Joey's Golf Bag

After dinner tonight, I went to the Golden Bear Golf Center to hit some balls and practice putting. The temperature was hovering around 100F, but since the humidity was low, it was comfortable. There was a 1-club breeze in my face, which helped as well.

I started off hitting 8-iron shots to the blue flag, 130 yds distance into the wind. I hit the short irons well tonight, though tending to hook when hitting a poor one. I alternated the pitching wedge, 8-, 6- and 4-irons. I never got the 4-iron going, although I did hit it straight, just very low, barely above the flag. The 6-iron took a few shots to get going, but I did manage some good ones by the end.

I got out the driver, 3-metal and hybrid, but with the exception of a couple of drives, hit those club poorly.

Next up, I got out the wedges, all four of them, and practiced hitting at the red flag some 80 yds away. That’s a little less than a half swing with a pitching wedge, about a half swing with the sand wedge, a 3/4 swing with the lob wedge, and if I really hop on it, just short with a full swing and a low trajectory with the 64 degree wedge. I hit the wedges well tonight, although the ball strikes were not as crisp with the 64 degree wedge.

After a 20 minute session on the putting green, I headed home, pretty happy with my practice session. I think another one or two practice sessions with the long clubs I’ll be back to where I was before I fell.

I went and hit a few balls after dinner tonight at Golden Bear Golf Center. Though the temperature was above 90F, it was still a comfortable evening in which to hit golf balls. There was a soft breeze from the south, about 1 club.

After stretching, I got out the 7-iron and hit a few balls. I wasn’t striking the ball very well, so I got out the pitching wedge and hit a few, striking the ball very nicely. I alternated irons for a while, striking the ball pretty good, and then got out the driver. I had removed the lead tape I had placed on the club. I set up as usual, ball forward, closed stance, club slightly open. Tonight, I was able to hit the sweet spot pretty consistently, but I hit mostly pushes or fades, with an occasional slice thrown in. It was almost a relief to hit a slice, as my usual fault is a hook. Distance was pretty good, considering that I was hitting into a 1 club wind.

Next up, I started to hit some long irons. My main fault is still a hook, and I hit some hard hooks tonight. I never really got the longer irons to work tonight, or the hybrid or 3-metal either. I ran through the irons and wedges, hitting most of them well except for the 4- and 3-irons. With the last few balls, I bombed some drives, pretty well struck, except for one moon ball that launched like a sand wedge and stopped with a single bounce. At least it was straight… 😉

I went to the North Texas Golf Center to practice and play nine this morning. The temperature was in the low 80’s when I arrived with a strong breeze from the north. The course was dry and brown except for the greens, which were in pretty good condition (with the exception of the 1st hole that has a large dead spot), though slow.

I hit a small bucket of balls to warm up and also to check my distances. Since my injury, I’m about 5 yards shorter than before, but I hit a few shots that were longer. My ball striking was pretty poor today, never really getting in the groove. I also spent a few minutes hitting the driver, which were pretty well struck, though shorter than yesterday. My final stop was the putting green, where I worked on ball speed, and then hit the course.

My score:

* Hit green in regulation.

Themes:

• Tee Shots. I had a very poor day off the tee. On the 1st, hooked a nine iron out of bounds, leading to double. Chunked a sand wedge on the 5th hole and a pitching wedge on the 7th. My only good shot was a nine-iron into the wind on the 8th hole that ended up 15 feet left of the hole, pin high. I played army golf on the rest, either hooking left or pushing right.
• Wedges. Mixed results with the wedges. Got up and down for par on the 3rd even though I sliced the tee shot nearly out of bounds, by hitting a lob wedge to about 8 ft and nailing the putt. None of the other wedge shots were close.
• Chipping. I had two chips, one on the 1st hole and one on the 5th. Neither was particularly good.
• Putting. My putts were short on the early holes, but starting rolling them good by the end, by nailing a 15 footer for birdie on the 8th and an 18 footer for par on the last.

The round was far from my best on this course, but I was happy to see my putting improve, having only 14 putts for nine holes.

This morning, I practiced at Golden Bear Golf Center. The weather has been brutally hot here in the Big D, and I didn’t practice during the week because of it. This morning was overcast, with a breeze, so was a pretty comfortable time to practice. I started off hitting 8-iron shots to warm up. At first, my ball striking was very poor, but got better as I warmed up. I hit a lot of shots with my pitching wedge, trying to get my feel back in shape. I then got out the 6- and 4-irons and added them to the mix. My distances were longer today, but some of that was due to the wind. I never really hit a good shot with the 4-iron today.

