Be Better, Brad! (Update 6-3-2024 with new swing videos)

[betarhoalphadelta]

Back to the range today. Twice in one week! 😉 

 

I woke up to wet ground after a little overnight rain, so I was worried the range would be closed. Called over there and it was fully open, so good for me!

 

Mostly the same stuff, but rotated in the 8i rather than the 7i to level the amount of wear I put on grips/etc. Mostly working on the sway, partial wedges, and chipping/pitching motion. 

 

All was going well, but I started to "lose it" in the middle with the 8i swings. I've been trying to make the "non-sway" move without conscious thought, and I just started getting all over the place. So I started taking 3/4 and full swings with the same feel, i.e. pressuring my right foot at takeaway as sort of a "brace" against lateral sway, and everything started coming back. When I finished off the bucket with 8i I kept that up and I was back to making good solid [powerful] contact. 

 

I am convinced that as I drill this based on how things look at every range session, my swing speed / distance will increase. So that's fun. 

 

I also brought the Kirkland driver and hit maybe 15+ balls with it. It's definitely different. The look at address is I think not uncommon for modern drivers, but it almost looks like the face is small relative to the size of the head, and the center of the face / alignment dot looks scarily close to the heel. It's weird for my eye relative to my Ping. It also seems to sit closed if you rest it on the turf, which might be hte opposite of my preference since I'm more likely to miss left/closed/draw than right/open/fade. The feel is obviously very different with the 60g Riptide shaft compared to my 70g Diamana. 

 

I didn't have any foot spray or anything for impact, but the range balls were a little damp so after every shot I could see where I made impact. I was definitely missing on the heel side a fair amount. Not sure why. 

 

Way too early for a verdict on this club obviously, if for no other reason than that I'm working on swing changes and my driver swing is off on my own driver right now too. While I can't yet say it's a "yes", I can say that so far it's definitely not a "nope!" I'll also probably end up doing some testing with the loft turned down to 9.5*, which correspondingly opens the face, which might be a better fit for me. 

 

My last driver ball though I absolutely striped and it rolled out into the bushes at the back end of the range. So it's not lacking for distance when hit out of the center. And yes, I deliberately made that my last driver ball so I could end on a good note 😉 

 

Overall a decent range session. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Okay, so I played San Juan Hills on Sunday, and Oso Creek on Monday. 

 

It was fair-to-middlin'. Both scores were good enough to bring my index down from 23.8 to 22.9. Both rounds had high spots. Both rounds had some SERIOUS low spots. 

 

@TheDeanAbides -- the driver stayed in the bag for both rounds. That's more relevant for SJH as I only use it for 2 holes at Oso though. But with the performance I've had with driver on the range, I want to keep drilling my swing change before I bring it back. But at SJH I still ended up with distances on most of the par 4s that I could reach in 2. 

 

San Juan Hills: Scored a 52/49 for a 101. 98 for index due to blow up holes. 25.5 differential. For a lot of the front, I struggled. The first 7 holes I was 9 over. I think a good portion of it was rust, as due to my vacation I hadn't hit the range in a week and a half. I just wasn't crisp. Then on hole 8, the wheels fell completely off and I went through a 4-hole stretch going 17-over. A complete and total mess. And then on 12, it just all sort of came back. I went 4 over through the last 7 holes with nothing worse than bogey.  I can at least say I finished well. One nice positive was that despite ending up in greenside bunkers on four holes, my shots out of the bunkers were all pretty good. 

 

Oso Creek: Scored 40/40 for an 80 (+20). 77 for index due to blow up holes. 21.9 differential. This round was MUCH better. I hit 7 GIR, and both my irons and partial wedges were on point. 20 over sounds bad, but 9 of those strokes came on 2 holes. I had too many doubles (5), but I also made 10 pars, which might be a record for me. The biggest "disappointment" is that on 7 GIR, 6 of them were within 15 feet and 3 of them within 10 feet, and I didn't sink a single birdie putt. And the worst was hole #1, where I three-putted from 7 feet for bogey. The killer was hole #18, the 225 yard par 3. I was 15 over at the time and thinking I was a shoo-in for better-than-bogey golf. I laid up with a beautiful 6i into the left-middle of the fairway, leaving 45 yards to the pin, a simple pitch. Which I then shanked into the right-side bunker. Then took 4(!) strokes to get out of the bunker, onto the fringe. Unlike SJH, the sand at Oso is terrible, and the lip on that bunker high, and I just kept hitting the lip and the ball dribbling back down in. Got close "chipping" from the fringe with putter and then one-putted for a quintuple-bogey 8. That was NOT a good way to end the round. 

