Joey's Golf Bag

I practiced at GBGC after work this afternoon, practicing mainly short and mid irons. The weather again was flawless, mid-70s, soft breeze, not a cloud in the sky. I started hitting the 7-iron, fades, and noticed that I had too much lower body motion. That caused inconsistent striking of the ball. After some practice shots with my feet together and ball centered, I got my swing back in sync and started hitting the ball well.

I also hit the 6- and 5-irons well, mostly straight or soft fades, though I did have more pushes than usual. 4- and 3-irons were disappointing, though, I never got a consistent straight ball flight, either hooked it or faded it. I didn’t do any driver or 3-metal work today.

After the 4- and 3-irons, I went back to the 7-irons and worked my way up through the short irons. Most shots were straight without any side spin. With the shorter irons, I tended to pull some of the shots more than usual.

I also hit a few full wedge shots with the pitching and sand wedges. The pitching wedge shots were particularly straight on target, but I alternately pulled or pushed the sand wedge.

I ran out of time and wasn’t able to putt or practice my short game.

I went to practice after work at GBGC. Since most of the grass range is closed, I used a mat on the closed section and spent most of the day practicing the full set of irons. The weather was flawless, mid-70s, soft breeze, sunny skies.

While I never did get a reliable draw going, most of my irons were going straight or soft fades. I did get a hook or two on the 3-iron, but nothing repeatable. The slice was gone except for one or two on the long irons and a couple while hitting the driver. The short irons were straight on target or slightly pushed or pulled. Mid-irons were soft fades mostly, some straight. Long irons were also mostly fades, but a hook or two thrown in when I hit a little fat.

I hit a few full wedge swings with each of my three wedges, balls were mostly straight with a few pushes.

I didn’t spend much time with the driver, but I did hit a couple of big banana slices before I got the ball going straight. No moon balls today.

I was a bit rushed and had little time for putting, but did putt well once I got the speed down. My five final putts from 9 to 21 feet all found the cup.

Jarvis and I played nine at North Texas Golf this morning. I put the 3-, 4-, and 5-irons back in my bag this morning and took out the hybrids while I get my swing back into shape. I started out with the 3-iron, hitting soft shots, mostly fades. Next, I hit some 5-irons, also fades. I then went back to the 7-iron and got the ball going straight and even a draw or two. I then went to the driver, which sliced, great big banana slices. Yeech!

I went back and hit many short irons, mostly straight, with pushes more prevalent than pulls. Distance was short; I wasn’t able to get the swing really fluid today.

Next up, I went and hit short and medium sand wedge shots at the target flags. I had some trouble getting my swing grooved in, but finally achieved some decent shots. I also hit a few lob wedges, mostly a bit short. I’ve been having trouble hitting the ball a bit fat with the wedges lately, and this continued during practice.

I then gathered some balls and hit short chips with the pitching wedge and got the distance and direction grooved in again. My chipping has been suspect of late and it was good to get it going again. I also hit some putts, but the putting green was in poor shape (needed mowing). There is maintenance in progress on the greens; many of them had sand spread today, which made putting difficult.

My score today:

* Hit green in regulation.

Themes:

• My main difficulty today was hitting the ball short. My distance was short all day, only went over the pin once. With the exception of one shot on the second hole, the slice didn’t reappear today.
• Putting was very mixed. I hit a 21 foot putt for par on the 4th hole but four putted the 7th hole. I don’t ever remember 4 putting a hole before.
• Chipping practice worked. I hit a 40 foot chip to 2 ft to par the 5th hole.

If the golf was lacking, the weather was flawless, 75 degrees with a slight westerly breeze.

I practiced at GBGC on Friday after work, to work on getting the slice, so prevalent the last time I played, out of my swing. With the exception of the driver, I was able to do that today.

I started off hitting 7-irons, trying to shape the shots into a draw. Though I wasn’t able to draw the ball consistently, I did manage to get the ball going mostly straight, with only a few fades thrown in. After that, I hit 6-irons and had similar results. The straight shots failed, though, when I got out the driver. While I excised the slice, most of the balls were fading, and never managed to get the ball to draw. Same results with the 3-metal and the three hybrids. All shots mostly faded, but at least the slice was gone.

