Long is better
Tonight, I went to Golden Bear Golf Center to practice. The weather was surprisingly cool tonight, with a soft breeze from the north. As usual, I warmed up with 7-irons, adding 9- and 5-irons as I warmed up. I started off hitting the ball cleanly, but short, but once I warmed up my distances were longer than usual, aided by the wind behind me. I spent the first third of the balls hitting pitching wedge, 9-, 7- and 5-irons, and hitting them all pretty well. Few hooks; the main issue tonight was pulling the ball a little.
Next up were the longer clubs. I alternated the driver, 3-metal and hybrid. I struck the hybrid very well tonight, hitting it as long, and higher, than the 3-metal. I’m finally starting to hit the 3-metal pretty well; my main issue is getting the ball in the air enough with the 3-metal. The driver I hit pretty well tonight, very few hooks, mostly straight with an occasional high slice thrown in. If anything, the longer clubs main fault was pushes. Mostly the ball ended up in the fairway. This was the best long club practice I’ve had since I was injured in early July.
I spent a few balls on wedge practice, practicing hitting all four wedges to the red flag. With the pitching wedge, that’s about a 25-35% swing, a 50-60% swing with the sand wedge, a 75-85% swing with the lob wedge, and not really getting to the flag with the 64 degree wedge; not really an issue as the flag was about 80 yds away tonight, and my carry distance with that club is about 60 yds.
My next drill was the pin-hunting drill, which started out poorly, chunking a few short and mid-irons. I cleaned it up, though, striking the ball pretty well to finish up the drill.
I had a few balls left, so I hit the driver, 3-metal and hybrid until I ran out of balls and time. I hit the driver and hybrid well, the 3-metal was straight but low ball flight.
This was one of my best practices in quite a while; I was very pleased as I’m seeing definite progress again. I’ll soon feel good enough to get out my new driver, 3- and 5-metal Toski clubs I built a few weeks ago that I think will improve my distance and accuracy.