Drive of my life

[Outfoxed]

Today I played in my weekly skins game with the Men's Club. It's always a good time with some competitive golf.

I warmed-up hitting a few balls at the range, keeping in mind this week's swing lesson, Shoulder Rotation/Head Still. This new, compact swing definitely feels good with my irons. As I'm still in the discovery phase with this swing, it's surprising to see how aggressive I can be addressing the ball. However, this swing isn't right for my driver and woods. Every drive or 3W shot had a moderate to severe slice. Ugh.

Since my irons down through putter were sticking landings and playing very straight, my worries with the long sticks stayed quiet. That was until the 13th. It's a medium length par 5 dog-leg right with OB on the entire right side. After donating an entire sleeve of balls to the right, I popped. It was the first time I wanted to put this driver away. Even my partner said that maybe I should put it away for the rest of the round.

The 14th is a short par 3 that my 8 iron laid the ball on about 20 feet short of the pin.

The 15th is a long straight par 4 with a large 75' oak tree in the left fairway. Most people can't reach the tree and the unfortunate many find themselves behind the natural giant. For some reason, I disregarded my partners good advice and pulled my driver out again. As an experiment, I went up to the ball and "wacked" it. And boy, oh boy, did it fly.

Until today, I had only seen a ball fly with that tour trajectory. Today, I made a ball fly that way. I could feel the collective jaw-drop as the ball climbed the invisible escalator and landed well past the oak. A rough estimate (no GPS) is that it was a 280 yd shot.

I had two more opportunities to hit my driver left in the round and I made the best of it. Neither shot was as good as the 15th but both were a good 20-30+ yards further and straighter than normal for my driver.

Oh, yeah, I failed to mention that the greens were 3 days old from their spring airating. Putting felt like being at the beach without the kids or dogs kicking up the sand. All of us playing had to swallow the bullet that 3 putt greens were more real than ever.

It was a roller-coaster of a round.

Today, I shot a 97 (with 40+ putts).

[Golfaway]

I know what you're talking about man. I sometimes have these beautiful drives that penetrate through the air and travel a mile. I just had one a couple of days ago, followed by a 70 yards SW shot that landed a few inches next to the pin. It was an easy putt for birdie. Loved it.