Next up, I got out the hybrid, 3-metal and driver, and put impact indicators on them. I was determined to move the impact area away from the toe and back to the center of the face of these clubs. After much experimentation, I managed to move the impact back to the center, by addressing the ball at the hosel. I had very few hooks, most of my shots that missed were pushes. Distance was very good with the 3-metal, when well-struck; the driver was a bit longer as well. Much work to do here, but at least I’ve managed to get the sweet spot of the clubs back into action.

Next up, I visited the short game area and spent some time working on Pelz-style shots out of the bunker (ball forward, face open, open stance). I had a good practice, getting about 60% onto the green using his technique. Still needs work, but now I’m beginning to get some feel for distance and direction out of the bunker.

I also spent some time hitting short lob wedge shots at the different flags on the short game green. My touch was very good today and I was pleased with my practice, even stopping before I ran out of balls, because of the good results.

Finally, I spent about 30 minutes on the putting green, working mainly on speed. After a rough start, I had a very good practice, holeing a number of long putts and rarely leaving a second putt that wasn’t a tap-in.

Aside from the long clubs, my game is starting to come together after a long layoff due to injury and brutally hot weather. Tomorrow, I’ll hit the links.

Two weeks ago, I fell on some slippery rocks and injured my right shoulder and elbow. I had to ice down my shoulder for a few days. My elbow was just scraped up a little and healed quickly. I had a lesson scheduled for July 4th, but had to cancel as I could barely even move my right arm.

On Sunday morning, early, I finally healed up enough to get back out on the range and hit some balls. The weather was sunny and hot with only a trace of a breeze. I started out in the short game area, hitting short SW and LW shots. Fortunately, I didn’t have any difficulty getting my touch back with the wedges. I didn’t have a very good sand practice, but the sand was very wet and compacted, and I’ve never spent any practice time hitting out of wet sand.

Next up, I got a large bucket of balls and started out hitting full wedge shots. No problem there, other than the occasional fat shot. The short irons were pretty good, other than a few yards of missing distance. My long clubs were just terrible, though. I wasn’t surprised, as I have to spend a lot of time on them to hit them decently. My old problem, toe hits, was back with the driver, 3-metal and hybrid. I spent a lot of time with the driver, trying to move the contact point back to the center of the club face, succeeding only once (and boy, what a great shot that was…). I managed to move my impact point closer to the center, but I’m still an inch away from perfection. I think I need to move the ball a bit farther forward in my stance, as my most common fault, besides short distance, was a push. The hook was rarely in evidence, fortunately.

No time for putting practice, as I was worn out from all the balls I’d hit and from the high temperatures that reached the high ’90s before 11AM. Damn, it’s hot!

On Wednesday night, I practiced at Golden Bear Golf Center. The days have been very hot in Texas, so no practice after work until cooler weather returns.

My biggest problem lately has been hooking, and it seems the primary cause of that hook is tension. When I’m swinging freely, I get a straight ball or a slight draw. When I’m not, the hook intervenes.

On to the driver. Since the driver is my problem club (as well as the 3-metal), I changed my setup so that I use a slightly open clubface and a slightly closed stance. If I’m swinging freely with a good pause at the top, the driver goes straight as an arrow, and with good distance. When my swing has tension, the driver hooks and has lousy distance. So, the key for me is to get rid of the tension. This is true of the irons as well, though the misses are less. Hook = tension!

On Saturday morning, I practiced again at Golden Bear Golf Center, hoping to get in a few balls before threatening thunderstorms rolled in. I started out hitting the ball fat, but soon worked through it and hit the irons pretty well. I was able to hit the driver and 3-metal pretty well today, though, as usual, misses were hooks. Still need to figure out a swing key to get out the tension… My final pin-hunting drill went well today, making some good swings and about half my shots were 4 or better on a 5 scale.

Time to get back out on the course…

The heat has been brutal in the afternoons, so I’ve been unable to practice after work. Instead, this week, I’ve been chipping into a net in my backyard after dinner, when the heat is bearable. During the summer, I only practice either early in the morning or after dinner. Morning is out on work days, so I’ll have to start practicing after dinner.

