Practice - warm and windy - love it.

[sean_miller]

Hit the practice green on Monday after work. The new putting drills were for tempo, distance control, and feel. It turns out I'm really right hand dominant - so much in fact that I could drain putts right handed that weren't even close left handed and were still relatively bad two-handed. I spent about 20 minutes experimenting with different putting grips - something I'd been debating lately anyway - that would allow me to putt essentially right handed, with the left just for a little stabilization. After figuring one out, a picture of a lady Husker I'd seen on line popped into my head, and this time not because of her splendid gams. Her grip. I added a couple thumbnails below for posterity.


On Tuesday there was a steady breeze - really steady - and the sun was shining. I did a little chipping and hit a few lobs over the practice bunker, then grabbed a bucket of balls. I love hitting balls into a headwind. Nothing like spinning back full 7-irons on a rock hard range green to instill confidence. I worked on trajectory, and hitting the ball straight - poker straight. Full shots with long irons make a person feel like Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson - soaring 3 irons sailing into the distance (albeit not very distant) and 5 woods climbing the ladder as they take off. good times.

Tonight I didn't feel like hitting balls at a mile wide target. I wanted to work on dialing in short wedge distance and putting - time to hit the mini-links. The longest hole is 80 yards and shortest is an uphill 42 yarder with a green that's about 15 on the stimpmeter. Yeesh. I had a pocket full of balls and for $5 played 18 holes of wedge and short breaking putt practice - money well spent. I was working on approaching the putts from behind each ball - putter in the right hand making one handed practice strokes, line up each putt as if I was going to brush it in one-handed, then lightly add my left hand to the grip - much improved. I wasn't firing at pins because of the wind, but still hitting those tiny greens (except for number 6 - Greg Norman couldn't put enough spin on the ball to hold that little dance floor - they might actually hold dances on it after hours). I threw 5 balls way up into the breeze on number 8 (60* wedge) all but one stuck short of the pin - never had more than two on that one. So feeling cocky, (bad karma) the second time around, trying to throw them even higher, I thinned one about 150 yards onto the practice range. Yelled fore (really loudly) but with the wind nobody heard me. People were looking at each other, but luckily that was the only non-matching ball I'd taken - hey that Callaway's not mine - using Wilsons over here.

Because of that belief in karma, I won't say with any conviction that tonight's putting stroke and wedge play, added to last Sunday's ball striking will put me in the low 70's for sure. That would be spectacularly naive and jinxworthy. But . . . combine two out of three, and it's gonna be a good day!

[enis750]

I always love reading your blogs - keep up the good write up's
i am going to head to the par 3 course as well today and work on the short game
it wont be busy at 1pm there, so i will have some time to chuck down a few balls and see what i can do

Par 3's have been my struggle as of late, so maybe this will help instill some confidence in my short game and get some feel back too
have some new wedges coming next week too, cant wait to bag the Cally's again

weekend is looking bleak for golf
11º and windy and rainy
might be a good weekend to hang out and watch golf

[sean_miller]

Thanks man.

I actually like practicing and having little competitions, even if they're only against myself trying to pull off some goofy shots. I'm going to work on grinding out more putts on the practice green and see if that becomes a habit. If I want to lower the index, I need to make more putts. Plain and simple.