 35/42(-1/+6) for 77 and my first ever sub par 9 holes on the front :)

 

But My swing has been off the past couple weeks and today was no different. For example today, first tee(par 3, 175y) with everyone watching lol. I duffed a 7i and came up 20y short in the rough, but I holed that out for birdie to start the day lol. Or the 9th, duffel 5w off the tee about 20y(barely past the ladies tee), but smoked 5w from there to the edge of the green and then got up and down with a nice chip to 5' and a good putt to seal my 35 on the front.

 

Short game and putting are the only things keeping me in it right now. Putting especially, I hit a 30ish footer for birdie on 16 for birdie too. But I did 4 putt 10 from about 25' though lol. All in all a good day though,

[DeNinny]

Nice 77 Pigemsbro!!! That must have felt awesome. LOL I hope your swing issues weren't caused by bad advice from some fool on the internet. If so, who's more the fool? The fool or he who follows the fool?

 

I haven't had a sub 80 round in months. Right when I was and playing better than ever, I get this nagging tendonitis and rotator cuff issue in my trail arm and I've just been slightly off since. I can't keep my swing together throughout the round like I used to. So frustrating.