A full practice
This morning, on a surprisingly warm day here in Big D, I practiced at the Golden Bear Golf Center. I started out with putting, spending more than 1/2 hour working on putting with the new putting grip and stance from my lesson on Saturday. While my direction wasn’t great today, my speed showed improvement. I’m still having a bit of difficulty with the grip, though, I tend to push putts. I can see improvement, though.
I went to the short game area to work on chipping, wedges and sand shots. Both ends of the area was occupied, so I started out in the bunker, working on Pelz style bunker shots. I was pretty pleased with this practice, only leaving two balls in the bunker and not hitting any thin or over the green.
Next up, I practiced short pitches using the lob wedge. My distance control was pretty good today, but I tended to push most shots. My last drill in the area was chipping, and I went back to using the 8-iron, which I used when I first started to learn golf. My chipping of late has been poor, so I went back to what used to work, and my chipping was good today.
I got a bucket of balls and went to the range to hit full shots. As yesterday, my first set of shots with the pitching wedge were all fat. I got out the iPod, put on Tour Tempo at 27/9 and proceeded to hit full shots with the 9-, 8-, 7- and 6-irons. Still, my dominate miss was to hit the ball fat, and I never really got that fixed all day. I then got out the driver, 5-wood and hybrid and hit some shots. I was pretty erratic all day with the longer clubs, hitting some fine shots and some stinkers.
My final drill of the day was the pin-hunting drill, for which I had low expectations due to my poor ball-striking of this day. Surprisingly, I still managed to hit 9 of 20 shots with a score of 4 or 5, so I redeemed myself a little.
My short game practice was very good, but I was disappointed with my full swing today. After that full practice, I went home and took a nap. 😉