Yesterday, I practiced at the Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville, on a fine, sunny, breezy afternoon. I found a spot on the range with a slight uphill lie and warmed up with the 7-iron. I spent the first third of the large bucket of balls alternating the 9-, 7-, 5- and 4-irons, working on getting a good impact position with good lag. I was striking the ball pretty well on this day, hitting even the 4-iron well. Next, I got out the long clubs and alternated the 4-hybrid, 7-wood and 4-wood, along with the 4-iron. I was very pleased; all of the clubs were generally well-struck, though the 4-wood remained a bit twitchy. The driver was an entirely different story; I either hit monster slices or duck hooks. Yeech! I used up the last third of the balls hitting pitches at a basket set in front of the pond, alternating approach wedge, sand wedge and lob wedge. My direction control was pretty respectable, but my distance control was definitely lacking.
This morning, I went to the Golden Bear Golf Center. The weather was heavily overcast, with a very strong wind directly in my face. I started out in the bunker, running the sand drill with the sand wedge with half swings. I then got out the approach wedge and practiced the sand drill while chipping. My final drill was 3/4 swings with the 7-iron. In general, I was pretty happy with the drill. I then hit a couple of balls out of the bunker. All got out, though distances were a bit long.
Next, I practiced chipping with the approach wedge and with the lob wedge. It took a few swings to get good impact, then I had a good chipping practice. I then went to the range to hit balls.
By now, the wind was really howling, somewhere around 30 mph, so strong I had to put my cap in the bag, because it kept getting blown off. I warmed up with the 7-iron. My first swing was very fat, and that threw up a bunch of sand, covering me from head to toe with sand. I got it together on the next few swings, and then alternated through the irons, even getting good lag with the 4-iron. For the first third of the bucket of balls, this was one of my better ball-striking days. I then moved on to the longer clubs, hitting balls with the 4-hybrid and 7-wood. I’d also brought along the 525FD 3-wood to give it a try. I started out hitting the ball very well with the long clubs, but soon my lag vanished and I started hitting low hooks. I got the irons back out to re-establish my lag, but it was hard going for a while before I got my lag back. I finished up the bucket with some pretty good 4-hybrid and 8-irons shots. Due to the howling wind, I didn’t make my usual visit to the putting green; it would have a been a pretty futile exercise.
My swing continues to improve, slowly. I’m now at the point where I get pretty good lag even down to the 7-wood, and I’m even able to hit the 4-iron pretty respectably. I’d say about 20-30% of my swings now have good lag, up from just a couple of swings per practice session only two months ago. I’m also able to get back to a good swing after some bad ones, which I’d previously had trouble doing. Now, if I can just get my swing reliable on the driver and 4-wood, I’d be a pretty good golfer.
