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Here's a student many will tell you "lacks flexibility." He thinks it (sometimes, when I haven't seen him in awhile ), other instructors have told him he lacks flexibility, etc. His hips sway right, his torso turns about 75°, and he lifts his arms up to "finish his backswing." It's a bit better in the left photo here because he's been working on this for quite some time now, but even still you can see those trademark things: hips sway back, no secondary tilt, head rises, arms lift, turn isn't great. On the right you can see him doing the wall drill. You set up near a wall. You note how much space you have between your trail hip and the wall, and then you put your arms across your chest and make a backswing while you strive to increase that distance. Make the gap between your trail hip and the wall get bigger. Voilà! Secondary Axis Tilt, hips going forward during the backswing (yes, a bit too much, but this is a drill, exercise, or "feel"), head not going up, more torso turn. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. It's important to note that you don't necessarily actually want all of these to occur during your backswing. This drill reverses a lot of what you do (hips swaying instead of turning, moving too far right instead of staying "centered", reverse axis tilt). It's a great drill for an 18 handicapper who sways and wants to get better now. As always, these are actual swings, not posed shots. 2017-09-15: Edited the title. Originally it was "Lack of Flexibility and the Wall Drill". We teach this to people who DON'T think they lack flexibility, too. Even kids. 2021-11-25: There are some updated thoughts here that I encourage everyone to read.

There are several things which take almost no talent to do correctly, and if you can do them, you can become a better golfer and stay a better golfer. These things should be touchstones of a sort, things you check on constantly, but again which take no (or at least not much) actual skill to achieve. These are things even beginners can do. These lists are off the top of my head. Tier 1: No Real Talent Grip the club properly - in the base of the fingers, with the right number of knuckles showing for your swing. Set up properly - weight over the right part of your feet, arms hanging almost vertically, ball position forward of center. Learn the ball flight laws. You only have to learn them once. Learn that bad shots happen, and don't require a change to what you're doing or attempting to do. Change your grips when they get worn, slick, hard. Get a video camera, alignment sticks, and a few other training aids. You don't have to spend a lot of money here. Use decent clubs. Your muscle back 2-iron is probably not helping you much. Wear sunscreen and sunglasses. Your skin and your eyes are important. Tier 2: Minimal Talent Grip the club firmly while remaining athletically "loose" with the rest of your body. Tension in the wrong places can be a killer. Loose muscles are fast muscles. Learn what "start line" and curve your ball has on any given shot. You'll be miles ahead of the game when it comes to solving problems with your swing for the rest of your life. Practice effectively. It doesn't matter if you practice for 10 minutes or 10 hours a week, if you can practice effectively, you'll squeeze as much out of that time as you can. Nobody practices perfectly, but 90% effective is better than 30% effective. Nobody hits perfect shots when practicing, either, but you can make changes when practicing properly. Learn the Shades of Grey and your Shot Zones. Play quickly. Play without fear - golf is just a game we play. Tier 3: Some Talent Learn to putt with a backswing and downswing that are about the same size. If your ball goes too short and you feel you have to make a huge stroke, just swing it faster, but keep the through and backswing lengths the same. Learn to hit a chip shot with some forward shaft lean and without throwing the trail wrist. I'm amazed at how few people can do this, even if they're just hitting a shot onto a range with no real target, solely trying to "do" this motion. Learn how to make partial swings, particularly with wedges. Learn how to have a "B" swing for days when things are not going well. Develop a ball flight — it's okay if it changes as you continue to improve — and apply the bullet point in the section above to play it. I allotted myself 15 minutes to write this post and come up with what I could come up with, and that's it. Please add your own in the comments below.

As I approached the age of 70, my thoughts turned toward shooting my age. It sort of becomes a race against time and the erosion of one’s golf skills. At age 70, I managed a 1-under par 71. Close but no cigar. Early this year I was standing on the 17th tee when it dawned on me that I was 1-under on a par 72 layout. “Hey, I can shoot my age!!!” Two bogies later I had a 73 and another failed attempt at shooting my age. Today did not seem like the moment I might achieve one of my goals. I had not been playing particularly well of late. Our weather has been great for growing grass, wet and cool. Which also means soft fairways that play longer and healthy rough. I signed up online yesterday evening with an unknown single for the 2nd tee time of the day. I arrived at the course early and putted & chipped while I waited for the other single to arrive. Fortunately, the other half of my twosome was walking also. The twosome in front of us were in a cart and played quickly. Juan was a decent player, and we had a great time talking about golf during our 2 hours and 45 minutes together. Great pace of play? Check! Perfect golf partner? Check! Wonderful weather? Check! Things started going my way immediately. I birdied the 1st hole and eventually made the turn at +1. I butchered #10 with a double bogey but then reeled off 3 straight birdies. On the 403-yard closing hole I got up and down for par and knew I had shot a pretty darn good score for me. It was only after we started to walk to the parking lot that it popped into my head that I might have been close to shooting my age. A quick look at the score card confirmed what I had just thought, 36-35-71 (Par 71 / 6,039 yards / 69.2/115). Woo hoo! Shoot my age? Check! Has achieving this goal transformed me into a great golfer? Nope. I will likely go out tomorrow and shoot my IQ (88). But I can say I have shot my age and no longer need to worry about always coming up a shot or two short of the goal.

I'm having a mental game expert address some of my juniors next Saturday, and I had some additional notes for him. Stuff I wanted him to include that may be particular to my program, the way I teach, my LSW information, etc. And I thought some of you might benefit. So here's that part of the email: 1. Practice is not playing. I'd like them to know that when they're working on their swing, they care what the mechanics are, they care what things "look" like somewhat, they care about making the best MECHANICS or something, to change or improve. But when they're playing, it's all about the results, not what it looks like. Better mechanics eventually lead to better scores, but sometimes you have to find a swing that works THAT DAY. 2. One or two bad shots is not a pattern. If you duck hook it off the first three tees, then yes, you might want to do something different the next time you get a driver out, but don't rush into changing your entire swing thought or game plan after one or two or even three slightly funny shots, or you'll be changing something after EVERY bad swing, which happens more often than people realize. 3. Have realistic expectations. PGA Tour players: make 50% of their 8-footers and only 15% of their 20-footers. On better greens. Average 2.8 shots from 100 yards out in the fairway. They hit it to about 18' on average. Hit about 60% of their fairways, but almost always keep it "between the ropes." Hit three to four "great shots" per round on a great day. Their standard is higher, but still… they don't love every shot they ever hit. They also hit shanks, chunk chips, etc. You only see the leaders on TV. Get up and down only 2/3 times. Scrambling is tough. But they almost never take two chips or two bunker shots. Then of course, talk about how having proper expectations for yourself will be very personal. Expectations can be for one shot or for the score for 18 holes. 4. Have proper expectations and goals for entering tournaments, but enter them BEFORE you're "ready" for them. You might have a better way of saying this, but basically, we entered Natalie in HJGT events before she was anywhere near competitive for them… so that by the time she was competitive in them (now), she'd know what they were like. It's NEVER a bad thing to play as many events where you have to put your name and a number up on a scoreboard for all to see - it can only be BAD if you have unrealistic expectations about your abilities. Go into competitive golf with the proper mindset - that you're LEARNING how to compete, LEARNING how to deal with it all, how to handle the slow pace of play, playing under the rules, playing with strangers, everything… go in with the proper mindset and it's all about growth, regardless of the outcome.

