A Dawn Practice
I got up before the sun this morning and practiced at The Practice Tee in Plano. When I arrived, I found that the facility had switched back to winter hours and didn’t open until 8AM. No problem, I spent the time putting and chipping until the ball machine was opened just before 8. I had a pretty good putting drill, running the speed drill over and over. I seem to be improving. I also spent a few minutes hitting short chips with the pitching wedge and seemed to have pretty good touch chipping.
After the ball machine was activated, I warmed up hitting short sand wedge shots, working on tempo and feel. I hit the ball pretty good to start and then had difficulty hitting the ball fat. Really fat. Digging to China fat. 😥
I then moved to hitting the 7-iron. At first, I chunked a few. Then I hooked a few. I played around with my stance, my grip, my posture, and never really felt comfortable over the ball. Finally, disgusted, I teed up a ball high and did the slot drill with a 6-iron and finally got good, firm contact on the ball, though drawing more than I would like. I then got out the big stick and pounded some balls, and that seemed to help my tempo, though I tended to hook. Then, disaster: I tweaked my lower back and had to stop.
I rested for a while and my back seemed better, so I went and hit some quarter-swing lob wedges, trying to get my feel back. I was still hitting the ball a little fat, though better than before. Finally, I forced my arms to fully extend, and began to hit the ball much better. As my back seemed OK, I got the driver back out and started punching some good ones straight down the middle, straight or with a slight draw.
Not my best practice, but at least it got better toward the end. My back seems fine now, too.