After those clubs, I went through the short irons, hitting pretty good shots mostly straight, little or no fade. Some were pushed, which in short irons can mean the club face was open. I soon ran out of balls, but not before I finally got the balls going straight. Distance was somewhat shorter than usual, but I’m happy with shorter distance if the ball goes straight.

On Sunday, I watched most of the final round of Annika lapping the field at the Samsung tournament. Since I don’t have the Golf Channel, I didn’t see the end of the tournament and found out much later that night that Michelle Wie got DQ-ed for an incident on Saturday. What nonsense is this? I don’t believe for a second that Michelle meant to cheat, and without malice, there should be no disqualification.

Problems with the rules of golf:

1. The reporter didn’t bother to report the improper drop to anyone until the next day after the tournament was all but over. He was standing six feet away. Why not just point out then that she looked a bit closer to the hole?
2. Doesn’t anyone but engineers understand “margin of error”? The distance was walked off twice for distance, and was found “inconclusive”. A string was then used to measure the distance and found to be 12-18″ closer to the hole. The rules need a margin; people aren’t perfect.
3. She signed an incorrect scorecard. Just what the heck is wrong with correcting it after the fact? It’s not like the checks have been cashed already.

Here’s what should happen for PGA / LPGA tournaments to get rid of ridiculous DQs like this one.

1. There should be an “official scorer” with each group keeping score. The players can verify the score at the end of the round.
2. There should be a rules official with each group to verify that the rules of golf are followed and to immediately assess any penalties when they happen.
3. Corrections to the scorecard for penalties before the end of the round should be allowed. The round is final once the last scorecard is turned in by the official scorer at the end of the round. No more bystander judges.

Pro golf needs to get rid of these antiquated rules that have player serve as their own judge and jury. Rules like the ones above are fine for small tournaments that don’t have the means to provide official scorers and rules officials, but the PGA and LPGA have no excuse.

I practiced on Friday at GBGC after work. It was not pretty. I’ve been working on getting my shots to draw, rather than fade, and it has been getting harder and harder to get the draw working. Friday was no exception, nearly everything was fading, and even, gasp!, the slice came back. I’m pretty sure that the main issue is my backswing is not in the proper plane, too flat, and I sometimes keep the club face too open at the top. I draw the ball most effectively when hitting half swings, and find it harder to get the draw to work on a 3/4 swing, and almost impossible with a full swing. Thus, I almost always use a 3/4 swing when I’m on the course, as it gives me better control of distance and direction.

On Friday, I also had problems hitting the balls fat, which I have mostly avoided for the past few months. Both of these issues compounded on Saturday, when Jarvis and I played the Lakes course at Indian Creek. Warming up, nothing would draw except on half swings, and everything else faded or sliced. This was not a comfortable feeling when playing on an 18-hole course for the first time since the spring.

The day started out poorly, made triple on the first two holes. I finally got it sorta working on the third, fourth and fifth, all of which I bogeyed. The remaining holes were very poor, and Jarvis and I decided to call it a day on the ninth hole, as the other two players were playing much better and getting annoyed with our poor play.

The only good thing about my game on Saturday was my putting. Despite the poor scores, putting was not the cause, as I had only 1 three-putt, and that one wasn’t really a three putt as the ball was on the fringe and not on the green. The greens of the Lakes course were the best Bermuda greens I’ve ever played on.

It looks like more lessons are in my immediate future.

After work, I went to the driving range to work on shot shaping. The weather was warm and muggy, very little wind. I started off hitting fades with a 7-iron, trying to get the draw to work. Mostly, though, fades and straight shots were most common. Next up was the 6-iron, no better results than with the 7-iron.

Next up was the driver, where I was unable to get the draw to work at all today. I hit mostly fades or high straight moon balls. The 3-metal, all fades. I tried a few shots with the hybrids, fades. Hmm…

I went back to the 7-iron, hitting half swings and finally got the draw going. By that time, I’d run out of balls.

Next up was putting practice, but putting was disappointing as well. I worked mainly on speed drills, poorly. I never got the putter to feel right today.

No wedges or short iron work today; those clubs worked pretty well last time I played.

A disappointing practice, but at least I got the draw finally going near the end.

What a fantastic day of golf at Harding Park on Sunday! Tiger, JD, Monty and Sergio all vying for the $1.3 million pay day. The Tiger – John Daly slugfest on the first hole of the playoff was a classic demonstration of driving perfection. More in Daly’s missed putt ends classic duel. A quote:

John Daly versus Tiger Woods? Man, that’s the best matchup since Predator versus Alien or King Kong versus Godzilla.