 

Both rounds were 33 putts. Despite what I mentioned above about my putting yesterday, I'd say my putting was pretty decent. One thing I've been focusing on is keeping my hips from opening on a putt, and it's helping, especially with those 4-5 footers to make sure I don't close the face and pull my putt. 

 

The short game change is really starting to pay off. I still don't have great touch/feel for distance. But I'm feeling a lot more confident standing over the ball that I'm at least going to make good contact. 

 

My iron play has been good, but I'm having a weird issue off the tee. I've been using my 5i as my tee club on the longer holes, and it seems that I'm consistently missing low on the face. Which I'm not doing off turf, so I don't know why I'd do it with the ball teed up. One hole in particular that stood out for iron play was #9 at Oso. 317 par 4, but with the creek crossing the fairway that you have to stay WELL short of. I ended up teeing off with 9i, then sticking an 8i to about 15 feet on approach, and two putting for a routine par. Both iron shots were perfectly flushed. 

 

So I see positives in both rounds. The blow up holes were absolute killers, but I played well enough the rest of each round despite the blow ups to have scores which count for my index. And the swing changes and short game work are getting me into better spots. I just need to continue keeping up with my practice and try to build on this. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Made it to the range today. Not much to talk about; it was a mess. 

 

I'm not sure if it was that I mentally wasn't quite into it, or if it was fatigue. With my shoulder feeling better I restarted my strength training this week, and I'm a bit sore in the chest from Tuesday's workout, and I hit arms & shoulders hard yesterday. So I could just be physically off. 

 

I tried to push through, but it just wasn't there. I maybe hit 2/3 of the balls and a family had come with kids, so I gave them the leftovers and gave up. Going to try to at least get one range session and one 9 hole pitch & putt practice round in next week though.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Went to the range today but then I saw that I had these videos, and had never posted (that I'm aware of). So I figured I'd give you all something to laugh at.

 

This was June 2022--I posted about the round here. Hole 6 at Rancho San Joaquin. My drive on the par 4 went left, and I found it JUST in the rough above the pond. Couldn't take a stance on dry land, so off came the shoes and socks and decided to attempt the hero shot. 

 

I don't recall distance but I seem to remember hitting 6i here. 

 

As you'll see, two of my companions both filmed it to catch the inevitable "splash" or something else. But I didn't comply. 

 

 

I hit the green...

 

...then three-putted for bogey 😭

[betarhoalphadelta]

Okay, so as mentioned I made it to the range. I definitely am chalking Friday's mess up to my workouts. I could tell even on Saturday that my pecs were still sore from Tuesday's workout, and both Saturday and Sunday my biceps hurt from Thursday's workout. So I think I just overdid it after not doing any upper body strength for a bit of a while, and threw myself off. 

 

Today was much better. Hit some 8i shots, interspersing easy effort swings with full shots. On the easy effort swings, the goal was to feel myself get into the left side and feel the ground to push that left hip back. 

 

Here was that result:

 

 

The full swings felt really good. I was making consistent solid contact, and mostly putting the ball in the right direction too. Not seeing any of the big sweeping hooks. 

 

 

Finally, I decided to grab some video of driver. This is more to compare to see if there's anything I'm doing in my driver swing that's not right... Overall I was pretty happy with contact, and once I was warmed up, wasn't shutting the face and hitting them left. 

 

 

Beyond that, I hit some 3u shots and made great contact 5 of 6 swings, but I think only 2 of them would have found the fairway/green. I lost one right not getting the face closed, and lost two left closing it too much. Still, making that consistent contact is helpful as I'm getting used to a club that's 2.5" longer than my irons and ~5" shorter than my driver. If I can actually get that to be a consistent club I can hit in the 215-220 range, it'll close a valuable gap in my distances in the bag. 