While it's always a great idea to spend some time with a qualified fitter, there are a couple things you can do on your own to see if your irons are properly fit for you. Recent feedback I've gotten from several fitting experts is that the technique of drawing a sharpie line on the back of a ball is better for dynamic lie fitting than using a lie board. The sharpie test is simple and allows you to hit balls off grass. The lie board with tape on the sole is obviously a popular method but the board is raised off the ground and the surface is different than grass. These differences can influence the club at impact and your swing. The lie board can encourage some players to sweep the ball while some players have a tendency to hit more down than normal, so it can be tough to get accurate and clean readings. Big reason why I like and wanted to share info on the sharpie test, I think it's best if you can accurately represent what will happen on the golf course. Here's how to go about performing the sharpie test. Draw a heavy vertical line on one side of the golf ball with sharpie and place it facing the club head. After impact, the line should be transferred onto the club face. If the line is perfectly vertical your lie angle is good to go (right pic). If the line is tilted out towards the toe of the club (left pic), your club is too upright and the lie angle needs to be flatter to get the line to vertical. Vice versa , if the sharpie line is tilted towards the heel your club, the lie angle is too flat and you would need to bend the club more upright. The test won't tell you exactly how much you need to adjust the clubs but it's a good start. For a static test, use a business card. Since it's static the test doesn't account for the fact that players are usually higher with the handle at impact, along with some shaft droop but it's something I recommend you do in combination with the sharpie test and getting your height/wrist-to-floor measurements. For this lie angle check, take your address position on a hard surface with the handle at a proper height; butt of the club pointing at or somewhere between the belly button and top of your zipper. Have someone slide a business card under the sole of the club. If the lie angle is correct, it should stop the where the one end of the card is at the center of the club (pic below). If the business card reaches the heel, the club might be too upright, too flat if the card doesn't slide to the middle of the face.

This showed up in my Facebook feed this afternoon, and like most things, it made me think of golf. In particular, it made me think of improving and swing changes. I see it all too frequently. A new golfer hits a few good shots and thinks they have what it takes to play at a high level. I would be lying if said the same thoughts didn't go through my head almost 20 years ago when I started playing on a regular basis. I assumed that after a year or so of playing every weekend and hitting balls on the range once or twice a month, I would be ready to compete on tour. It didn't take long for me to figure out that it isn't that easy. I still figured that I could get to single digit handicap after a few years. Ummm... Nope. After many years and now only being a few years away from being able to play on the senior tour, I'm still not even close. It's OK. I still love to play, and I am a lot better than I was. After many years, this is what I am learning the most. It takes a lot of dedication and many reps to change even a little something in my swing. I am not swinging until my hands bleed, but putting in a little time every day is definitely making a difference. For those of you who are REALLY interested in making a change and improving, take a look at what it takes to succeed. For many people, the winter months are almost here. Don't waste the next few months. Figure out a way to work on your priority piece inside and get to work.

A video I recorded on a whim today for the two or three kids who missed their session this week in the Junior Elite Program. P.S. I know your hands/arms don't truly stay in front of your chest, but compared to how far to the side many/most people get their hands/arms, they stay a lot more toward the front than they're keeping them now.

There's a reason @david_wedzik and I trademarked the phrase "Golf is Hard"®. https://thesandtrap.com/b/the_numbers_game/angles_of_error Here's a par three that is often a 7- or 8-iron (but can be a 6-iron). A driver on a par five. And another par three that plays from 190-220 yards. In all three cases, you have about +/- 2 or 3° in which to hit your shot, or else we deem the shot "a failure." Set your expectations properly, and give yourselves the credit you deserve when you DO hit a fairway or a green. It's phenomenally difficult!

When I was teaching drum lessons, students would complain that they weren’t getting better. I would ask how much they practiced since the last lesson and then listen to the excuses. I would tell them that if they really want to get better, they need to spend 3-4 days a week practicing for at least 15 minutes. Just taking lessons from me was not going to make them improve. The purpose of the lesson is for me to teach them what they need to practice, but practice is where things happen. I would explain that they can’t do 60 minutes on 1 day and call it a week. They need to practice almost every day. I would cover the principle of practice with students up front and they would agree. They would be dedicated for a week or so and then fizzle out. Just like golf, drumming is hard. If you take a second and try to make each arm and leg do something different, you will get what I mean. The basic rock beat is to have your right hand tap a repeating 4 count, your right foot tap on the 1 and 3, and your left hand taps on the 2 and 4. To add some spice with 4-way independence, have your left foot tap on every 1 count. Once you have that down, you need to double the times that your right hand is tapping counting, “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”. If you have never played drums before and was able do that with ease at a pretty fast pace, I would buy some drums today and rock out! People usually can't, BUT I can usually teach someone how to do that in less than 30 minutes. It’s very slow at first, and then slightly faster, then faster and faster. Now you have all had your first drum lesson for free. I'm not a golf teacher (yet), but I believe the same principle applies. Sadly, most drum students give up after a month or so. This is why there are so many used drum sets for sale on Craig's List. It doesn’t make sense to take lessons unless you are willing to put in practice time on your own. “Why do I need an instructor if all I have to do is practice?” you might ask. The instructor is there to check up on you and make sure you are going the right direction much like an airplane pilot is monitoring the navigational instruments and making adjustments. Sometimes they have to make major adjustments and other times a small one, but they can only make one adjustment at a time. The plane will not change course if the rudder and ailerons do not respond. This would be like a student who doesn’t practice. I think that most instructors teach something different on each lesson to make the student feel like they are getting value for their money, even if the student has not progressed from the last lesson. I think they are doing a major disservice to the student even though the student is more likely to stay engaged for more lessons. The student thinks that they are progressing when they really aren’t, and after a few months, their scorecard will confirm that. A math teacher does not progress to calculation before a student is competent with addition and subtraction. I hope not at least. If a student sees results from good teaching, they will be a student for life. I went to a drum clinic with a famous drummer a few years ago. It was Todd Sucherman who is currently playing for Styx. This guy is really awesome! I arrived early and got a seat in the front row. He played for a while and blew everyone’s minds. Then he started taking questions. He picked me and I said, “Since you’re a drummer, you have to be working on something, so what are you working on now?” He first looked shocked that someone would ask that question. After all, he is a master at drumming and making a living doing it. He then cracked a smile, let his guard down, and said he was working on some stuff from Buddy Rich, and it was “totally kicking his butt”. Even masters who are proficient at their craft are always trying to improve and learn something new. To apply that to golf, I think everyone needs a teacher if they want to get better. For someone who is content to play the game and enjoy doing it, that’s fine. For most of us, time is not in great supply, but trying to do the 5 Minutes Daily Practice Challenge has opened my eyes. I realized that I was like one of my students who wasn’t putting in the practice time needed to get better. I also learned that 5 minutes a day is not a lot of time. I hear a lot of people asking on TST how to find a good teacher, but I would say that first you need to commit to being a good student. Commit to a regular practice regimen, and then go find a good instructor. Anyone who is trying to improve should be posting in 5 Minutes Daily Practice threads regularly