The Daly-Tiger bout was considerably more lopsided than the latter two. Be honest, you wouldn’t have bet your entire collection of Debbie Boone CDs on Daly. He was the underdog. Here’s the catch: Daly was the fans’ favorite (although it was a close call, since San Francisco and Harding Park qualify as a home game for Woods, who played two years of college golf at Stanford before turning pro) and, oh yeah, Woods was scraping by without his A-game.

It was a great matchup, much more interesting than Woods versus nice guy Ernie Els; Woods versus go-for-broke, never-won-the-big-one-until-last-year Phil Mickelson; Woods versus world No. 2 Vijay Singh, who does not stir much emotion in the public; or Woods versus Retief Goosen, who can still walk down a street in New York City without being recognized.

I practiced and played at North Texas Golf on Sunday morning, a cool, clear day with a 1 club wind from the southeast.

First, I hit half a bucket of balls on the wedge practice area, hitting 20-50 yd shots with my sand wedge and some shorter ones with the lob wedge. I hit the balls pretty well today, with good distance control and pretty poor direction control. After that, I hit a lot of iron shots with 6-10 irons, only getting out the longer clubs for a few swings. In general, my distances were fairly consistent, but the direction was all over the place, pulls and pushes, only a few balls with any curve to them at all, except for the 6-iron, which mostly faded a bit.

I then used my pitching wedge to chip a few ball, warmed up on the putting green and headed out on the course. My score:

* Hit green in regulation.

Themes:

• Distance control was good today. I was using 3/4 swings to keep the ball down a bit out of the wind, so my distances were a bit shorter than usual. Most of my misses were pushes pin high, although one tee shot was short and one nearly to the back of the green.
• Putting was fair. I three putted the eighth hole from about 30 ft. The rest were two putts; didn’t hit a birdie putt all day. The closest shot to the hole was about 25 ft.
• Chipping was poor all day, mostly too long. Same for the only time I hit a lob wedge over one of those 10 ft tall grass plants at 4, went right over the pin, after a pushed shot off the tee. The first hole was an unmitigated disaster, pushed the tee shot, lobbed short, putted long from the fringe and 2 putted from 8 ft.
• There was a guy out watering the greens in front of me this morning. I had to putt through standing water on 6 and 7. I took a practice putt to get the feel for putting in standing water, as I’ve never done that. The putts were slow. 😉

All in all, a fun day with great weather.

I had planned to play today at Indian Creek, but my golf buddy was not able to play (he wanted to see Texas crush Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl).

Yesterday, I went to practice, and it may have been good that I didn’t play today, as the practice was pretty bad. I started off with the 7-iron, trying to get the draw to work, to no avail. No matter what I did, the ball faded or sliced. I even sliced the driver badly, which I almost never do, and most of my 3-metals were fades as well. Finally, half way through the bucket, I tracked down the cause: my club face was much too open at the top, and I wasn’t able to get the face closed when I hit the ball. I practiced a lot of backswings to get the club face correct at the top and finally managed to get the ball going straight, although I never did achieve a reliable draw.

Putting practice, on the other hand, was the best I’ve done in many weeks. I started off with some short putts around the hole, moved on to the 20 ft distance drill, and then went into my usual routine simulating 18-holes of golf. 3 times 6/12/18 ft, 2 times 9/18/27 ft, 1 time 3 balls from 35 ft. I ended the session 5 under par, my best showing in a long time.

Today, I went to the range to find that half the range was closed due to sand being spread on the grass. I got a bucket of balls and set about trying to get the draw to work again. I started with the 6-iron and most balls were fading. I went through a number of different drills to try to get the ball to fade and the best I was able to do was get soft fades or straight shots. My driving was better today, many straight balls, but also a few fades or slices. The 3-metal was better than the driver today, mostly soft fades or straight shots. I finished the session with some short iron shots, mostly slight pushes, but better than usual.

I started the putting drills with short putts, hitting them all. I then moved on to putts with a lot of break from right to left. After many drills from 6/12/18 ft, I finally started reading the breaks well. I then ran my full 18-hole simulation, as above, but after reaching 5 under par after 12 holes, proceeded to give all those shots back. My putting was very poor on the 35 ft drill, three putted them all. Yeech.