Overcoming Winter's Bad Habits and Rusty Swing!

[Spyder]

In a previous thread, I posted about some of the putting woes that I am having ( http://thesandtrap.com/t/65952/putting-nightmares ).

2 days ago (Saturday), I made a trip out to Golf Galaxy and cut my Odyssey Crimson 660 blade down from 35" to 34". In addition to this, I decided to go with a bigger grip and I settled on the WINN AVS Jumbo Putter Grip ( http://www.golfgalaxy.com/winn-avs-jumbo-putter-grip---greyredstone/w12winnjumgryred/product ).

I went out and played 18 yesterday and I can honestly say that so far it has paid off very, very well. Of course, one round does not mean anything at this point. It could have been a fluke being this early into the season, it could have been that feeling of having something new where you play extremely well the first time out only to follow that performance up with a pile of suck also!

I had 3x 1 putts, which was mostly a result of my chipping game being spot-on as none of them 3 were over 5'. I also had 14x 2 putts as well and 1 chip-in. Though I know that 3-putts will be on my future score cards, it felt really nice to avoid them for the first time in years.

As of right now, I'll stick to thinking it was simply a hardware issue and that I resolved it accordingly.

One other major break-through that I had is that I have now only played 2 full rounds of golf so far this year. My entire first round and mid-way through this last round, I was "pulling" the ball with my driver really bad. The snap hooks and dead-left off the tee shots were killing me and I could not straighten myself out. After taking a long look at my driver in disgust, I noticed it was still on the 'Closed' setting from last year. My playing partner suggested that I open it up to Neutral and suggested that I am obviously no longer in need of a 'Closed' setting after addressing my grip issue over the winter.

Unfortunately, it took me 25 holes of golf to realize that I needed to set my driver to Neutral. Once I did this, I was actually shaping and getting a desired ball flight/path and hitting fairways again (or right next to them).

So far I am really, really impressed with my rapid progression from having limited practice/play during the last 6 months. I just hope that it lasts for at least a few more rounds before it takes the inevitable plunge back to Shanky Suckville like it does every year to the majority of us, out of nowhere.

[RayG]

Congrats... too bad you effectively lost every hole after you changed settings mid round.... ;-)

[Spyder]

Originally Posted by RayG

Congrats... too bad you effectively lost every hole after you changed settings mid round....

There's no such thing as losing a hole in practice.