Dr. Sasho Mackenzie had a quote in the March issue of Golf magazine that I liked. Listen, there'll always be science-deniers and the belief that none of what I or other researchers do is necessary. They're going to be eroded away. There'll be fewer and fewer of these people once the community realizes that science and technology are simply about learning and understanding better ways to swing a golf club. I no longer feel bad for the instructors who fight it, because the information's out there. If they've got a theory that's different from mine, fine. I'm open-minded. I'll listen. Maybe I've made a mistake, but if they don't have an argument other than, "I believe in my method," then okay. I can't do anything else. We can't have a logical debate. I just feel bad for the golfers they're teaching. Emphasis mine. Unfortunately, another quote applies: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Title. Seriously. Every day I talk to people who underplay COVID-19 by comparing it to the flu. Just today I spoke with someone who told me, "Tens of thousands of people die from the flu each year, we don't shut anything down for that!" Well you know what? It's not the flu. The flu is something we understand and have historical data for. This is new. A severe flu season has a death rate of 0.17% (something like 80,000 flu-related deaths in 48 million cases). As of today, 6,501 people died out of 169,374 confirmed cases, for a death rate of 3.8%. Even if somehow only one in ten people with COVID-19 are tested and confirmed to have it, it would still be twice as deadly as the flu. The flu also has a shorter incubation period, with symptoms typically presenting after two to four days. An individual infected with COVID-19 may not present symptoms up to 14 days after infection. That's a possible two weeks for a seemingly healthy individual to go about their daily lives, spreading the disease. I mentioned that it's new, right? Anyone who has had the flu before will have some natural immunity to similar strands in the future. But, viruses mutate. It's not perfect, but it's something. We have no pre-existing immunity to COVID-19, which potentially makes every single person in the world vulnerable to infection. Quarantines, school closures, and other changes to our daily lives have inconvenienced us. I get it. But this is about so much more than not being able to watch your favorite sports team compete, or your vacation plans being cancelled. It's not about politics or mass media hysteria. This is a real disease with a serious negative impact to the world and we (Americans) have the opportunity to do something about it before it gets out of hand and we end up like China or Italy. Sorry, had to get that off my chest. I'll burn this f***ing soapbox now. Sources: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/people-have-been-trying-underplay-why-coronavirus-different-flu-n1156801 https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/does-the-flu-provide-better-immunity-than-a-flu-shot/ https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I want to take a moment to talk about my uncle Don. He is the guy who gave me my first swing lesson at a very young age. We were having a family cookout, and I had grabbed one of my days irons and was swinging it in the yard. He came over and showed me some things. I don't think my mother was too happy with him when I started making divots in her well manicured turf. This led to taking a few of my dad's "smiled" golf balls to the park up the street and hitting them back and forth every day. I would occasionally get invited to tag along with my dad, grandpa, and uncle at the nearby goat track. I killed a lot of worms at that place, but the occasional great shot (relatively speaking) wet my appetite for the game like nothing else. I wanted more and more. Uncle Don passed away yesterday. He was one of the calmest, coolest people I have ever know. I have never seen him get upset over anything. When he would hit a bad shot, which wasn't too often, he would simply say, "Hmmmm." and play his next shot. What I wouldn't give for another round at that goat track (now closed permanently) with those guys. I imagine he has already played a round or two with my grandpa on the great golf course in the sky.

It is pretty incredible for me to realize that this Sunday, April 9th, will mark two years to the day since I was injured while playing golf down in Florida. I have not been able to play a round of golf since. It may seem to some that this is a pretty terrible thing for someone who loves the game of golf. As I have mentioned in the earlier blogs, it was pretty tough at first. I got through that season. The past two years have changed me in so many good ways and I am very thankful for what has happened and what I have been forced to learn through it. I am very pleased as I would image the readers of this blog are as well, to switch things from mostly talking about the past as it is time to start to discussing the future and what is happening right now. I will be back down in Florida next week in the same area where this all happened. No, I am not going to try and play my first round of golf at the course where this all happened two years ago. That seems like a bad idea to me. I grew up playing a lot of baseball, so I may have a few superstitions. I will just be taking a much needed break and get some rest from my crazy work schedule. When I get back however, I will begin taking my first swings at the range which will be the topic of the next blog, in about two weeks. I have been doing a lot of strengthening and stretching this spring, trying to get the wrist into shape. Does it feel the way it was before the accident? I am not sure it ever will. I do think I am as ready as I will ever be to try this again though. The wrist still feels strange some days. There is a dull irritating pain from either the scar tissue, or the surgery or nerve damage many days, but I think I will be able to play through it as long as the tendon holds in its place. I know I have been overly cautious along the way but I really don’t desire to have that surgery ever again. I needed to give it as much time to recover as I could allow. All that is left is each moment I spend in the present which will decide the future outcome of my love for playing golf. It is nearly time to get back out there and I would lie if I said I did not feel some sense of anxiousness about it. This time though, I have the strength and the perspective to handle whatever the outcome will be. For many of us golf is or has been more than just a game. I would truly miss playing and experiencing all the beautiful sights and sounds if this does not go well. I would miss the challenge of trying to better my play of it. I would miss the back and forth between good friends and competitors. When you are forced to do without however, you find these things are ultimately replaceable in some capacity, you find there are many incredible things to experience. So don’t be disappointed or feel bad if this does not go well. Golf may bring great enjoyment to us, but it should ultimately be nothing when it comes to happiness. I get that from things that truly matter. It is time to stop rambling though, and it is time to get to work. See you when I start swinging.