 

I also continued to work on pitching, both on contact and distance control, of just pitching to short/medium range targets. Definitely feeling the improvements there on both fronts. 

 

The one thing I haven't had luck with so far is the Kirkland driver. I brought both drivers as I'm trying to get used to the Kirkland to see if it'll work for me. It's just not doing so, so far. The shape looks weird to my eye at alignment; it's more the "pear" shape whereas I like the more "triangular" shape of my Ping, and thus the alignment dot on the top just looks too close to the hosel. Plus, it wants to set up closed when the sole rests on the ground, and for a guy who misses left, that's not good. I think I'm going to give it one more try with the loft turned down to 9.5*, which should cause it to sit more open. But if no luck, I'll let my son give it a trial. And if it doesn't fit him as an improvement over what he's currently hitting, back to Costco it goes...

[betarhoalphadelta]

Played the 9-hole pitch & putt today. I was behind a twosome of old dudes who were behind a foursome of ladies, and the old dudes didn't offer to have me join them, so I played as a single. (They did offer to let me tee off ahead of them, but I'd still be stuck behind the ladies, so no big deal). 

 

I didn't score myself and played two balls. Just trying to get reps of real golf aiming a ball at a hole. 

 

Overall, there were high points and low points. Definitely had some issues with distance control on many of the holes as there's a lot of partial wedge opportunities, but MOSTLY had very good contact. Full swings were pretty solid contact and good control of both distance and direction. Pitching was pretty terrible. Not sure why, but contact was all over the place. WAY worse than I normally was doing recently at larger courses. And putting was a bit of a mess, but I think part of that might have been that I wasn't really dialed in mentally the way I would have been scoring one ball. Also that the greens roll a lot different than the other courses I play... 

 

But overall, I think it's something I need to keep up with to keep up the reps. I noticed when I played two days in a row over Memorial Day that the second round was much better and more consistent than the first, seeming that [as everyone knows] the more you play, the more consistent you'll probably be. And because it's so many partial wedge shots, it will exercise a part of my game that should be very related to scoring opportunities. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Hit the range today for a quick session. Didn't finish the bucket as I had some other errands I needed to run. 

 

Main thing was just working on the continued reps on the sway. Was hitting some really nice 7 irons. Spent a little bit of time trying to hinge the wrists a little earlier, and that seemed successful. I'm going to want to get that on video to make sure it looks ok though. 

 

Spent some time with the pitching. I think I figured out what I was screwing up yesterday. I think I was getting too tense, not releasing the club, keeping my hands ahead of the ball. Today I was just allowing the club release and letting the clubhead pass the hands, exposing the bounce, and everything was SO much better. 

 

Spent some time with driver. I turned the Kirkland down to 9.5* and that causes it to sit a little bit more open, which helps. But honestly I don't think it's going to kick the Ping G25 out of the bag. I think I get on with the shaft in the Ping much better than the Kirkland. 

 

Then as my errands were finishing I got a call from my daughter's school that she fell and her arm hurt. So instead of having a productive day, we spent 2 1/2 hours in urgent care. Fun. Thankfully it was just a sprain of her wrist, and she didn't break anything. So that's good. 

 

Next round won't be until the day before Father's Day, with my son. See if I can keep up with him. He'll be seeing Monte the next week after that, now that his HS golf season is over and he has a summer to work on whatever Monte identifies as his next tweak. I was hoping to schedule that *before* our round so he'd have too many swing thoughts going on in his head to beat me 😉 

 

[bortass]

Glad it was anything serious with your daughter. Also thought it was funny about trying to get Monte to sabotage your son via swing thoughts;)

[betarhoalphadelta]

Well, another Father's Day weekend, and so another time that I go to play golf with my son at San Juan Hills and watch him kick my butt 😂

 

Last year, I played badly (110) and he played slightly less badly (104). This year, I played badly (109) and he played pretty damn good (90). I would have had to play nearly the best I've ever played just to tie him.

