Joey's Golf Bag

…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.

I’ve constructed a new set of irons using Toski Target T58 iron heads, True Temper Custom Lite shafts, and Golf Pride New Decade MultiCompound midsize grips. I swing-weighted the clubs to D-7 and bent them upright 2°.

My goal was to build a set of irons that go farther and don’t fly as high as my current Big Bertha 2004 irons. On Sunday, I tried them out for the first time, and my goal of longer and lower was achieved. The clubs are somewhat more unforgiving than my BB 2004 irons.

Today, after work, I had another private lesson with Alan at the Golden Bear Golf Center. Mainly, we worked on the longer clubs, and followed up with a putting session. I started out hitting 3-, 5- and 7-irons. He adjusted my stance slightly, having me put the ball a bit more forward in my stance, and also balanced my weight between my feet as I tended to put more weight on my left foot. I hit the irons pretty well today.

I hit a few balls with the hybrid, not as well as I’m capable, but pretty good. We then moved on to hitting the 3-metal off the grass, a club I struggle with. Again, he moved the ball well forward of where I was playing it, and that seemed to help. We did the same with the driver, which completely refused to do anything but hook. He tried out my club and came to the conclusion that the flex was too soft for my swing. I’m having the club re-shafted with a stiff Diamana shaft; we’ll see how that turns out in a few days.

Lastly, we worked on putting. Only changes were to stand slightly closer to the ball and with my feet closer together on short putts. No change on the longer ones. He recommended a few putting drills and that ended the session.

Yesterday, after work, I practiced at Golden Bear Golf Center. The day was cool (for this time of year), sunny, with a breeze from the west. I had forgotten to bring my iPod, so my plan to continue tempo work was dashed.

I started off as usual warming up with the 7-iron and then advanced to hitting the 3-, 5- and 7-irons in random order. At first, my shots were straight and my tempo good; as I progressed, the shots because less reliable. I moved on to the driver, 3-metal and 3i HALO. I hit the 3i HALO pretty well, the 3-metal not so good, and the driver mostly refused to go straight, tending to hook.

My last practice was pin-hunting, and I had one of my best sessions, scoring 4 or 5 (on a 1-5 scale) on half the shots. Usually, I hit about one-third of the shots with a 4 or 5 score, so I was happy with the way practice ended.

Next up was putting practice, which went pretty well. My putting is improving, again.

A pretty good practice on this day.

Today, I practiced and played nine at Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville. The weather was warm and sunny, with just a trace of a breeze.

I started off warming up with the 7-iron, and began tempo training using Tour Tempo at 27/9 with the 5-, 7- and 9-irons. My tempo was pretty poor today, and I never really got my swing working well. I guess nearly a week without the time to hit the range was too long to go and not expect my swing to degrade.

I had a rough time practicing with the longer clubs, failing to hit the driver or 3-metal decently. I did hit a number of good shots with the HALO 3i club, and the 5-iron was mixed.

My score:

* Hit green in regulation.

Themes:

• Tee shots. On the par 3 holes, I hit a pitching wedge to 12 ft on the first hole, and a 7-iron to 8 ft on the 7th hole. Those were the good ones. My sand wedge tee shot on the 3rd hole was just short of the green, my pitching wedge on the 5th was pulled and hit the tree to the left of the green, and my 4-iron on the last hole was chunked but ran pin-high left of the green. On the par 4 holes, I hit only one fairway, on the 4th hole, hitting into the hazard left on holes 2 and 8. On the sixth hole, pushed the 3i HALO into the trees to the right of the fairway.
• Approach shots. My approach shots on the par 4 holes were disastrous all day. On the 2nd, hit a pitching wedge thin over the hole. On the 4th, although I had a clear view of the green, the pin was protected by an overhanging tree, forcing me to attempt a punch 8-iron, which I pulled left onto a hump in the rough. On the 6th, disaster struck, starting with a pulled pitching wedge layup hit thin into a ball-eating grass bush. On the eight, pushed a 5-iron off a drop right of the hole. Very poor approach shots all day.
• Wedges. Short wedges were very good today, getting up and down on the 5th and 9th holes with beautiful lob wedges. My only poor short wedge was on the 2nd hole, but the ball still ended up a foot from the hole. Longer pitching wedge shots were either hit thin or chunked.
• Chipping. No chippping today; putted from the fringe on the 3rd hole.
• Putting. Putting was very good today, didn’t miss any from inside 6 feet and no three-putts.
• Sand shots. Terrible. Hit two very poor sand shots on the 6th hole, leading to triple bogey.

I played the final hole with Kevin, one of the instructors at HHGR. He hit an 8-iron to 2 ft and tapped in. I chunked a 4-iron, but got up and down from the rough.

Even though I played poorly with the long clubs, my short game enabled a pretty good score, in fact, the best score I’ve had on this course.

Yesterday, I went to the Byron Nelson Tournament for a few hours to enjoy the golf and the stellar weather. I arrived at the course at about 9:30, watched some groups tee off on the first hole of the TPC. Byron Nelson himself pulled up while Jerry Kelly’s group was teeing off and he chatted with the players while they waited to tee off. After that, I went to our pavillion, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed over to Cottonwood to watch Adam Scott (one of the leaders) tee off on the first hole. I arrived a bit early and watched a group or two tee off before Adam Scott, Sean O’Hair and another player who’s name I’ve forgotten, arrived at the hole. All three players hit good tee shots into the fairway. Adam hit a nearly perfect iron shot from about 190 yds to about 8 ft (and made birdie from there); Sean O’Hair and the other player hit good shots, but more toward the center of the green. The way Adam was hitting the ball, I’m thinking he’s going to be hard to beat at this tournament.

