The joys of improving (and using good equipment)

[B-Con]

I played 9 holes this evening. I barely decided to go since I got off work later than anticipated, but I'm very glad I did. This was the first time I played with my new putter, an Odyssey White Hot Tour #9. I love the feel of the putter but had only had a bunch of misc indoor practice and just one outdoor practice session with it. [b]First, the blow-by-blow:[/b] I didn't tee off until 7:30pm. I only had about 7 minutes of warm up, basically hit about 16 full shots and a few chips/pitches. Usually I do at least twice that amount for warm-up, but I was in a hurry. But right off the bat, as I was practicing, my swing felt good. In the past I've had to grind out some terrible shots to find my comfort zone, but today I only hit one unacceptable shot out of the 16. As I've gotten a better feel for a good swing, I've started to feel more comfortable when hitting my first few shots of the day, like I can already feel what I'm supposed to do. Anyway, I played my best golf ever today. I birdied the 2nd, the hardest (1st handicap) hole on the course, a long par 4. I hit the green with a 5i and left myself with a 40 foot putt. I read the slight left-to-right break perfectly and drained the 40 footer. It almost had enough speed to lip out, but it fell. It was my second hole with my new putter and the first time I'd birdied that hole. The 3rd hole my approach went low and caught a branch, kicking right and short of the green. My approach out of thick rough was terrible and left me with another 40 foot putt. (I pace off my putts, so when I say 40 feet I literally mean between 38 and 42 feet.) I somehow drained that one too to save par. I couldn't believe it. The 4th hole I left myself with a badly breaking 8 footer on a green that I never read properly. It's surrounded by water on both sides and the breaks are both strong and a little screwy. I sunk the putt, to my amazement. I went on to miss an 8 footer (right line, left it short) and sink 6 footer and a 3 footer on the next three holes. I then got to the 8th, a par 5. It's a sharp dogleg off the tee but it opens to a wide fairway so it's worth taking a driver off the tee. I hit a perfect gently drawing drive that left me in the middle of the fairway. My 3-hybrid approach was pulled and a little thin, so I ended in a bad lie just off the left of the fairway. The ball was on rock-hard dirt, resting in a little depression caused by a crack, so it was kind of like hitting out of a shallow divot. I pulled my 9i, played the ball a bit back in my stance, and gave it a 4/5 swing, and I made solid contact and stuck the ball on the green. I thought I'd hit it too far, but when I got up to the green I saw my ball 3 feet exactly from the pin. There was moderate right-to-left break, but I made the putt. That marked my first birdie on a par-5 and the first time I've made multiple birdies in the same round, let alone the same 9 holes. I ended up shooting a 40, largely due to poor shots that cost me a double bogey apiece. Both involved chipping too long out of trouble and could have easily been avoided if I'd thought about them a bit longer. A 40 is nice, but I [i]feel[/i] like I shot a 38. [b]Anyway...[/b] I felt like my putter could not miss. I know that some of that was just luck, but even if I missed a few of those putts being that close is better than what I'm used to. For long putts I'm used to having poor feel for the distance and I rarely hit it on-line enough to keep the ball close the hole. I'm also used to sweating 6-8 footers because I know I have problems either due to yips, poor distance control, or flat out poor execution of the stroke. My recent practice of a slightly tweaked, more controlled stroke combined with the feel of the new putter definitely helped today. Don't get me wrong, I maintain that it's the indian, not the arrow, but my new arrow felt so much better and was so much easier to put confidence in. I don't doubt that it's responsible for at least two saved strokes today. And my swing felt good. It feels much more natural and smooth, and really feels different than it did a year ago. I hit the ball about the same distance with my irons, but now with less effort, and I'm hitting my hybrids and driver a little farther. Contact with the ball feels better, and the stopping power of my ball on greens that I hit with my irons shows that I have more backspin. My divots look better. My misses are far more controlled. It feels like I have a comfortable swing. I used to stand over the ball for a while, tense up, and try my best to coordinate everything to hit the ball. Now I stand over it for less time and feel far more confident that I'll hit the ball half-decently even if my swing sucks. I've had an image in my head of what the swing should look like, and I've practiced slow-motion versions of it, but until recently I had a hard time getting my actual swing to resemble it. Now my left wrist is flatter at impact, my right elbow drops in closer to my body, my hips rotate on a steeper plane and keep my butt tucked vack (that one makes a huge difference for me), my hips "slide" left far more comfortable and controlled, my shoulders also rotate on a steeper plane, and I hold my lag longer and release it more controlled. The effect is that I feel more rotary and smooth. Even the sound of my clubs hitting the ball sounds far more sharp. My swing still needs a lot of work, but golf is twice as fun now that it's a lot less of a crap shoot whether my next shot will more resemble a seizure more than a golf swing. My driving distance and accuracy, which used to be a thorn in my side, has evened out. After today, I think I can officially declare that my decent drives (aka, all drives minus the bottom 20%) average out to about 240 yards. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but usually not too far from 240 yards of linear distance. And that's while hitting more fairways and having fairway misses far more controlled. I still hit some bad hooks or pull-hooks, but it's only once or twice a round. I almost never hit OB anymore. And today was an above average day for driving: I hit 5/7 fairways and my two misses were just barely off my line of aim, so I was still happy with them. Anyway, I'm really happy with my results. It seems like every time I play my score is on par with or a little better than it was last time. [b]tl;dr:[/b] New putter, two birdies, new 9-hole low score, swing feels good, golf is fun. :-)