 

Nothing worth talking about for the round, to be honest. Despite the piss-poor score up until that point, I did manage to make it through 14 holes sans penalty. But then rinsed one on 15, hit OB on the par-3 16th, and then 3 OB on the par-5 17th. So it went from bad to worse VERY quickly. And then to seal the deal, on the par-3 18th I stuck it to ~6 feet... And only made par 😞

 

I also had some weird Scheffler-esque trail foot movement going on. Let flailing out after impact. I don't know what that was about. Suppose there's SOME positive there in that I've obviously been successful with some pressure shift, but clearly I'm doing something either wrong or way too much. Surprised my son didn't surreptitiously record any swings because he was asking me what the heck was happening lol. 

 

Happy to see my son play well though. His game is really coming along. His short game is honestly impressive. While he "only" shot a 90, he was +10 through the first four holes, so he played the remaining 14 in +9. 

 

On the bright side, my daughter (who spent the week at art camp) was so excited that she wanted me to open my Father's Day present from her last night instead of waiting until today. Well apparently the add-on at art camp (which I paid for lol) was a 12x16" wooden sign... She made me this...

 

 

Edit: To add insult to injury, it aged out a good round so my index jumped from 22.9 back up to 24.2. 

Edited June 16 by betarhoalphadelta
included note on handicap

[betarhoalphadelta]

Got out to play Oso Creek yesterday. Later tee time than usual (10:50a) and it got up decently over 90 degrees out there, so it was toasty. Beyond the heat the weather was decent, although it was getting pretty breezy on the back 9. 

 

Overall the round was a little better. Shot 80 (+20), 79 for index. One thing I was pleased about was only having one truly bad hole (quad), and nothing else worse than a double. 

 

Front nine was definitely the high point. A birdie, two pars, 5 bogeys, and a double to play it in +6.

 

The back nine things started to fall apart, hence the +14 on the back. Just some little mistakes here and there. Flubbed chip on 11 that lead to double. Over-drawing a 5i off the tee on 13 that rolled out into the creek and taking a penalty leading to double. Bad tee shot on 14, pitching just short of the green, leading to double. 15 was terrible. Just screwed up every phase except putting to make a quad-bogey with one putt. But then turned around and made GIR and par on 16 and 17. Did fine on 18 (lay up off the tee, wedge to ~20 feet) until I mishit a lag putt so badly that I left myself 7 feet short and turned what should have been an easy bogey into a 3-putt double. 

 

Overall I felt good about the round, despite feeling like I could have scored better on some of those holes. It was a 24.2 differential which (despite being a 24.2 coming into the round) knocked out something higher so it did count and lowered my index to 23.8. 

 

My goal is to take the next few weeks to really push. Due to a swap with my ex I had the kids for 2 1/2 weeks straight prior to Sunday morning, and between work and ferrying them around to activities, I didn't have any time to practice. Now I've got time to get out to the range (and the pitch & putt course) over the next few weeks, and I'm hoping to play this weekend, Jul 4th, and Jul 7th. So I'm hoping I can find some rhythm by getting in consistent reps. My game feels like it's on the cusp of incorporating the improvement I've been putting in on technique, but I just haven't been getting enough reps to make it stick. I hope to change that. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

So, thinking about the current state of my game. Mechanically I'm still working on avoiding sway / a better shift, and I see it starting to shine through. The next step after that will be an earlier wrist hinge. 

 

