Learning To Golf - Round 2

[newtogolf]

I'm not sure if I'd call it waking up or just getting out of bed since I don't think I slept much that night. It's pretty crazy that a 45 year old man would lose sleep over a practice round of golf, but sadly I did. I had a long drive to my friends course, so I tried to use the time to reinforce key aspects of my swing, and how I'd play the course (since I spent about an hour looking at it on my iPhone the night before). There's be no heroics, lay up when possible and play smart golf.

The day didn't start as I hoped. When we got to the course we found out there was an event scheduled for later in the day and we would have to walk the course. Not a big deal, but it meant that there would be alot more people on the course before we finished and we'd have to skip warmups at the range.

Holes 1-3: A 420 yard Par 4 with narrow fairways, and woods to the left. I did some stretching, made some practice swings and teed the ball up for a cold driver hit, talk about a recipe for disaster, and it was. I hit a big ole slice into the woods, ball was definitely lost, so my buddy told me said to just tee up another. This time I topped it, but it at least went straight about 150 yards. Not a great start for my new shiney driver. The rest of the hole was equally ugly, and I ended up picking up my ball after the 8th swing. Next two holes went the same way, lousy drives followed by lousy fairway play and horrible putting. 3 Par 4 holes, and a score of 24 so far, this isn't going how I hoped.

Holes 4&5: I finally got warmed up and hit some nice shots on these holes. Hole 4 resulted in my first double bogey after I made a 25 foot putt that was alot more luck than skill. The 5th hole was a Par 3 153 yards, and I landed just on the green off my drive (5i). I thought for sure I'd have my first par, but ended up three putting for a bogey.

Holes 6-11: Horrible driving and putting caused me to double par all of these holes. I couldn't control the slice on my driver which I finally realized was because I was overswinging and not following through. I was hitting my irons and hybrid well, but by this point I was so psyched out on my putting I couldn't sink anything. I also had lost concentration during these holes, not sure if it was due to lack of sleep, adrenaline dump or just frustration, but these holes were a blur, I was just going through the motions.

Holes 12-18: I snapped out of my daze, put the driver away for good and decided to try and salvage the day. I obviously was going to have a horrible score, but I wanted to end the day feeling I made some progress. Using my 3 wood and irons off the tee I managed to single or double bogey all but two of the remaining holes. On most I was in position for par, and even a few birdies, but my putting was still horrible. The Corza Ghost would line up great and I was hitting my targets, but I couldn't get a feel for the distance. I was constantly over or under hitting. I realized that practicing on the carpets in my house wasn't the same as being on the greens so definitely need to spend more time on practice greens.

I salvaged the end of the day, but still shot an honest 130 accounting for all penalty strokes and not allowing for any gimme putts. Next time I'll put my driver away sooner if I see I can't hit it, and putting, well you have to putt, so I just need to get better at it. I'm pretty confident that if I either improve my driver or just use my 3w, hybrid and irons off the tee, and sink some putts I can score around 100 on that course. I was actually happy I hit my irons and hybrid so consistently given my last round and problems with real grass.

It's back to the range and practice greens until next round....