New Best Nine (By 5 Strokes!)

[Travtex]

I've been doing some pretty dedicated swing work the past month or so -- Whenever I've gotten the chance.  The weather has been completely ridiculous between tornadoes, hail, double-digit inches of rain, etc.

Paid off in a HUGE way today as I improved my previous best 9-hole score from +14 to +9.

Now I'll couch that by saying that score is padded by a couple of strokes by what happened on the first hole.  Duffed my tee shot on a par three.  I'm sitting in the rough about fifty yards from the green.  Pitch.  'Hey, that looks pretty good'.  And it went in.  Great way to start a round, despite the -waaaay- too early adrenaline boost.

The Good:  Irons.  They were going more or less where I intended them to be going.  This is a new experience for me.  Considering that includes some fairly recent and fairly drastic swing changes, I'm optimistic.  (Getting my hands MUCH lower -- Think Zach Johnson kinda low -- Swinging much looser, slower, more whippy acceleration through the impact zone.)

Good escape from an intimidating bunker.  My first thought was a counterproductive -- No way in hell I'm getting out of there.  Basically, the lip of the bunker was -right- in front of me at about chest/shoulder level.  Ugly.  Ball landed -right- at the top ledge and rolled onto the green.

Only hit two greens, but I did hit three more fringes and the chipping/pitching game was -on-.

The Bad:  Tee Shot Stupidity.  As usual, I was hitting three off the tee -- Only twice this time around, which is actually a huge improvement.

Putting.  Lipped out THREE short putts.  Three putted four or five times.  The putter was just all sorts of awful.

[Gerald]

So ...... now you are going to put in the same dedication in putting for the next month orso.

Maybe it helps when you face let's say a 20 ft. putt to think of a 3 ft. circle around the hole AND just hit the first putt in that circle ........ I can imagine you now think : anyone can hit it from there into the 3 ft. circle !!!!

Yes you can !

The very best way to avoid 3 putts = hitting the first putt close, yessssss we all know, but putting to a 3 ft. circle around the hole, makes this a lot easier !!!!