Joey's Golf Bag

On April 1, I had my latest lesson with Mike Murray at Golf Galaxy. At that time, I felt that we had put in place the last missing pieces that my golf swing needed. That change was quite minor, putting my knees more over my feet at setup. This change stopped my tendency to lunge toward the target and gave me a much more firm, balanced setup. Along with a lot of swings working on making sure my hip rotation was properly done on the downswing, I felt like I now had all the pieces assembled. All I needed was tempo. The following Sunday, while hitting balls on the range at Coyote Ridge, my swing finally fell into place.

Johnnie and I were having a little contest to see who could hit the ball closest to the red flag on the right side of the range. From my position, this was a full pitching wedge shot. Depending on the wind, I would land the ball on the green or leave it just short into the bunker. Since I was having to hit a full shot to get to the target, I decided to just try a soft 9-iron instead of a hard pitching wedge, and suddenly, I’m hitting nearly perfect shots at that flag. One after another, the ball is landing right around the flag, just like magic. Johnnie looked at me while hitting the shots and commented on my smooth swing. I’d found my tempo.

We then went at the blue flag on the top of the hill. On this day, I’d brought along my new TWGT 5-hybrid to try out. With the new tempo, I went right over that flag. I was really liking my swing. I got out my 6-iron, and hit some really nice shots, all of them with a nice high trajectory, just one excellent shot after another. I’m still using that same smooth, soft swing that I’d used with the 9-iron, but I’m hitting the ball farther than usual. What the heck, I thought, let’s try a 7-iron. Suddenly, I’m nailing shots right into that green with a 7-iron, a good club longer than usual. Wow, just wow!

After that, we had a few pitching contests at the chipping green. We both were hitting some pretty decent pitches and some of them were really good. We retired thereafter for beers and conversation in the clubhouse.

The next day, after work, I decided to go hit some balls at Hank Haney. My good tempo from the previous practice was still with me and I had one of the best practices with the irons and wedges that I’ve ever had. However, near the end of practice, my lower back was a little sore, so I finished up by hitting a few pitches at the new targets in the pond. I left happy, ecstatic really, at how well my swing was coming along.

That’s when the agony started.

The next day my back was pretty sore. I thought it was just overuse, so I decided to rest it. That didn’t help. By Friday, the muscle spasms in my back were so bad I could barely get out of bed, and sitting was especially painful. I started back into my stretching and exercise routine that I’ve used before to fix muscle spasms in my back, along with sessions on the TENS machine and pain medication.

Dad came for a visit the following weekend. We usually play golf, but with my sore back, we spent the weekend watching my son play tennis alternating with long sessions in the media room watching Phil win the Masters. No golf was played, but much golf was watched.

By this last weekend, I’d found myself mostly symptom free, though long drives in the car could still induce pain. I’ve not yet gotten back on the range. It’s been more than two weeks since I hit a golf ball, and it may be another week before I feel good enough to hit balls again. I’m missing this month’s GGA tournament on Saturday. This is depressing, since I’m still tied for 6th on the total points leaderboard.

The Golf Gods hate me.