There is a course here locally in Northwest Arkansas called The Blessings. I dearly want to be "blessed". Super exclusive club that only has 100 or so members, but is where the University of Arkansas golf teams practice. I saw on the ASGA website that the 2016 US Mid Am qualifying is being held at The Blessings. I instantly thought, "I'm in! I can finally play that awesome but super, super hard golf course" 7500 from the tips 77.7/148 rating/slope. Unfortunately I am an 8 index, and in order to even be eligible to qualify for the US Mid Am you have to have a max handicap of 3.7. I've been between a 7-9 index that last 2 years and quite frankly, have been complacent. I'm better than most guys I play against, but I want to play in more serious state and regional tournaments. Win my club championship. Excel at the game I love. I signed back up for Evolvr (awesome) and have been working on getting better at practicing. If I practice correctly, I will eventually play better. I have a pretty good attitude when it comes to the ups and downs of golf. Triple? Oh well. Move on. Need to make 2 birdies so its only really a bogey. I've been with Evolvr about 4-6 weeks now and at first I was confused. My mind and body were not connected because my practice sucked. I thought I could make a swing change by simply doing a few drills and then getting right back to full swings. Shoot....how hard can it be to change a swing that has been engraved for 7 years and thousands of swings? Hard. Very damn hard. I became very frustrated. I was spending 5-6 days a week with a club in my hands and making minimal progress. Then @iacas reminded me of the 5 S of practice. I wasn't doing the Slow part... This last week I put in time, worked hard. Even went to the range for 30 minutes only to hit 10-15 balls. It showed. Since the 5/1 revision my handicap shot up from a 7.3 to an 8.6. Then Wednesday I shot an 81 from the blended tees. (6.7 differential) Lower than my current handicap, so if I kept this pace up I would eventually have a lower index. Then Saturday I shot a 78 from the men's tees. Came out 41 on the front and a 2 over 37 on the back with a bogey bogey finish. Things are clicking. 5.9 differential. Handicap was estimated to come back down to an 8. Today, from the blended tees I shot 77 with a 40 on the front and another 2 over back 9. 3.4 differential. Index is projected to be a 7.5 if I dont play again before the 15th. Things are going in the right direction. I dont care if I come out in the US Mid Am qualifier and shoot 90. The course, after all, is going to be extremely hard. My goal for 2016 is to be good enough to just get there. Play that awesome golf course by earning it, and compete. Lets see how this goes.

Well, today, I walked up to my boss and told him that I am retiring at the end of the year. I turned in my resignation but it was more than that. I kissed goodbye to work, period. For many reasons, that was one of the hardest thing I had to do in recent memory. It took a lot of convincing on my part. I worked since I was 14 for 29+ straight years. I studied hard, got into a good school, majored in Computer Science, and worked my butt off for many years to climb up the corporate ladder. The longest vacation I ever took was 10 days, rarely calling in sick. I spent more time at work than at home. Most of people I know and deal with are from work. Work has been a dominant part of my life. To stop working means that my life is changed forever. I need to make new friends, create new daily routine. That's a scary transaction, one that I don't know how it is going to turn out. I had to repeatedly convince myself that I have what it takes to start a new, different, and better life. Then there was the question of leaving a $250k/year cushy management job with prestige, and lots of fringe benefits. I know some leave more lucrative job than that but most people will kill to have mine. Many of my family members and relatives will look at me as if I lost my mind but I did a lot of math and convinced myself that I can make it work. It took a lot of convincing. A lot. What convinced me even more? As I got older and became more financially independent, I lost tolerance to bad politics people play - blaming others, taking someone's credit for his own, scheming, stabbing people on the back, doing unethical things to advance, .... Without much exaggeration, my boss and one of his henchmen is right out of Dilbert, and/or The Office TV series. I felt like I was selling my soul to these unscrupulous people to pay mortgage, to pay for the privilege of playing golf at nice courses, wining and dining at fancy restaurants, etc.. Well, no more selling my soul. It's time to pick the people I want to hang around with instead of being forced to dance with the devils. But the biggest convincing I did? Life is just too short. At 53, my body will only degrade. It's now or never to improve on golf. It's now or never to climb the Half Dome, hike into the deepest part of Grand Canyon, run a marathon, rebuild a vegetable garden in my backyard, read good books, never to worry about setting the alarm clock to go to work, ..................................................................................................... There's just too many fun things to do that sure beats work. That sure convinced me.

