First round back... ouch

Well, after 6 months of injury, I hit the course again for the first time on Friday. Well, range warmup was good, felt good walking to the first tee at Oak Trail. Hit my first drive, popped it up pretty high, and landed in the right rough under some trees.

Took out a 6, and hit a nice punch, but it happened to balloon and hit a tree, so I was playing three from the middle of the fairway, about 55 yards out. Ok, so not too bad still. Hit it too short, chipped up, two putt... Double.

Ok, first hole, right? Second hole, smoked an 8 iron on a par 3. Hooked it good though, and it landed right up against a tree, had no backswing. Punched down onto it, got it to the bunker. Hit the bunker shot too flush, over the green, chipped up, ouch.

But the round wasn't over. I hit some absolutely amazing shots, but had no feel around the greens, and no feel with the putter. Hit it stiff on 9 (a par 3), and had a testy downhill putt, 3 putted, and walked off with a bogey. Damn! I shot 51 on 9 holes. I figured it was nerves, first day back.

Next day, Buena Vista. Even worse, swing was totally gone, ballstriking wasn't even close to there. Made maybe two pars, and shot... get ready... 110. I never thought I'd shoot over 100 again, but it happened. Now I'm wondering what the hell to do. I've never been so frustrated on a golf course. Even good shots were followed by bad ones. I flat out duffed a tee shot, and half topped an iron shot.

What can I do to get back into form? It's clear I've lost something on the course, but the range is still fine. What do I do now, how do I come back?

When the snow goes away my first range session is putter and 9I. I don't even take the bag with me. It will come back to you, give it time. I see you are in FL...well, us northern folk have to deal with a 4-5 month layoff every year

Are you guarding against any pain from your injury? Consciously or unconsciously?

Rough day. It will come back?lol I remember seeing the vids of your swing and it really requires a lot of skill and timing to pull off, so it would only be unnatural to go out after a long layoff and shoot about your handicap.

Did you have fun?

If you are hitting the ball well at the range, keep playing. I'd recommend finding a par 3 course near your house and play it regularly. Might take longer to get your feel and mind/mental game in shape. Sounds like you are striking the ball ok, but are having difficulty with feel (short game + putts) and course management.

For what it's worth, my swing is quite a bit different now.



I eliminated a lot of the straightening up during the swing, and now I stay closer to my inclination through the whole swing. That made a huge difference. The other thing I did was to really increase the forward shaft lean at impact with the flying wedge drill. Ballstriking has never been better in many ways. I will go to the range and hit a dozen 3 irons more or less solidly, and within a reasonable dispersion. Once I got back to the course, nerves set in, and I started hitting shots I haven't hit in a long time. That will certainly go away.

Here's the thing I did, and it was stupid, that's for sure. Two days before the round, I went to the range, and it was on the uphill part, I mean, really really uphill. I hit about 100 balls, and whenever I practice there, my swing gets really steep, so I have to work it back down again. I showed up at the course, and I'm hitting a straight cut as opposed to my normal push draw. The swing plane was steep. When I tried a few really inside out swings on the 18th hole the last day, I hit the first good shot of the weekend.

I'm not really worried about ballstriking, just how bad my decisions and my putting have gotten. For what it's worth, I played Fantasia Fairways, the world's hardest mini golf course twice after that, and shot 69-62 (par 72). My putting had been bad the first day at Fantasia still, but on day 2, it came back, and I didn't even feel like I putted well, but carded a -10.