• Driver: Some of the weirdness I had when I really started attacking the sway has gone away. I'm back to making my normal contact. However, dispersion is still pretty wide, and there's a two-way miss depending mostly on how well I square the face. As such, for the time being driver needs to stay in the bag on holes with trouble, and only come out of the bag on holes where I can miss without penalty area or OB coming into play. For those holes I'm just going to have to stick with an iron off the tee and accept the distance loss--which honestly on most courses I play doesn't stop me from having a reachable approach on a par 4 or having a wedge into a par 5 on my third shot.
• Irons/Approach: Contact has been good, and I can tell what I'm working on with the sway is improving a lot here. I don't feel like I'm swinging hard, but I feel I'm flushing it more often and getting good distance. Off a tee I sometimes have a tendency to hook said 5i, but for the most part my ballflight on other irons is straight to small draw. Like driver my miss comes more often from face control, but when I miss I'm usually up near pin-high, just left or right. 
• Full wedges: Probably the best part of my game. I know my stock distances. The high loft means the ball doesn't curve much if at all. I can sometimes close the face and miss left, but give me a 56* wedge from 100 yards or a 52* from 115 and I'm confident. (I don't know my stock 60* as I don't swing it full.)
• Partial wedges: Generally I make very good contact, but distance control is a giant mess. This would definitely be an area of my game that I'm losing strokes. Give me 55 yards to the center and I don't know if I'm going to hit it 40 or 75--but more often I'm hitting long. It's terrible to sit 50 yards out and feel like I'm taking a baby swing and watch it bounce off the back of the green. I think part of it is that I've spent so long trying to avoid decelerating and chunking that I'm committing to the shot a little TOO strongly. 
• Around the green - chipping (10+ yards) up to pitching (<40 yards): Another place I'm a mess, and losing strokes. The one thing I can say is that with Monte's help on technique, my CONTACT is improving. Especially when I remember both to not get stabby (avoid thinking about my hands starting the downswing) but also to remember that I need to allow the club to pass the hands and release and not try to hold it off. This is improving, but so far I still have nearly ZERO touch around the greens. Two examples yesterday were about 35 yard pitches on 13 and 14. On 13 I made good contact but misjudged distance and put it 10+ yards past the pin. On 14 I made good contact but misjudged it and left it on the front fringe ~10 yards short of the pin. 
• Bunker play: If I get out in one, without blading it, and get anywhere on or close to the green, it's a win. Biggest issue for me is trying to figure out how hard to swing. I think too often I err on "not hard enough" because I don't want to blast one clear over the green, and with the hard sand at most of the courses I play that means I can get in trouble just trying to get the ball over the lip. I think this is a mental issue and I need to trust that I can apply speed.  
• Putting: Making improvements here. Really trying to take my hips out of it, and that's definitely helping. I feel like I've been making some much better lag putts lately, particularly with speed control. Admittedly I had three three-putts yesterday, but two of them were on two of the trickiest greens from 30 and 40+ feet, and the third was an outlier on 18 that I just completely screwed up my stroke. I still got around with 33 putts total, and <18 on each side. Even my horrific last round at San Juan Hills was 35 putts, so averaging <2 per hole. 

So overall, I think long game is not the area I lose the most strokes, as long as I'm avoiding penalties. Essentially my "near in regulation" (NIR) score yesterday was 14/18 (counting the 225 par-3 18th being on in 2 b/c I laid up). While my actual GIR was 6/18, which is probably a decent day for me right now. But when I get close I RARELY get up and down for par, and a couple times a round I can even screw that up and end up with double. 

 

I definitely think I need to keep working the full swing to try to get those NIR to turn into GIR and take pressure off the short game. But I also need a lot more time on the pitch & putt to work on those partial wedges and around-the green shots to try to put pressure ON my game to better execute contact when the shot matters, and to work on feel/distance control. 

 

It can be frustrating to feel like the things I'm working on are actually improving, while the scores aren't. It's why I feel (and hope) that I'm on the cusp of translating that into scoring. 

[bortass]

1 hour ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

It can be frustrating to feel like the things I'm working on are actually improving, while the scores aren't. It's why I feel (and hope) that I'm on the cusp of translating that into scoring. 

So very true but in my experience that seems to be how it goes. The pattern I have accepted is:

• See flashes of improvement aka a few shots here or there are better than normal but not enough to really change a score.
• Start to string together more of those flashes and play a few holes here and there better
• Over time, it becomes more common for the improvements to make an appearance and that's when scores start to change.
• Try to not get upset when a backwards step aka bad round occurs.  Gotta remember that it's a trend and trend lines are averages of ups and downs.

[Obee]

Sorry, just jumping in here real quick. Are you keeping an index? If so, are you posting every single score? If so, what's your current index? 🙂

[betarhoalphadelta]

2 hours ago, bortass said:

So very true but in my experience that seems to be how it goes. The pattern I have accepted is:

• See flashes of improvement aka a few shots here or there are better than normal but not enough to really change a score.
• Start to string together more of those flashes and play a few holes here and there better
• Over time, it becomes more common for the improvements to make an appearance and that's when scores start to change.
• Try to not get upset when a backwards step aka bad round occurs.  Gotta remember that it's a trend and trend lines are averages of ups and downs.