First tournament win. It still sounds good. I realize that I've written about this tournament in various posts and topics but I kind of want to put it all together in one place. I have won the net division of the 2024 William Anderson Match Play Championship at Neshanic Valley Golf Course. That's probably the last time I'll type that sentence. It consisted of a single round stroke play qualifier in which the top eight players advance to match play. Four rounds spread between two weekends. There were 22 competitors in the net division this year. Not My First Rodeo My first tournament round ever was in this tournament last year, but last year the odds were stacked against me. I had only played three rounds of golf outside of a trip to Hilton Head the whole year and my handicap was significantly beyond my reach due to a few really good rounds I played in the summer of 2022. If I remember correctly, my index at the time was around 12 and the best differential I had shot so far in 2023 was a 16. It was the best round I had since sometime in September 2022. I knew I wasn't going to make the cut. I signed up just for the experience and I went into it with zero expectations. I shot a 98 in the stroke play qualifier for some double digit net score over par. Needless to say, I did not make the cut. But I did gain the experience of playing in competition. I learned the format of the tournament, how to keep track of other people's scores as well as my own, and I thankfully was of sound enough mind and didn't rake any putts away. It was enough, I think, to say that I had done it and would know what to expect next time. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts, next time didn't happen in 2023. Every club championship in the county happened on a weekend where I was unavailable for one or both of the rounds. So next time had to be 2024 and this year I could not have been more ready. I've been playing a money game with a couple of guys regularly for months and we played all through winter. I had already played almost 20 rounds of golf this year by the time of the qualifier round. I played enough golf to knock off all of my low summer scores. I was accustomed to the pressure of competition and how every stroke matters outside of my own personal satisfaction, which I've discovered is not much of a personal motivator for improvement. Left to my own devices, I could take it or leave it. I find ways to enjoy a round while playing poorly and I often joke about enjoying the weather when I'm playing poorly. I've stated many times in the past that I don't enjoy the game any more now than I did when I first got hooked and struggled to break 100. I like hitting the ball better as much as everyone else, but knowing what I'm capable of, both good and bad, I've simply accepted my game as it was. That mentality keeps me grounded and keeps my expectations realistic, but more importantly it doesn't drive me to score better. Personal improvement is nice, but it turns out not being the guy that's handing out money at the end of the round - that's a motivator for me. Tournament Prep and Qualifier I played a round at the course on the weekend before the tournament. It was in part to familiarize myself with the course. Neshanic Valley is a great golf course, but not one I play that often because it's the farthest one from my house out of the county courses. It's also the most expensive with a riding cart included in the greens fee and no discount if you walk. I don't know it like I know the other three I regularly play. I don't know where my regular misses end up, or what the optimal strategy (which I typically learn through trial and error) was. I wanted to make sure I knew, or at least as much as possible, and also to get a feel for the greens. I shot 91 (net 74) that day on what felt like a fairly mediocre round and I knew I had a chance to make it, so I started taking it more seriously. I even made some posts about it in the week leading up to the tournament and even though I only discussed a few holes, I took the strategy I devised and applied it everywhere. I needed to play within myself - embrace my strengths and try to reduce the impact of my limitations. A range bucket was included with each tournament round. I used it to warm up and get feels for the day. That usually doesn't take long for me so I used half the bucket practicing my short game. Then I went to the putting green and hit long putts to get a feel for the speed, followed by short putts as I typically do. I actually arrived too early for my tee time and found myself having exhausted my routine with more than 30 minutes to spare. I ended up shooting 91 again, which was good enough for the 6th seed. I was almost undone by a combination of poor greenside bunker play (one of my many limitations) and a massive brainfart on the #8 that led to a 9 on the card. I don't even remember how it happened, whether from a bad lie or simply a bad swing, but I had managed to put my second shot under a tree. It was a short tree with a wide canopy, one that I could not stand up straight under. The ball was buried deep in native grass and vegetation of some kind. And in that moment, I had completely forgotten about the many relief options available to me by declaring the ball unplayable. Instead, I thought I could simply get enough clubhead on the ball to bunt it onto the cartpath, which would cause it to roll down the slope and into the fairway. Instead, I bunted it several feet in front of me, still under the canopy of the tree. And then I bunted it several more feet which did clear the canopy of the tree, only to hit one of those hosel-grabbing pulls one typically gets out of tall grass. I almost put it on the next tee box. I got down in four from there. I thought for sure that my tournament was over at that point, but I soldiered on. I smoked my drive on #9, only to find my ball on the right third of the fairway, in the middle of a divot (or is it a divot hole?). I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it, but that was generally my demeanor the entire day. I laughed off hitting dumb shots or bad luck instead of getting upset about it, and I think that was a tremendous asset. I was unflappable. I topped a 9 iron so badly on #12 it didn't make it past the forward tees. I laughed quite a bit at that one. I hit the next one inside of 8'. On the par 5 #13, I was in the right greenside bunker in two. I skulled it into the penalty area and made 7. I followed that hole up with three straight pars. No matter what happened I kept focus on the moment and what I needed to execute the shot at hand instead of what I screwed up to get me in that predicament in the first place. And in the end, it was good enough. Thoughts In retrospect I wasn't really hitting my approach shots that well. There were a lot of mishits short and when I did hit the ball solidly, I missed long. I did hit the ball well off the tee and I really leveraged my length. I credit my game plan for that. My short game was poor but I actually putt to my handicap which is actually a good day on the greens for me. The round felt much the same as my practice round - mediocre. I kept focus and I grinded. It was good enough.

My men's golf team won the AMCC Championship this past weekend with a two-day score of 637 (keeping the best four out of five scores). That works out to 79.625 on a fairly difficult layout at Avalon Lakes Golf & Country Club. ALGCC is a Pete Dye course that, like many Pete Dye courses, is very target-golf oriented. Dye seems to love to use visual trickery to goad players into going for more than they can handle. Sure, it rewards the long drive into the very narrow alley way between water and bunkers, but it punishes a slight miss more heavily than the reward of being 20 yards closer to the green for the approach shot. So, my guys worked their butts off during the practice round(s) to learn a few things: How far was it to the various hazards and things. What lines should they take off the tee that kept them short of those kinds of things. Which side of the hole do you favor with your second shot, even if you're going for the green. How did the greens react to shots: From around the greens. From the fairway. From the rough. That's all we did. We didn't keep a score. We didn't talk about which pins to attack, or which holes to attack. In our minds, every hole presented the same opportunity: a chance to get a Green in Regulation (GIR is King, after all) and a chance to make a two-putt par. Occasionally they'd hit one close (even if aiming for the center of the green), and occasionally they'd reach a par five in two, and sometimes they'd make a longer putt for a birdie. When they were out of position, I stressed getting an nGIR and playing to give themselves a reasonable par putt. Sometimes reasonable was 30 feet. Other times it was four or five. I don't think that my team necessarily hit the ball too much better than the other players on the other top two or three teams. I got to see a fair amount of their players, and they hit a lot of good shots, too. They certainly weren't 21 strokes worse (nearly three shots per player per round), or worse - the winning margin the men created for themselves. I think it came down to the GamePlan, and that is the only credit I'll take in helping them win their fifth straight AMCC Championship, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA finals in May (in Rochester, NY).

I like this game. Essentially: You start with six balls. You start from three feet. You putt from three feet until you make a putt. If you make the putt, you take that ball and all remaining balls back three feet. If you miss, that ball or "life" is lost. Your "score" is the farthest distance at which you make a putt. So for example: Make from 3'. Six balls remain. Make from 6'. Six balls remain. Miss, miss, make from 9'. Four balls remain. Two lives lost. Miss, make from 12'. Three balls remain, one life lost. Miss, miss, miss from 15'. Your score is 12'.

