A short practice
This afternoon, on a warm, fabulously beautiful day, I practiced at the Golden Bear Golf Center. I started off with my new Tom Wishon CLF-1 putter on the putting green. I started off hitting 4 foot putts, trying to make 10 in a row, but gave it up after about 20 tries to get more than 4 to roll in. The greens are still dormant, and I picked a hole that was pretty difficult to roll the ball consistently. I finally gave that up and ran speed drills. My speed was pretty good today, though I didn’t roll in a lot of putts, due to the inconsistent putting surface. Next, I lag putted from 30 ft, inconsistent at first, then nailing the last putt in the center of the hole.
After putting, I went to the short game area and ran the sand drill, first with the approach wedge using a chipping stroke, followed by half swings with the lob wedge. I then lined up a bunch of balls and practiced hitting them out. I was pretty good at first, then went through a stretch were I barely got them out, and then hit one or two close to the target hole. Not my best, but it’s been a week since I was last able to practice, due to very long hours at work.
Next, I went to the range to hit some balls. I got a medium bucket and ran through my usual warmup drill. I wasn’t striking the ball particularly well today, so I got out the iPod, turned on Tour Tempo at 27/9 and hit a bunch of balls. That helped, but I was pulling a lot of balls well left of my target. I was never really happy with my ball-striking today.
Not my best practice, but it was good to have excellent weather and time to practice. Tomorrow, I plan to play nine at North Texas Golf and see how my short irons are working.