Next group had Chris DiMarco in it; he hit his tee shot into the fairway but his iron approach was just short of the green and rolled back down into the rough.

I watched a few more groups on the first hole, (at least two players putting shots into the water) and went back to TPC to catch up with Camilo Villegas’ group. I caught up with him on the 2nd hole and followed his group to the 4th hole. Villegas hit a long fade off the tee into the water on the right of the fairway, proceeded to chunk his approach shot into the rough short of the hole and make double. He recovered nicely on the 4th hole, hitting a very long tee shot within easy sand wedge distance, but his sand wedge was long and ended up in the rough just over the green. I was a bit concerned that Camilo wasn’t playing particularly well this day, and indeed, he didn’t make the cut.

I headed back to the 18th hole pavillion to get some lunch, watching a few groups along the way. I saw Charles Howell III make a fine approach shot to about 25 ft on the 3rd hole and then knock it in for birdie. There were some other very nice putts on that hole as well, but don’t remember the players.

I grabbed some lunch and watched players coming home on the 18th at TPC, before I had to head out to run some errands with my wife.

The day was fine, the golf was good, and fun was had by all.

Today, I played in a 4-man scramble at Fire Wheel Golf in Garland, TX, on the Lakes Course. Our team shot a one under par 71 (33 on the front and 38 on the back) from the white tees. We had a great time and want to thank the Fire Wheel Golf staff and AMX for hosting the event. Great fun was had by all.

The weather was heavily overcast all day and we got some rain while on the trailing holes of the back nine. We went off the 3rd hole with a shotgun start. Fortunately for our team, we had players who can drive the ball, some that could putt well, and me. My main contribution to the team’s efforts were some good drives on the 9th (3-metal just in front of the creek), 10th and 11th holes, and a perfect 10-iron to 2 ft on one of the par-4 holes. I also had some good approach shots with my new 3i HALO club. None of my putts went in for birdie, although my teammates hit 30 and 25 ft putts for birdie and several long putts for par. The only negative was the slow pace of play, but that was largely due to the large field (most holes had two groups of 4 on them at the start, a definite problem if the hole is a par-3).

Most of the day, I was first off the tee, so I felt free to let it rip. I had two long, high fades trickle into the water, and one duck hook into a creek, but otherwise had a good day off the tee. My tee shots on the par-3 holes were mixed, hit two in regulation, but other players were closer. My approach shots were mixed; hit a few nice shots with my new 3i HALO hybrid, though tended to push them a bit right. Also hit some good layups on par-5s. My best shot of the day was a 10-iron from 105 yds two feet from the pin on a par-4 hole (can’t remember which). I also flew the green on a few holes; my distances are now longer than they used to be due to private lessons at Golden Bear Golf Center. Putting wasn’t very good; as usual, tended to leave them short; my putting counted on only 1 hole, which was for par. Wedge play was mixed, didn’t hit any close enough to the holes for any to count. No shots out of the sand today.

On Wednesday after work, and today after work, I spent the majority of my time on tempo training, and also on putting. I’m using the book and CD called Tour Tempo, converted to MP3 and placed on my iPod mini. Wednesday’s work with Tour Tempo at 27/9 was a bit shaky, but improved today. Much work remains to be done, but I can see improvement in tempo and a bit longer in distance as well.

On Wednesday, most of the tempo training was with the shorter irons, and I made some progress with better tempo on my full swing. Today, I hit the 8-, 6- and 4-irons; I saw good improvement with consistency with the 8-iron, somewhat better with the 6-iron, and not much improvement with the 4-iron.

Today, I also did my pin-hunting drill. Started out poorly, then got some good shots in. I never got the driver to cooperate today, though.

My mid and short iron are still going well, but the longer clubs still lack consistency. Today, most of my misses were hooks. I guess that’s an improvement over a slice… I’ve spent some time practicing putting, and still tend to leave the ball short of the hole, but my distance control is getting better. My putts are starting to miss on the “pro” side of the hole, so I think my reads are getting better.

Tomorrow, I’m playing a 4-man scramble at Fire Wheel Golf in Garland, TX, on the Lakes Course. Should be fun!

Today, Dad and I went off first at Castle Hills, bright and early into beautiful sunny weather with a breeze from the south. And, even though we let our two playing partners (much better golfers) go on ahead, we still finished up the round in a quick 3 hours and 20 minutes.

My score:

* Hit green in regulation.

Themes:

• Tee shots. My tee shots were good on the front nine (6 of 7 fairways) and poor on the back nine (2 of 7), and I didn’t hit a single par 3 in regulation today. I had one penalty shot off the tee on the 18th hole, pushed way right and had to take an unplayable, and another on the 10th, hooked into the weeds and lost.
• Approach shots. Surprisingly, my long irons were pretty good today. The real surprise was my 7-iron, which cost me two penalties on the 9th hole, and had three chunked 7-irons that went nowhere. Yeech. Otherwise, I was pretty good, having an excellent 3-iron from 200 yds that stopped just over the green on the fringe on the 15th hole, and a perfect 5-iron from 165 yds on the 14th hole, my only green in regulation all day. I also had a good 5-iron that just trickled over the green on the 2nd hole.
• Wedges. Mixed results with the wedges. Left a couple of sand wedge shots short due to the wind, but short wedges were pretty good, but none close enough to single putt.
• Chipping. Chipping wasn’t good today, tended to blade the ball long.
• Putting. Not a good day putting, had only single hole where I holed the first putt (on the fifth hole), but only one 3-putt.
• Bunker. I had an up-and-down for par on the 5th hole out of the bunker on the right side of the green, but had a terrible time getting out of the bunker on the 16th. I did have an excellent 5-iron shot out of the left fairway bunker on the 17th hole.

A fun three days of golf, even though I didn’t break 100 on any of those days.