 

Thanks. Agree with all of this, but sometimes it's good to hear it from others so I don't wallow lol...

 

2 hours ago, Obee said:

Sorry, just jumping in here real quick. Are you keeping an index? If so, are you posting every single score? If so, what's your current index? 🙂

 

Yes. Official USGA index, and post every score.

 

The 9-hole pitch and putt I don't post, but I've been told I can't post them anyway as it's <1500 yards, <30 par, and I don't think the course maintains a rating/slope anyway. Plus I play that course with a half-set purely for practice, will often play two balls, and sometimes am not actually even keeping score. 

 

Current index after yesterday's round is 23.8. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Managed to get over to the pitch & putt for a quick 9 holes. Well, not exactly "quick". I was matched up with three teenagers who were playing a 3-man scramble and were still ~9 over through 4 holes IIRC. Decent kids though, polite and despite their lack of golf talent, respectful of the course/etc. We were also behind a family with little ones. They let us through on 7 as a gap had formed ahead of them, but with Larry, Moe, and Curly as my group it's not like we got THAT much faster 😂

 

So what I hoped would be a quick respite from the work day zipping around 9 holes ended up being closer to 2 hours. Oh well. NBD. 

 

Overall I thought it was a good session, though. Obviously most of what I do there is trying to dial in wedge and pitching/chipping distance. I won't say my performance was great (long fringe on 1, short fringe on 2, long on 6, missed green right on 7 and the short pitch was short, long on 8, etc. But with the exception of #3 and #4, every shot I hit was good contact so it was productive. 

 

I ended up +6 through 9 holes, with par saves from the fringe on #1 & #2, and GIR pars on the par 4 holes #5 and #9. My shot on #3 was slightly bladed so went long, but I had a beautiful pitch back onto the green to 10 feet, but didn't make it. #4, the hole that always scares me despite being ~50 yards, I chunked the tee shot and semi-chunked the second onto the front of the green (back pin) before three-putting from ~45 feet for double. Not my finest two holes. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Update on the round Tuesday. I had recently learned that the USGA had changed their handicap posting criteria and it is now acceptable to post 9 hole scores on courses as short as 750 yards. This means I can now legally post that score, so I did. It gave me a differential of 21.6 which lowered my index from 23.8 to 23.3. 

 

My plan is still to use that course as "practice", and when I can get out alone, to play multiple balls, hit practice shots, etc. So those won't be postable as they're not played to the ROG. But when I was playing with those teens, I was playing one ball and according the rules, so posted. 

 

I made it to the range today. Mostly continuing to just get reps of what I've been doing re: sway, and some drills of 9-3 swings where I work on getting the wrists hinged earlier. Hit a lot of 7 irons, some partial wedges, some pitches/chips, and a few each of 4h, 3u, and driver. Need practice with driver, and also want to hit the 4h more often to use as a tee club. Right now I often hit my 5i because I hate looking down at a hybrid head--it throws me off somehow. But being a single-length set, it shouldn't be any harder to hit than my 9i, so I need to get over it. I hit some nice high straight ones right out of the center today, which was nice. (Also got off my game and topped a few... oops.)

 

Overall it was a decent session. Towards the end I started lagging as I think I was just powering through balls a little too quickly and getting fatigued both physically and mentally. But I slowed down, got back on track, and then finished strong. 

 

I'll plan to get some video when I go back next week. I want to see where I am on sway and wrist hinge with real feedback. 

 

Got two rounds planned this weekend, both at Oso Creek. My BIL is in town from Texas, and originally I booked both days thinking I'd just play once with my usual group and needed schedule flexibility. But instead I decided to invite him (and both of my SIL's husbands) so we'll be playing together, and my wife said "why don't you play with your normal group too?" So I am. Hopefully the additional reps will end up leading to some of the consistency that I so often lack...

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Ok, weekend round 1 in the books. A complete mess (+15) on the front, but then cleaned things up (+6) on the back, despite a penalty. 

 

Started terribly. Triple, double, bogey, bogey. Then three-putt bogey, three-putt bogey. Wasted opportunities. Bogey, bogey, triple, to finish the front. But the back was a lot better. Four pars, four bogeys, and a double (the penalty hole). 

