Joey's Golf Bag

This morning, I practiced and played nine at the North Texas Golf Center. The day was warm and heavily clouded with a breeze from the south.

I bought a medium bucket and proceeded to hit short wedge shots at the sand flags at the end of the range. My distance control was poor, due mostly to lack of practice, but direction was good without any tendencies. Next, I went to the range and practiced my Jim Flick reverse pivot correction drill using the 8-iron. Again, I had a lot of difficulty with reverse pivot; whenever I let my guard down, it reappears. I then hit short iron shots at the left white flag, tending to hit pushes. Distances were normal today.

Next, I got out the driver and worked on hitting drives at the right yellow flag, about 230 yds away. I hit a lot of pushes with the driver, but had little sidespin on most shots. I also hit a few shots with the 5-wood and hybrid, but didn’t hit these clubs well today.

I then spent some time figuring out distances with my wedges, and have found I hit the 52° gap wedge about 95 yd carry, and the 56° sand wedge about 85 yds. That’s pretty consistent with my Callaway wedges that have different lofts of 49° and 54°. I then worked on hitting low punch shots with the pitching wedge and 8-iron. With the final balls, I went through the bag trying to hit a good shot with each club, and succeeded, with the exception of the hybrid and the 4-iron.

I visited the putting green for a few minutes, working on speed. The putting green was very slow and I had some difficulty getting the speed up on my putts. I don’t really like putting on slow greens and the green was very slow today.

My score:

* Hit green in regulation.

Hole by hole:

• First hole. Hit a worm burner 9-iron well short of the green. Attempted a gap wedge chip, but hit it thin and 45 ft short of the hole, below the ridge that runs across the green. Hit my putt 12 ft long, missed the return putt and tapped in for double.
• Second hole. Pushed a 9-iron well right of the hole pin-high. Chipped with pitching wedge to 15 ft, missed the putt and tapped in for bogey.
• Third hole. Hooked a 9-iron (that reverse pivot came back) pin-high left of the bunker. Had a difficult down-hill lie, hit a lob wedge pitch 20 ft from the hole, missed the par putt and tapped in for bogey.
• Fourth hole. Pulled a pitching wedge into a grass bunker pin-high, hit a lob wedge chip from an up-hill lie to 12 ft, just missed the par putt and tapped in for bogey.
• Fifth hole. Hit a sand wedge 15 ft over the hole, just missed birdie putt and tapped in for par.
• Sixth hole. Hit a pitching wedge right of the green, chipped with the gap wedge to 20 ft, just missed the par putt and tapped in for bogey.
• Seventh hole. Hit a gap wedge long over the green, chipped with an 8-iron to 20 ft, missed par putt and tapped in for bogey.
• Eighth hole. Hit a sand wedge just right of the green, hit a beautiful chip with the pitching wedge to 6 inches and tapped in for par and my only up-and-down of the day.
• Ninth hole. Attempted to hit an 8-iron punch shot, but pushed it well right onto the 7th hole tee. Hit a lob wedge to 21 ft but left with a putt breaking 4 feet left. Hit the putt too long, leaving a 4 ft breaking putt, which I missed and tapped in for double.

Today wasn’t my best playing, obviously, but I needed to work on my short game, and I got in that work. I plan to spend the rest of the week doing exactly this same sort of practice, with more chipping practice. My putting speed was good except for the first and ninth holes and I was just unlucky that none of my par or birdie putts fell into the hole. Still, I felt a little better about my short game given my pathetic short-game performance in Cancun.