Learning To Golf - Day of the Driver

[newtogolf]

My new driver sat in the corner of my office for weeks taunting me to take it to the range. The day before I was supposed to play my 2nd round of golf, I decide to add it to the bag. I get to the range and go through the normal routine, buy 80 balls, stretch, warm up and start hitting my irons, 9i, 7i, 5i, 3i. It was a great practice session. I was feeling really confident about my swing, so I grabbed my 3w, teed up a ball and hit a good shot. I repeated that about 10 times when I figured it was a good time to try my new shiny driver.

1st swing - slice, 2nd swing slice, 3rd swing - 200+ yards and straight. 4th - 30th swing - 200+ and fairly straight. I figure I'm good now, and plan to take it with me the next day for my round. I grab my 5i to start my warm down - top it, sliced it, topped it. Swinging the 5i felt completely foreign to me after taking 30 swings with the driver. I was totally out of sync and out of balls. I grabbed another 40 and went back to work, this time grabbing my 9i and working from a 1/2 swing just to get the timing and movement back. Finally after about 25 balls I was back to hitting my irons normal, but it made me nervous that I was playing a round the next day and swinging the driver had messed up my iron swing that bad.

I headed home mad at myself for practicing my driver and messing up my iron swing. I couldn't decide whether I should take the driver or not, and concerned that I'd have problems with my irons again. I cleaned my clubs, got everything ready to go for the next day and went to bed. I barely slept, my mind consumed with the events of the day and fear that tomorrows round would end up a repeat of my first round.

[darkhunter139]

Enjoyed reading your blogs, I am just starting out as well and can relate. On my first trip to the course I shot a 118 through 16 holes. Been back three times since then and last time shot a 104 through 18, still not that great but a lot better. I only used my driver twice last time, had one nice drive so I decided to try it out again on the next hole...sliced it into the woods and had to take a penalty. I still like hitting 10-20 balls at the driving range with my driver even though I know I probably shouldn't be at this point.

How did your second round go? (I guess that post is coming next? lol)

[newtogolf]

Thanks for the comments. I'm doing this just to keep a history for myself, but I'm glad you can relate to it as well. Sounds like we're in the same boat, though you're scoring better. It's helpful to see that with more course time the scores will go lower. I know what you mean about the driver, it's tough to leave it in the bag, but we're both probably better off not using it until we are more consistent with it. At this point my 3w isn't that much shorter than my driver, but I just feel like I should be able to hit it, so I try.