Joey's Golf Bag

Over the last couple of days, I built a Tom Wishon Golf Technology 870Ti 6-iron for use in fitting me for a graphite shaft. I’ve been plagued by a shoulder injury for the last few months and also suffer from tendonitis in my right elbow. I decided for my next set of irons will use graphite shafts, but as I’m not clear on which shaft is right for me, I made the demo iron with a Club Conex Faz-Fit shaft adapter installed. This will allow me to try several different graphite shafts with the 870Ti clubhead. The Faz-Fit adapter allows changing shafts in just a few seconds.

I selected seven different shafts from Tom Wishon and UST. These are:

• TW ZT Series Iron Shaft, stiff flex.
• TW InterFlexx High Launch and Mid Launch Iron Shafts, stiff flex
• TW TourFlight-EXP 85 Iron Shafts, both regular and stiff flex
• UST Proforce V2 Iron Shaft, stiff flex
• UST Proforce Rv2 Golf 75 Iron Shaft, stiff flex

I installed the Faz-Fit adapter into the 870Ti 6-iron and allowed it to cure overnight. I’d ordered the clubhead bent to 30° loft and 63.5° lie.

I tipped each shaft per manufacturer’s recommendation with an extra 1.25″ to accommodate the Faz-Fit shaft adapter. I then installed the Faz-Fit shaft adapter on each shaft and cut the shaft to length to give a finished club length of 38.25″. I swingweighted each shaft so that each shaft would provide a swingweight of D-5. Next, I installed a TWGT V-Series oversize grip on each club with my customary 3-wrap to make the grip just a bit more oversize.

I plan to start my shaft evaluation tomorrow, weather permitting. Dallas has had a series of violent thunderstorms pass through the last few days.

Photos:

This morning, I played a two-man best ball tournament in the Grapevine Golf Association at the Grapevine Golf Club. We had a scheduled tee time of 9:33AM, but the first tee was backed up and we didn’t get off until about 10AM and finished up about 4-1/2 hours later. The weather was warm and breezy, with about a 2-club wind throughout the day. My 2-ball partner didn’t show up, so I’ll be assigned a random partner out of the mix. We played Mockingbird, followed by Pecan from the blue tees. The course was in very good condition, firm and fast, greens were not as fast as they were during the winter.

My score:

* Hit green in regulation.

Themes:

• Off the tee. I hit seven fairways and one-par 3 hole in regulation. That sounds pretty good, but that’s deceiving, as I had a stretch of four holes on Mockingbird where I had a penalty off the tee on each of the holes. Once I gave up on hitting the driver, I did much better, hitting the 5-wood on most holes.
• Approach shots. I hit only two greens in regulation, so pretty darn poor. I left a lot of shots short due to the wind, and fought a hook on many holes.
• Wedges. I did pretty well with short wedge and pitch shots. I can only remember one or two bad shots, the rest were pretty solid. I got up and down 4 times on the day, though not always for par.
• Chipping. My chipping was pretty good, my best chip being on the 5th hole of Mockingbird, where I hit a chip from about 10 yds off the green to tap-in distance.
• Sand shots. I hit into four greenside bunkers (no fairway bunkers) and got out cleanly three times. I got up and down once out of the sand.
• Putting. My putting was not good today, as I had four 3-putts and failed to take advantage of good chips and pitches. I only hit one putt longer than 3 ft all day. I had a total of 36 putts.

My best hole of the day was the par-5 5th hole on Mockingbird. I hit a draw with the 5-wood just around the corner of the dogleg left, then hit a worm-burner 3-wood about 10 yds short of the green. I hit a really nice chip to 3 ft and made the putt for birdie.

While I didn’t play particularly well today, I was happy that I was able to overcome muscle spasms in my back and play pretty well. Today was my best tournament score, and with luck I will get a net-skin on the 5th hole (a two-pop hole for me, net double-eagle). I also had my first tournament sand save on the 9th hole of Mockingbird, though it was for bogey.

Update: I won a skin on the 5th hole on Mockingbird! My team didn’t place, and I was 5 shots out of the money (top 3) on gross and 6 shots out of the money net.

Tiger and Phil put on a good show, but faded at the end, well out of the playoff at -12.

My odds before the start of the Masters and final scores:

• Tiger Woods (1-3): T6 at -8
• Phil Mickelson (1-8): 5th at -9
• Padraig Harrington (1-10): T35 at E
• Trevor Immelman (1-25): T20 at -2
• Greg Norman (1-100): CUT at +3
• Teenagers (1-200): Danny Lee CUT at +11, Ryo Ishikawa CUT at +6, Rory McIlroy T20 at -2
• Field (3-1 more or less): Angel Cabrera, Kenny Perry, Chad Campbell finished at -12; Angel won on second playoff hole.

