Joey's Golf Bag

After work, I went to the Golden Bear Golf Center to hit some balls. The weather was warm, with a strong wind directly in my face. I planned to work exclusively on the mid and long irons today.

I started off hitting the 6-iron, trying to draw but hitting fades. My two main themes today was to make sure I didn’t rush my downswing, and to make sure to swing on the proper inside-to-square path. At first, I was rushing my downswing a bit, which caused the ball to fade. I had some difficulty getting my tempo right, so I went back briefly to hit some 9-iron shots, which helped get my tempo back. After that, I went back to the 6-iron and gradually worked my way down to the 3-iron, returning to the 6-iron whenever I had difficulty. I found that as long as I didn’t rush my downswing, I had pretty good success making the balls fly straight or draw slightly. Too much delay in the downswing caused hooks, rarely, and too quick lead to fades or worse. In general, this was the best day of mid and long iron work I’ve had in a while.

Next up was the new 21-degree hybrid club I built. I set the weights so that there was a neutral setting with two 8-gram weights. I never managed to get a reliable draw, hitting mostly fades or worse. I need to try a draw bias next, and see how that works out.

Next, I hit a few balls with the 3-metal, with poor results. Mostly, I hit skyballs or long fades. I never got the draw working, and never really had any consistency at all.

For the last 20 balls or so, I planned to pin hunt. I did pretty well with the short irons, but had trouble hitting fat with the wedges. I finally figured out that I was (again) rushing my downswing, which caused the fat shots. I did pretty well with the mid and long irons hunting pins, once I made sure to follow the proper inside-to-square path.

I had only a few minutes remaining to putt, and didn’t really get it grooved.

I had a good practice with the irons and struggled a bit with the wedges and woods/hybrids, but a good practice overall.