I once heard a story of a kid in Florida who practiced his backswing (at the range, with a ball at his feet) for nearly three hours. Let me say that again with a little added emphasis: he practiced his backswing for nearly three hours. He didn't hit a single ball. Didn't even make a downswing. He recorded, used a mirror, checked his video, and made backswings for nearly 180 consecutive minutes. That's madness. The backswing is an important part of the golf swing. A lot of golfers get off track with the backswing, and then must undergo a series of compensations from there until well after impact to hit the ball anything like they want. So, often, practicing the backswing is important. It's often a student's priority. For example, this student: He would roll the clubhead under the plane during the backswing, push it across or over the top of the plane later, and then just swing left from there. The balls were actually landing at the left corner of what's visible in this photo, some 60 yards left of where it appeared he was aiming. Anyway, that golfer now looks like this in practice: He, like almost everyone I have practicing backswing things, does what I call the Three-Step Backswing Practice Routine. Okay, I don't call it that; I just made that term up now. Make a S-L-O-W rehearsal backswing where you look in a mirror, turn your neck to look at your hands, or whatever you need to do to do it properly (which is often exaggerated). The intent here is to make the swing the way you want to, and see how it feels, and check it right then by looking at whatever body part(s) you need to. Reset in your address position. Make a S-L-O-W rehearsal backswing looking at the golf ball. Ask yourself mentally if the backswing was "good." Reset in your address position. If the answer was no, go back to step 1 or repeat step 2. If it was "yes," move on to step 3. Make a S-L-O-W rehearsal backswing looking at the golf ball. Ask yourself mentally if the backswing was "good," and then if the answer is "yes," reward yourself by hitting the golf ball. I don't even care much at what speed you hit the golf ball (it depends on your ability to hit it somewhat cleanly so you don't get frustrated). You see, I found that I could get students to make awesome improvements to their backswing when I said "okay, rehearse, make a good backswing." They'd do it, and it would be perfect. But then if my instruction was to "make that backswing and hit the ball," they'd lose 80%+ of what was good, because their focus shifted dramatically toward "hit the ball." By breaking it down and making them think "rehearsal backswing, reward if good," it prevents that shift to the golf ball from ever really occurring. Forcing the golfer to ask themselves "was that good?" before being allowed to make a downswing allows them to focus on making the backswing properly without worrying about the golf ball. And then, most of the time, the student makes a much better downswing because the compensations are minimized or gone. In this case, for example, we didn't spend one second talking about the downswing, and yet… So remember, three steps to improving your backswing without boring yourself out of your ever-loving mind: Make a rehearsal backswing while looking at it and making sure it's good. Make a rehearsal backswing while looking at the ball. Make a rehearsal backswing and, if you can say "yes" when you ask yourself if it was as good as it was in #1 and #2, hit the ball as a reward.

Every golfer has the thought at some point.. "If only I could consistently shoot in the 70s, then I would enjoy golf more." We get lost in our heads, dreaming of a fantasy where golf was one day an easy game. What if we didn't have to worry about water hazards, sand, or OB? What if 3-footers didn't bring us anxiety? What if we could enjoy that pure strike that we long for on every single shot? I'd argue that the better a golfer gets, the more enjoyable the game is. But.. not in the way that most golfers imagine. In this post, I will be examining our love affair with golf, how we can enjoy the failures that the game inevitably brings us, and why golf will never get easier (but can become more enjoyable). Why Do We Love Golf? What is fun about slicing a golf ball into the window of a house, or duffing a chip into the bunker? If you're a bit more experienced, what is fun about making a triple bogey on the last hole to shoot 82? Even at the highest levels, what is fun about missing a 5 footer to make the cut in a big tournament? Golf is a game of heartbreak. For every great shot, there are five bad shots. You will fail by most standards 99% of the time. You might spend hours on the driving range, and perform worse the next day. If you hit one shot in the wrong place, your entire round could turn for the worse. So why?? Someone explain to me why we love this game so much?? From another perspective, it does feel amazing to hit a pitch shot off tight turf, watch it bounce short of the hole, spin, and stop an inch from the cup. It also feels rather pleasing to hit a low stinger down the middle of the fairway on a tight par 4. Heck, it even feels great to make that dead straight 3-footer on the last hole to shoot 72! In reality, our love affair with golf comes from something completely out of our control. In pyschology, this external force is called "operant conditioning." More specifically, as we practice golf, our behavior is being reinforced on a "variable-ratio" schedule of reinforcement. In psychological terms, this means that our behavior (hitting another golf ball) is reinforced after an unpredictable amount of responses (you never know when that "pure" strike is going to come). This reinforcement schedule is often noted as producing a high and steady rate of response (why you can't get yourself to stop hitting golf balls). What you might not realize is that this type of operant conditioning is seen in one of the most addictive activities known to man... Gambling. Just like we pull the lever on the slot machine over and over, waiting for the symbols to line up, we also stand on the driving range, hitting ball after ball, waiting for that "pure strike" to happen. In other words, we are literally addicted to golf. Fortunately, golf is quite a productive and healthy behavior! But like all addictions, it can take control of us sometimes, and we find ourselves wishing it was the other way around. How can we improve our games to the point where golf doesn't take control of us? Wouldn't we enjoy it more if bad rounds and bad shots didn't bother us so much? How to Love this Brutal Game If you have read any number of golf books, business books, goal setting books, etc., then you understand what "the process" is. I know how redundant it may sound, but "the process" is the key to enjoying this game AND being successful at it. In our society, external outcomes are praised. We chase after these desires like mad men, and then when we finally achieve them, there is only a brief moment of satisfaction. Golf is no different. Each and every one of us are striving for a better game, and often have a specific level that we would like to reach. It might be breaking 90 for the first time, breaking 80 for the first time, or even winning a competitive tournament for the first time. Unfortunately, in the midst of these desires, we find ourselves judging every single shot we hit, every single score we post, what others think of us, and even becoming self critical during practice. In the end, where the ball lands, what score we shoot, and what our handicap becomes are not in our direct control. They are external to us. They aren't part of the process, and therefore will not produce lasting satisfaction if we choose to focus on them. The process is something more elusive, complex, and demanding. So What is "The Process?" In order to truly love golf and improve your game, you must dedicate yourself to a mindset that is common among elite performers. And that mindset is one that doesn't fear failure. It is a mindset that enjoys the process more than the results. Finally, it is a mindset that falls in love with endless improvement Notice that I did not mention anything about shooting good rounds of golf, winning tournaments, or beating your buddies on the weekend. All of these things are out of your control, and will be products of an effective process. Instead, you must focus on what you CAN control, and then TRUST that your preparation will produce the results that you so desire. By adopting this care-free (not care-less) attitude, those bad shots, bad rounds, and negative thoughts won't seem so damaging. Remember, the number on the scorecard is your compass. It tells you where you are pointing at the moment, but certainly does not require you to keep moving in that direction. If you shoot a high score, that simply means you have some thinking, learning, and practice to do. Nothing else. Making up an irrational story in your mind about your lack of skill as a golfer is a waste of time and mental energy. When you notice that you have started to think in a destructive way, simply bring yourself back into the moment, take a deep breath, and move on. Remember, golf is just a game. If you can understand this concept, you WILL enjoy golf more, and you WILL improve. Does Golf Ever Get Easier? You might look at the pros on T.V., and think to yourself: "If I could hit it like that, golf would be easy." What you don't realize is that each of these professionals is grinding over every shot, whether you see it in their eyes or not. Sure, they are more confident off the tee than 99.9% of the world's golfers, but that doesn't mean that golf is "easy" for them. Just like your home course provides you with challenges, the USGA/R&A provides these tour pros with challenges such as long rough, lightning fast greens, and humiliating pin placements. Rather than wishing golf to be easier, why not learn how to enjoy the challenge more? As a golfer who has shot 64 all the way to 104, I have a general understanding of what each stage of the game feels like. From my experience, if you focus on the process, and fall in love with continuous improvement, golf does become more enjoyable. Think about it in terms of money. In the book "Happy Money" by Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn, the authors report that once the average household reaches a minimum threshold of income ($75,000 in the U.S.), they experience a greater satisfaction with life. As the household increases over this threshold, happiness no longer correlates with rising income. For most people, golf is the same. Once you reach a certain skill level (usually when you can break 90 consistently), golf does become more enjoyable. At this point, you are able to get off the tee, keep the ball in play, and make a few putts here and there. Unfortunately, everything past this level becomes pure desire, and will inevitably bring a golfer frustration more often than not. So what are you to do after passing this satisfactory level of skill? Are you doomed for the rest of your golf career? Certainly not! You are just going to have to focus less on results, and more on the things you can control. Golf is enjoyable as long as you constantly seek ways to refine your process. Bad scores don't matter given you focus on improving your method of preparation and mindset rather than your score. Sure, there will be brief times where you might feel the game slipping. At these times, ask yourself what things you can control. Focus on the process. Be ambitious, yet detached from the results. Do something every day to improve. If you do these things, golf will remain the most difficult game known to man, but you will enjoy it. What do you think? Why do YOU love golf?

