Hi from Central New York!

[2nd Time Around]

Hiya! How's everyone doing?

Got an urge to take the game up again after 14 years away. I played once a week with a few buddies in the Albany, NY area for three years back in the mid to late 90s. Was never any good. Typically 110 - 120 for 18 holes.I never worked on it, hitting the driving range maybe once a week. I was also enamoured with power, though I could never, ever hit my driver straight so I kept it out of my bag and used my 3 wood. That club even presented me with problems, mainly a slice that could be vicous at times. I basically gave up in '98 and sold my TaylorMade clubs.

So I got the urge to get back into golf this May. I bought a cheap set of Top Flight XL+ on ebay. I've taken a different approach this time around. I've put aside the alure of trying to hit the ball a mile and instead I'm concentrating on the basics. All of May I just hit a large bucket at the range 5 or 6 days a week and worked on chipping and putting on the practice green. In June I started mixing in one round of 9 a week and cut my range work back to 4 or 5 days a week. July and August I've been golfing 9 twice a week and hitting the range 3 or 4 days week.

So how am I doing? Well, June through early July was pretty bad. Mid to high 50s and worse, and this is a short course. I play the front nine and it's Par 34. Towards the end of July I was doing better, keeping it much closer to 50. However the last two weeks I'm beginning to see a marked improvement. Laste weekend I shot 50 & 49 and this weekend I shot 51 and 46. Very cool!

The biggest improvement since I last played is my driver and woods. Yesterday I hit 5 of 6 fairways and didn't lose a single ball!!! Three with my driver and the one errant driver shot only strayed about 10 yards onto the adjacent fairway.

The interesting thing is now that I'm not focused on power and distance I'm beginning to hit my driver and woods straighter and farther than I ever did in the past.

[mvmac]

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