 

A lot of left misses. Gotta figure that out at the range. 

 

But hoping I can build on that back 9 success tomorrow...

 

[bortass]

Good luck out there!

 

I keep reminding myself that getting better is playing the long game, lol.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Well, a second verse, same as the first. Well, not exactly the same. I went from a very inconsistent 46/35/81 to a MUCH more consistent 42/39/81. Saturday was no pars on the front and two triples, and four pars and only a single double on the back. Sunday was two pars on both the front and the back, only one double, on each, and one blow-up (quad on the front, triple on the back) per nine. 

 

All in all, it was just a day where very little went terribly, but also was JUST far enough off in most phases of the game to screw up my score. Like three-putt bogeys to ruin GIRs on 1, 3, and 10. Like the left miss that plagued me all day such that I had a lot of really nice contact shots--that missed the green left. Sometimes significantly left. 

 

It was just one of those days where I spent a lot of time scrambling to save bogeys. The doubles and worse were all holes where I had to take penalties. So I can take solace in that even with all the missed GIR, even on a day that my iron play was not crisp, I was at least in a state where I was not making things too much worse when I got around the green. I even managed two par saves from off the green. I still rue turning three GIRs into bogeys though. I would have been a lot happier carding a 78 than an 81 just by cleaning up those "throwaway" strokes... 

 

 Because the quad exceeded NDB, the 81 posts as an 80 for differential purposes, so a differential of 25.4 compared to Saturday's 26.5. That 25.4 would not have been in my counting scores except that a 23 rolled off my scoring average, so it is. So that increases my index from 23.3 up to 23.6. 

 

On the bright side, I beat all of my BILs. Not that this was a high bar to clear, as I think they have played a combined 1 round of golf in the past year 😉

 

Next 18-hole round will be Sunday, also at Oso. Hoping to get range time and at least a quick 9 in at the pitch & putt before then, although the pitch & putt may or may not be a postable round depending on the situation. 

Edited July 1 by betarhoalphadelta

[betarhoalphadelta]

Went to the range today. Got some video.

 

I see a couple of good things. I think I've done alright here with the eyeline. I think the earlier wrist hinge exists. 

 

And then I see the sway... Guess who's back. Back again. The sway is back. Tell a friend...

 

So... I have some things to keep working on. 

 

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Happy Independence Day, everybody!

 

Made it to the range this morning. Just really tried to focus on not swaying, which I think was good. I was making very good contact and feel like maybe I was getting back to where I was. I think I had allowed myself to just "swing freely" at the range in recent sessions and the sway crept back in, and need to continue making it a conscious focus at the range. 

 

Also doing a little bit of experimentation with aligning open with a face open to body but square to target to see if it was a decent bandaid to keep from missing left so dang much. I think I'm going to continue with that for now. I seem to be reducing the severity of left misses but so far without feeling like I'm double-crossing and missing right either (at least not any more often than currently). 

 

Playing Sunday, and it's TBD whether I'll make it back over to the range Saturday. We have a heat advisory going on tomorrow/Friday and I'm getting really tired of walking off the range drenched in sweat lol...

[bortass]

Great to read that you are getting to the range more often. 
 

Regarding the heat, I recommend sun sleeves. I find they help by keeping my arms out of the sun and they absorb all the sweat too. Check them out if you don’t use them already. 
 

Good luck Sunday!

[betarhoalphadelta]

17 hours ago, bortass said:

Regarding the heat, I recommend sun sleeves. I find they help by keeping my arms out of the sun and they absorb all the sweat too. Check them out if you don’t use them already. 

 

The good thing is that the range is a staggered double-decker setup. When it's hot and sunny I go to the bottom level which gives me at least a little shade. 

 

[Wardonation]

On 7/2/2024 at 3:59 PM, betarhoalphadelta said:

Went to the range today. Got some video.

 

I see a couple of good things. I think I've done alright here with the eyeline. I think the earlier wrist hinge exists. 

 

And then I see the sway... Guess who's back. Back again. The sway is back. Tell a friend...

 

So... I have some things to keep working on. 

 

 

your wrist hinge is incorrect. Fell like the face is looking at the ball as long as possible. You fan it open. All in all good enough swing to play go practice your short game.