My chipping stroke is getting better…

I’ve spent the last two days trying to get the hook out of my swing, and really, it comes down to two things:

• I’m releasing the club too early, resulting in a closed clubface at impact.
• My swing is too inside-to-outside, and I’m tending to hit the toe of the club instead of the sweet spot, as the club lengths get longer.

Hooking the ball has gotten so bad that even the short irons are affected. I never thought I could hook a 9-iron 30 degrees, but, yes, I can.

To combat these problems, I’m standing a bit closer to the ball and setting the ball a little back in my stance. We’ll see how it goes this week. I’ve also put the Big Bertha 2004 irons back in my bag until straighten out my hooking problem.

I had planned on Saturday to determine my distances for all my clubs, but due to my extreme issues of hooking the ball and striking the toe of the clubface on the longer clubs, didn’t get time to determine my distances. I had earlier determined that I’d been striking the toe of the longer clubs, but still hadn’t quite figured out how to fix it. Alan saw me hitting balls and stopped by, and we worked on my swing quite a bit. He had me adjust my stance, open and closed, and the ball back a bit. Only closing my stance really helped at all, so I need to figure out how to get my swing inside-to-square again and to hit the sweet spot on the face of the clubs.

P.S. Earlier this week, I’d received my NEC 500g rangefinder. One evening this past week, I ventured out onto the Coyote Ridge Golf Course and took many distance measurements and compared them to markers on the course. The device works extremely well and is very quick with a measurement. I’m pleased with my purchase.

…just not the way I want to be consistent.

The last three days I’ve hit a lot of golf balls, working on tempo and trying to get the driver and 3-metal to go straight. Yesterday, I made the discovery that my tempo on the 3-metal and driver were considerably faster than my irons. I found it amazing that I’m swinging with a much faster tempo with the long clubs than with the irons. Another discovery is that I swing the 3i HALO with the same tempo as my irons. Thus, a major reason for my inability to hit the driver and 3-metal is tempo. The other, that Alan pointed out this morning, is my hips are turning too fast, causing me either to block the shot right or hook. The hook has been the bane of my existence for the last few weeks, and on the rare occasion that there is no side spin on the ball, it almost always goes right.

Today, I also had difficulty with the HALO, the 3-metal and the driver with hitting the ball off the toe. As an experiment, I put an impact strip on the HALO and found that I am very consistently hitting the toe of the club (see picture below). The first 4 shots with the club were very consistent and located on the toe of the club near the “1”. After that, I changed where I addressed the ball, toward the toe or toward the heel, and found to my astonishment, that I still hit the toe of the club, barely moving the point of impact toward the center. On a shot or two with the 3-metal, I hit the ball fat off the toe, leaving a path that clearly shows my swing is inside-to-outside.

Much to think about…

I’ve practiced three times in the past week with my new irons, and I’m having a similar pattern each time. When I first warm up, my distances are a little shorter than average, but that improves as I warm up. Next, I hit a mix of long irons and the hybrid, usually pretty well. Then disaster strikes: I get out the 3-metal and driver. I almost never hit anything but hooks with these clubs. It’s gotten so bad that I put two swing-weights of lead tape on the toe of the driver and 1-1/2 swing-weights on the toe of the 3-metal. Unfortunately, that hasn’t helped the situation. The biggest problem I have, though, is after I hit hooks with the driver and 3-metal, all my other clubs then fail with hooks, ugly, low hooks. Except for the last practice, I was unable to get any good swings going after that happened. I need a pshrink!

An aside: On Monday, on advice from Alan, I went and got on the launch monitor at Golden Bear Golf Center to see if I needed a stiffer shaft. As it turns out, I’m hooking the driver so badly that the machine is unable to measure backspin: the line on the ball to show angle spins out of view of the camera! More side spin than backspin equals an ugly, ugly hook. The only good news: my club head speed averages 95 mph, which should equal 230-240 yd drives, if I ever get rid of the hook.

The 3i HALO hybrid is the only long club that I can hit well. I usually hit it straight. The failed shots are either pushes (most common), hooks and rarely, a slice. The hooks and pushes are closely related, of course, caused by an inside-to-outside swing. It seems that as the club gets longer, my swing gets more inside-to-outside.

On the other hand, with the short irons and wedges, my issue has been pulls, which is an outside-to-inside failure. I’m usually able to recover and hit good shots with these clubs, though.

It is clearly time to get out the video camera and figure out just what the problem that’s destroying my swing.