Can Tiger come from 7 back to win? Not likely, but you never know, he is Tiger, the maker of golf history. He’s paired with Phil Mickelson, so maybe the two of them one-up the other into victory. Todd Hamilton, the unlikely British Open winner, is lurking at -6, Steve Stricker at -7, Jim Furyk at -8 and Chad Campbell at -9.

My odds before the start of the Masters and current standings:

• Tiger Woods (1-3): T10 at -4
• Phil Mickelson (1-8): T10 at -4
• Padraig Harrington (1-10): T25 at -1
• Trevor Immelman (1-25): T37 at +1
• Greg Norman (1-100): CUT at +3
• Teenagers (1-200): Danny Lee CUT at +11, Ryo Ishikawa CUT at +6, Rory McIlroy T32 at E
• Field (3-1 more or less): Angel Cabrera and Kenny Perry T1 at -11

This morning, on a sunny, breezy, cool day, I had my second lesson with Jeff Kennedy at Coyote Ridge Golf Club. I warmed up on the range, this time on the grass instead of the mats. While I warmed up, Jeff came over and had me work on my mid-length pitches. He noticed that I was still tending to decelerate when I took the club back too far on the pitch. We worked on that for several minutes and also on my trajectory. I got better the more shots I hit.

Next, I got out my 7-iron and we worked on fundamentals such as moving the ball a little forward from center and making sure I didn’t straighten my right leg on the backswing. We also worked a lot on keeping from sliding during the downswing. I was striking the ball pretty respectably, so we moved on to the 5-iron. We continued to work on the same fundamentals, and also worked on getting my trajectory down some. After some good shots with the 5-iron, we got out the 3-wood (Thriver) and hit some balls off the deck. I was tending to fade the ball but getting good trajectory and occasionally, good distance. He then had me work on my posture, getting some of the roundness out of my back. We then finished up with the driver, and I was pleased to see the ball go straight where I was aiming. Unfortunately, I was misaligned, but we soon had that straightened out as well.

I was very pleased with my lesson.

After a short break for lunch, John and I hit the course, playing from the blue tees with some older gentlemen who were playing from the whites. For whatever reason, the blue tees were, for the most part, on the same tee as the black tees, and the course was playing much longer than I’d ever played it before. Between the longer length, the wind, and too, too many swing thoughts from the lesson, my round was a mess, shooting 105.

I still beat John, though.

Story lines:

• Tiger Woods (1-3): T19 at -2
• Phil Mickelson (1-8): T11 at -3
• Padraig Harrington (1-10): T19 at -2
• Trevor Immelman (1-25): T42 at +1
• Greg Norman (1-100): CUT at +3
• Teenagers (1-200): Danny Lee CUT at +11, Ryo Ishikawa CUT at +6, Rory McIlroy T42 at +1
• Field (3-1 more or less): Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry T1 at -9

Story lines:

• Tiger Woods (1-3): T21 at -2
• Phil Mickelson (1-8): T51 at +1
• Padraig Harrington (1-10): T14 at -3
• Trevor Immelman (1-25): T28 at -1
• Greg Norman (1-100): T21 at -2
• Teenagers (1-200): Danny Lee T70 at +2, Ryo Ishikawa T51 at +1, Rory McIlroy T39 at E
• Field (3-1 more or less): Chad Campbell 1st at -7

My pick is Tiger Woods (duh!).

My odds:

• Tiger Woods (1-3): Tiger’s first major since knee surgery and first tournament since Bay Hill win.
• Phil Mickelson (1-8): Missed cut at Houston but has won twice this year. I would have given him same odds as Tiger if he hadn’t played so poorly in Houston.
• Padraig Harrington (1-10): Paddy Slam; can he make it three majors in a row?
• Trevor Immelman (1-25): Can he repeat?
• Greg Norman (1-100): Back in Masters after incredible showing in British Open.
• Danny Lee, Ryo Ishikawa, Rory McIlroy (1-200): Teenagers at Augusta.
• Field (3-1 more or less): Someone else not mentioned.

I had planned to have a golf lesson today with Jeff Kennedy at Coyote Ridge, but the very brisk spring winds ruined that possibility. Wind also caused the suspension of play at the Shell Houston Open.