Played My First Round in 10 Years

[Voltron1]

And it was brutal.  Walked 9 holes and put up a lovely 56. I did put 4 balls OB (2 off the tee and 2 approach shots) and three putted at least 3 times.  A couple were lipouts, but still..... Really not a great start. 

Only hit the driver once, yet still managed to spray my 5 wood and hybrids. Was pretty muggy and started getting super slow halfway thru the round.  

I guess there's nowhere to go but up.  

[Shindig]

Welcome back to golf and welcome to TST.

As you practice more, your dispersion will improve.  There are also plenty of instructional resources at TST, about both how to practice and help for various issues.  When I joined TST, I'm pretty sure I'd consider 56 for nine holes to be a not-terrible score for me 🙂  

[Voltron1]

Thank you very much.

I know the key is to work on short game amap. 

For me,  I have all the distance in the world,  but my tendency is to still try and jump on it,  and that means long pulls for irons and slice on the driver. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SEMI_Duffer]

Yeah, getting out of the HIT THE BALL! mindset can be tough :)

[Shindig]

1 hour ago, Voltron1 said:

Thank you very much.

I know the key is to work on short game amap. 

For me,  I have all the distance in the world,  but my tendency is to still try and jump on it,  and that means long pulls for irons and slice on the driver. 

Oh... no.  No no no.  Not unless your short game is as bad as mine   Let's talk about this and save you some wasted effort.  I should know, I spent 3-4 years thinking short game was the key.  When I got over that idea, I finally got better. 

Re: your goals in the goals thread, you say (correctly) break 50 by limiting penalty strokes and 3 putts.  And let's combine this with your fourth goal:  smooth shots.  If you have all the distance you need -- and to break 50 for nine holes, you probably do -- then worry about hitting it well.   Oh, and let me point out:  you obviously have the game to break 50 for nine holes.  If we could "cut together" the same round you just played, but without the four OB shots, that's a 48.  Of course, you have to actually do that to get there, but use that to remind yourself you're capable of it.

For short game and putting, develop some competency and you're good for now.  If you face a two foot putt and the next shot is likely to be from the bunker, you probably need to work on putting.  And I'm not saying not to practice putting.  Yes, you want to improve, and you certainly don't want to throw away strokes needlessly, but you're probably a better putter than you think.  Three putting happens.  There's a distance from which a scratch player -- that is, a zero handicap is more likely to three-putt than make the putt.  Without looking it up, estimate what you think that distance is.  I'll tell you in a later post (or you can look it up).  Whenever I three-putt from that distance or further, I remind myself of that statistic and it helps me move on.  Of course, I still want to practice putting an appropriate amount to improve, but right then, I have the next hole to think about.

Similar with chipping and pitching.  When you face one of these shots, get it where your next shot is with the putter.  On the green is great, fringe is fine.  A fun statistic to track is how often you had your putter in hand for your par attempt (include in this count any holes where you make better than par).  The average 95-shooter will have this 10.8 times out of 18 holes.  If you want to break 50 for nine, can you get this 5 or 6 times out of 9?  That will help.

Here are a few threads that might help you.  In each case, the original post in the thread is by a very very good player (all but one is from a professional, one is from a very good amateur with a better-than-zero handicap).  

I check back on that one periodically.  The author also helped me get over my fear of fairway woods almost a decade ago.

A bit of strategy on your approach shots.  Read the first post in the following thread carefully -- and then if you read the rest of the thread, you'll see two patterns.  First, better players are far more likely to agree with the OP, while the worse players don't.   

And lastly, you had a goal of breaking 45 by working on short game.  I want to keep you from spending too much time on that -- it won't help as much as you think it will.  You want a serviceable short game, sure, but if you can usually get the ball from within 50 yards to somewhere you can use the putter for the next shot, that's great for now, and then work on improving both likelihood and proximity. 

But you probably want to spend a lot more time on full swing practice (not just hitting balls).  

 This was a very surprising finding, but there's some very good math behind it and it holds up in practice.  It's also another one where many of us (myself included when I first saw this, probably you too right now) have an objection from the heading, but that's accounted for and explaining in the top post.  

Lastly, towards your goal of breaking 50 for nine holes, the same principles for breaking 100 for 18 holes apply.  Check this post out;  you'll see more evidence that you can do it.

 

I hope I am not inundating you with too much information.  I get very excited when I meet someone new who has goals like yours, because I've seen many come by, state those goals, and then achieve them with some help from their new friends here.  And I find that to be very exciting every time it happens. 🙂   I'm looking forward to seeing your success. 

[Voltron1]

Thanks for the articles. I'll read them when I can. For a little context,  when I was in my 20's my best rd was par for 9 holes, and 80 for that 18. I usually shot in the mid to upper  80's without any real concept of strategy or course management. 

Now I'm in my late 40's,  I've played maybe 8 rds in the last 20 years. Most of these rds were around 100. 

I didn't even spray the ball that bad yesterday off the tee.  But my irons were even worse.  The bar has been set quite low.  LOL 

 

[Shindig]

24 minutes ago, Voltron1 said:

I didn't even spray the ball that bad yesterday off the tee.  But my irons were even worse.  The bar has been set quite low.  LOL 

The bar may be low, but a few range sessions as practice sessions, not just hitting balls (let me know if you want me to expand on what I mean by that) will get that bar up quite a bit.  So will some meaningful practice on the other skills.  And of course, playing a few times will be fun and useful to you. 

And, while the initial start bar may be low, it sounds like the ceiling is high.  

[Voltron1]

Yes, I know I need to focus on specific goals during practice time.  Alignment and tempo will be my focus