Hello again, I haven't written one of these blogs in a long while. I haven't really been on the site for a long while. I had been practicing and posting every day for 405 days, That streak came to an end on May 10, 2018, when I went into the hospital. The last 11 months I have been going through things outside of golf, that are more important for my growth as a human being. Golf is my getaway, my therapy, my distraction, and my hobby. I love the game, it sometimes doesn't love me back when I'm playing it. Whether I'm hitting a 9-iron at the second that checks up too soon or I lip out that 4-footer on 18 for a 71, Golf is hard (R). I've decided that I really don't care that it's hard, I've decided that I just want to go out and relax and have fun playing the game. In the city championship last Labor Day weekend, I made the flight finals for the first time. I've played in that tournament every year since 2010, I lost 7 & 5 (ironically I played the same guy in the finals this year as I did in my first ever match), 2011 4 & 3, 2012 I was really sick Sunday and had to W/D, 2013, I lost 1 up, 2014 I lost 2 & 1 2015 I finally won a match 3 & 2 (It helped that I was out-driving my opponent by 70 yards), then lost 7 and 5, 2016 I lost 1 up, 2017 I made the semis and lost 3 and 2, Last year I hilariously won the 12th hole of my first match with a triple-bogey 8, to go 1 up in the match. Whilst laughing about it on the way to the 13th. I proceeded to play the next three holes, par, par, birdie to win 4 & 3. In the semifinals, I was 1 down after 6, (I started terribly was something like 4 over through 6 medal), I chipped in for birdie at 7, made par at 8, made birdie at 9 after hitting a terrible drive (I knocked the third shot to 4 feet), made bogey at 10, nearly made 1 at 11 (ended up making 3 I missed a 5 footer that was already conceded), and birdied 12. I went from 1 down, to 5 up in 6 holes, I put the match away with a par on 13 and won 6 & 5. (yes I won 10 with a bogey, my opponent had trouble with the right side trees, the only reason I made 6 was I took 3 to get down from 5 feet off the front of the green) I played the last 7 holes in 2-under and didn't even know I was playing that well until someone told me after my match ended. I was playing well but got tanked in the final 7 & 6. I did not play badly. I won just 2 holes, the 2nd and the 11th, however, that being said, I was losing holes to pars and birdies, I made only one double-bogey and that was on the 7th which is a par-3 (It was a good 5 too, I pushed a 7-iron into Fall Creek which is Oscar Bravo, and made 3 with the second ball, nearly holing a 15-footer to halve the hole. I think he shot 1 or 2 over, I shot 8 or 9 over and we halved #9 with birdies, which was a funny exchange, because he chipped in from just short of the green and I holed about a 30-footer on top of him. It was very different finishing second in my flight instead of last or T-3 twice. Going into the tournament, I decided that I was going to go out and just have fun, and whatever happened so be it. Over the winter I didn't do much practicing, as a matter of fact, very little. If you've seen my signature, I have different clubs in play right now but still have my Exotics bag. Actually might actually switch to Maltby from GolfWorks for the time being. I don't necessarily need the best and greatest new clubs. Becky and I separated for 5 months between October and March and we have since reconciled. Without getting to personal, one of our goals we came up with, was to try to do a hobby together. She tried golf a couple times with me, (she actually witnessed me birdie both par-fives on the front which I seldom do), but we decided we were going to either bowl or try disc golf. Come to find out disc golf is very inexpensive to get started in. I'm still trying to figure out the rules, but I'll get it. It's fun, it takes less time than real golf and is just as tricky. I was talking to one of our regulars at the golf course about it just yesterday, we're making predictions on which one I break par in first, disc golf or traditional golf. I've played 9 holes twice this year so far. The first time out I really didn't putt so I couldn't count it, but I estimate, I shot probably 39 or 40 on the front (or white tees, Newman is 9 holes with 2 sets of tees). Yesterday I shot 38, with one of the scratch players playing skins and they we're surprised. I didn't make any birdies but my par with a half-whack on 18 was good enough for $15, and my scratch partner and I cleaned up in the side match too. for my two bogeys, I lipped out on 11 after a decent bunker shot, and I was short sided and laid-up my chip to 15 feet on 14, and singed the edge, the rest we're all pars. I covered his double on 10 and his bogey on 18 (he birdied 12, 14, and 17 to shoot 36) so we were 3-under as a best ball team. I'm playing well, I have a very simple pre-shot routine with one swing-thought, right foot, left foot. My balance is a lot better, I actually finally figured out where the "balls of the feet" are. The step-through is now gone, my balance is back, and hopefully with any luck at all, I might get down into the 4.x by the end of the season, it'll be difficult, but I think with my new approach I can do it. I'll give you guys an update this time in May on how my game is doing to see if I've improved. For those of you who are wondering, Alina shot 49 for 9 holes last week (She's 5 1/2). She went with me and I really didn't play, She did. Mike told me. "Be careful, out there" She striped he drive from the actual ladies tee on #1 over the bunker, (She carries it about 125 yards now, and she is deadly with her hybrid (She has one of those now as she outgrew her other set). I played a little (I only brought a few clubs to pitch, chip and putt with so I had my 9-iron, wedges and putter with me. She actually beat me on #7, She made par and I made bogey and I didn't let her win the hole I legitimately did make bogey. When she parred 7, I knew she had a shot to break 50. This group of ladies was behind Alina and I, and they usually would be a little snotty about a twosome in front playing slow (we weren't Alina plays nine in 1:45). Saw Alina, par the 7th. To par she was +10 through 7. (She made 9 on #1) She piped a drive and hit 2 hybrids on the green at #8 and almost made par, tapped in for bogey, She hit a perfect drive on 9 and I let Alina make this decision herself, she grabbed her driver for her second shot (She got it just short of 250 out, off a 140 yard bullet), I think she thought she needed birdie to break 50, but she only needed a 7 (I don't tell Alina her cumulative scores, I tell her at the end) She topped one down there about 50 yards just short of 200, she then hits hybrid, hybrid on the front of the green (pin was all the way back) And three-putted for double... But that was all she needed for her first sub-50 9-holes. One of the ladies behind us, came up and asked me what she'd shot, I said "49 and she started with a 9." Alina plays the par-3s well at Newman from the ladies tees mainly because, well, it's just a driver for her. I talked to a local pro recently about maybe getting her a fuller set, and he advised against it for now, as her game develops and when she gets older then we can revisit that then. Not bad for a kid that plays 3 or 4 9-hole rounds a year at this point. But asks me to go hit golf balls all the time. She stripes it and I mean stripes it.

