A Blustery Day
This afternoon, after work, I practiced at the Golden Bear Golf Center. The afternoon was warm, but heavily clouded, with a 1 to 2 club breeze in my face.
The short game area is in pretty poor shape now due to dormant bermuda (just been scalped and sanded), but I decided to hit some balls anyway. I started out in the deep grass bunker hitting a few balls nested deep in the dormant bermuda rough. My touch was very poor and I didn’t really chip the ball well out of the grass bunker. I then went into the sand bunker and ran the sand drill using my lob wedge (the sand bunkers are in perfect condition). I hit a few balls out of the sand, poorly at first, but then got my swing grooved and hit a few good ones close to the hole. Next, I practiced pitching with the lob wedge, but never really felt comfortable over the ball and my results were pretty pathetic. I was about to give it up, and then holed one. OK, it went in, but I wasn’t particularly happy with my pitching at all.
There was a huge crowd of junior golfers on the putting green getting some lessons, so I skipped putting and got a large bucket of balls and went to the range. At first, I had difficulty, hitting thin shots, but I soon got my swing working and proceeded to hit shots into the teeth of the wind at the blue-flagged green. Normally, that green would have been a 7-iron, but with the wind, I had to hit a 5-iron. I hit the longer clubs surprisingly well today, hitting the green with about 1 out of 3 shots. Indeed, I was hitting the 5-iron better than the 9-iron today, and about as well as I was hitting the 7-iron.
I spent much of practice time rotating through the irons, even getting out the 4-iron and hitting a couple of good shots with it. I also got out the 4-hybrid and hit some very good shots, but also a number of hooks. I struck the ball pretty well but my direction control was pretty poor. I did get out the driver for a few shots, but put it away as I only was able to hit either high booming slices or low duck hooks. Yeech!
Still, although the driver refused to co-operate, my irons continue to improve. I’m still in a funk with my wedges, though, hitting some good shots, some fat shots and some thin shots. Completely inconsistent, in other words.