The Clouds Part, and the Sun Shines Through
This afternoon, the clouds over Texas finally parted and I was able to go over to the Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville and hit a few balls. The range was almost completely full, an unusual event even on nice Sunday afternoons. The day was cool at first, but the sun warmed everything up. There was about a one club wind from the west.
I bought a large bucket and went to the short game area, planning to run the sand drill. However, the sand was still very wet from four days of rain, so that was out. Instead, I hit about 40 balls at the floating green. My first three balls with a sand wedge were perfectly struck and landed easily on the floating green, with a nice backspin bounce. I moved back a bit and missed a few, mostly long. I hit the floating green on about 25% of the shots, even from pretty long range with the approach wedge. I tried a variety of shots with all my wedges, including a few cut lobs. I was pretty happy with the wedge practice.
Next, I practiced medium and long chips with both the sand wedge and lob wedge. My sand wedge chips from pretty long range were really nicely struck; of about 10 balls, the farthest from the hole was about 6 feet, and half were inside 3 feet. My lob wedge chips weren’t quite as good, but I rarely use that club for chipping.
Next, I went to the range and warmed by hitting a few 7-irons, then working my way through the longer clubs. My long clubs were very poor, so I went back and ran the L- and Y-drills from Tour Tempo (though without the iPod). I started striking the ball pretty well, but I never did get the long clubs to co-operate. I hit a lot of 1/2 and 3/4 swings with the short irons, trying to get consistent ball flight and to get my pull straightened out. By the end of the bucket, I was pretty pleased with my full wedge shots and irons through the 6-iron. The 5-iron and hybrid never behaved.
I’d planned to do some putting practice, but the green was very wet from the rain, so I decided to skip that today. Aside from lousy long clubs, I was pretty happy with my practice. I’ve been unable to practice due to a full schedule and bad weather, but I’m off this week and plan a full schedule of golf, golf, and maybe more golf.