Joey's Golf Bag

Yesterday afternoon was a near-perfect day, temperature in the mid-50s with little wind, so, in between car washes, I practiced at Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville. The weather here in Dallas was especially bad last week, alternating freezing rain with torrential downpours.

I started out hitting pitching wedges to get warmed up. I had problems initially hitting the ball fat, but soon worked it out and proceeded to get out the 8- and 6-irons to alternate shots. I hit the 8-iron pretty well, tending to slightly pull the ball left of target. Next, I got out the longer clubs. I hit the driver pretty respectably, finding the imaginary fairway in about 80% of drives. The other long clubs, the 3- and 5-woods, and the 3-hybrid, were never really hit consistently, tending to hit low hooks. Next up, I got out the wedges and practiced hitting less than full shots with the sand and lob wedges, starting with shorter shots and working my way up to longer ones. I still had some difficulty hitting fat shots, mostly when I tried to get a little more distance, so I’m probably back to rushing the down-swing again. I’ll get the iPod out with Tour Tempo (if the weather ever warms up again) and work on tempo. That always seems to help.

My final drill was to run through the bag hitting all the clubs. I hit them all pretty well except for the 3-hybrid and fairway woods, which were not hit very well. All the iron shots were hit well, and the final driver was a nearly perfect draw right down the middle.

I didn’t have time to putt or chip, so I’ll start with that next time the weather warms up enough to practice.