Joey's Golf Bag

I went to the range tonight to try out a new practice routine to see if it improves my swing. As always, I warmed up with some 7-iron half swings, but instead of progressing through the long irons, I went immediately to the driver. With the driver, I was spraying shots all over the range, hooks, slices, moon balls, worm burners. Ugly, ugly stuff.

Next, I then hit some balls with the 27-degree hybrid. With a half swing, I nearly hit the blue flag some 145 yds away. 3/4 swings were completely flying the green, so were at least 155 yds. This is a big improvement over Sunday and validated my theory that swinging the driver helped me reduce tension and improve distance. My distances tonight with the hybrids were about 150-155 yds with the 27-degree hybrid and 160-165 yds with the 23-degree hybrid. I also improved distance on 4-, 5-, and 6-irons as well, but I didn’t keep records of the distances.

I didn’t practice any short irons tonight, but I did some short (15 to 40 yd) pitches with the lob wedge and sand wedge tonight. My distance control was not so good. I tended to be a little long tonight, and most shots were to the right of the target. I never did get the wedges straightened out until the end. I didn’t have time to putt tonight and only hit a few chips with the pitching wedge.

I visited the range this morning to practice. As usual, I started with the 7-iron, hitting half swings off the grass. Most shots were fading to the right. After some adjustments, I made most shots go straight or slight draw, with an occasional hook thrown in for variety. I then hit 6-iron 3/4 swings and moved on to the 5-iron and 27-degree hybrid. As with the 19-degree hybrid, I was hitting the hybrid about 5-10 yards farther than with the equivalent iron. I had some trouble this practice session with slicing long irons, but soon adjusted to straight or slight draws. I moved on to the 4-iron and the 23 degree hybrid, and again, hit the hybrid better and longer. I hit a few shots as well with the 19-degree hybrid.

I moved on to the driver and 3-wood. I was spraying the 3-wood all over the place, hooks, slices, just making a mess of things. As I hit better with the driver, I switched and found the same problem. As I’ve noticed in the past, when I don’t hit the driver straight, it is usually because I’m too far from the ball, and that was the case this time. As soon as I moved in a little, my shots started going straight again. I hit a few with the 3-wood standing closer, and the shots improved there as well.

My final drill is “pin hunting”. For this drill, I aim exactly at the pin with the right club for the distance. The red flag was about 90 yards away, so I started with the 50-degree pitching wedge, and was 5-10 yards short. The 10-iron was about 5-10 yds long. I tried a 3/4 swing 10 iron and nearly hit the pin.

The blue pin was about 140 yds away and I was short with a 6-iron. Next up was the 27-degree hybrid, but I hit the ball straight over the pin carrying it by 20 yds. Oops. My shots with both the 23- and 27-degree hybrids were going about 20-30 yds farther than during practice. I’m guessing that swinging the big stick took out the tension and allowed me to hit the ball longer. On the next practice session, after warming up, I’m going to work my way down from the driver and see how I hit the ball.

Only a few balls remaining, so I hit the 19-degree hybrid at the white flag 160 yds out. My alignment was bad, as the shots were landing pin high with no fade or draw 20 yds to the right. Usually my alignment is good, but not today.

I didn’t practice with the wedges or short irons today; those clubs need little maintenance.

After my mediocre putting yesterday, I practiced for about 25 minutes on the putting green. First, I did my usual drill where I place a ball at 6, 12, and 18 feet to get the speed of the green down. This time I chose a hole with a significant amount of break to the right. It took me three of these drills to get the speed correct. That drill paid off, as the next drill that I do is putting several balls from 21 ft and then 30 ft. Both of these drills, I hit 1/3 of the putts and didn’t three putt at all.

I finished the construction of my new hybrid clubs today. Specs:

• Snake Eyes Quick Strike II, 23 degree loft, 39.5″ TX-90 Steel Shaft, Golf Pride Dual Duometer Grip
• Snake Eyes Quick Strike II, 27 degree loft, 39″ TX-90 Steel Shaft, Golf Pride Dual Duometer Grip

I plan to try them out tomorrow.

Today, Jarvis and I practiced and played nine at the North Texas Golf Center. The first half of practice, with short sand / lob wedge shots, went well. After that, practice was a complete disaster, all my short iron were pushes. Putting practice was also poor, speed control was awful. Fortunately, how I practiced didn’t dictate how I played today. Jarvis hit an awesome putt on 8 from 25 ft, down hill, with a 1 foot break to the right and another putt from 15 ft. I hit only one putt beyond 6 ft.

Scorecard:

*Hit green in regulation

Highlights: Hit two excellent 10-iron shots at holes 7 and 8, but missed both birdie putts, from 12 ft and 6 ft, respectively. Hit a very nice lob wedge over an 8 ft high hump to 6 ft on the final hole, but lipped out the putt. No three putts today.

Lowlights: Short tee shot on 1, pushed tee shot on 9, caused bogeys. If I could have hit some 6 to 10 ft putts today, I could have scored 28.

Still, a good day, as 31 is my best score ever on this course. Considering it was 101 degrees by the time we finished, I’m pretty happy with the way I played.

Today I epoxied the shafts to the club heads. I also inserted some 2.5g weights into the clubheads to get the swing weight up a little. The assembly went off without a hitch. Tomorrow I will install the grips.

Sunday morning, I will try them out on the range and see how they work. Another report at that time.

I’m learning how to build golf clubs. Last week, I had a custom hybrid club made, specs were:

• Snake Eyes Quick Strike II Hybrid, 19 degree loft
• True Temper TX-90 Steel Shaft, overall length 40″
• Golf Pride Dual Duometer Midsize Grip

I hit shots with this club 5 yards farther and with better accuracy than my 3-iron, so I decided to learn to build clubs by building two more hybrids, same specs as above, with 23 and 27 degree loft Quick Strike II Hybrid club heads, same shaft but each one 1/2″ shorter than the less lofted club.

I bought a clubmaking kit from Golfsmith and ordered all the parts. Tonight, I cut the shafts to size and abraded the tips. Tomorrow, I will attach the club heads, after I set the right swing weight. The first club swing weight was about C5, I’ll make these about D1.

Stand by for news!