I am subtitling this: “the Tao of Cipher” Last week I was able to play my first full round of golf in over two years. It was not pretty, but it was so much fun. I completely chunked about nine shots and I took at least 4 penalties. I had the absolute best time doing so. A co-worker and I took a couple business partners out and it was very rewarding to be able to do that again. All the hard work, patience and time weighing the tough decisions have been to the benefit of playing again without a concern at this point and without any sort of swing alteration to do so. I am incredibly pleased with the result and with being able to play again. It gives me great joy to know there are many days including yesterday in which my wife will mention the positive change she has seen in me. I don’t want to keep bringing up perspective, because I think it is and has been the least relatable thing in this blog so far based on the reactions and comments. I will just leave this series to be for now with a few final thoughts. This is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, even if my wrist decides to give out next week. If everything continues to go well don’t be surprised if I play quite a bit less than I did in the past, but also enjoy the game more than I ever have. Don’t be surprised if I do not work on the swing at the same level or someday soon really at all. Don’t be surprised if there are days I would rather go throw a disc into some chains or go fishing with my son and daughter nearly every weekend. Don’t be surprised if I have little to no interest in playing competitive golf. I will however probably try and get the game in shape enough to qualify for and be part of the Newport Cup if I am lucky enough to be chosen. I was looking forward to that the last time and I would like to redeem that missed opportunity. I am most looking forward to meeting some of people I have not met yet from the site and also seeing those again that I have. Thank you to all who have read this series and have wished me well over these past couple years. If anyone comes across this blog in the search for information on this injury, please reach out to me if you are experiencing the same thing. I know the information out there is not great. I will possibly try and continue with another series of blogs in the future, but for this series on the “Reflections on Golf and Life After ECU Injury” I am signing off, for now. Wishing you all great health and don’t forget to take a moment to enjoy each day you are.

For 60 years, when I walked, I carried my golf bag. Initially, there were no such thing as a “pushcart.” One either carried or one pulled a 3-wheel cart. I owned a 3-wheeler, but I rarely used it. I felt I could get around the course a lot faster walking across greens and taking short cuts through the heather or woodlands. I was a “carry snob.” No cart for this guy, I was a real player, I carried my bag. As I aged, it became more important to have a light load. My stand bags always had “hyper light” or a similar phrase as part of the bag’s model name. Before a round I would analyze a worst-case scenario for lost balls. If I was playing a 1-2 ball course, I might carry 6 balls. A tougher course might see me go to 8 or 10. If the club had drinking water available on the course, I would leave my water bottle half full. An umbrella was carried only if the forecast had rain as a certainty. It was like preparing for an Apollo space mission, not one extra ounce of weight was allowed. Then I began to see fellow players pushing 3 and 4-wheel carts around the course. I was certain carrying was the faster method and involved less walking. Everyone with a pushcart uniformly stated that pushing was soooooo much easier than carrying. I dug my heels in and kept on carrying. Afterall, I was a “carry snob.” Last winter I played a couple of walking rounds in January. I began to get muscle spasms in the back of my thighs. At the end of a round, it was uncomfortable walking. I had experienced some back issues over the prior decade, including a bout with sciatica that required a month of physical therapy. Hmmm, maybe walking 5 miles with an extra 25-30 pounds sitting on my back was causing some of the problems. You think? I took to the internet and bought a 3-wheel pushcart in mid-January. When it arrived, assembly was easy. The unfolding/folding was much simpler than my old pull cart. The folded cart was very compact. It also weighed about ½ of the older pull cart. My internal “carry snob” was screaming “traitor” at me but I needed some relief from my pain. On January 17, 2023, I debuted my new pushcart. Setup was easy and off I went. It was a bit hard to push and there was a clicking sound. Hmmm, I thought maybe there was something stuck in the wheel or axel. No, dummy, you have the brake on. After disengaging the brake, the round went smoothly. No more leg pain and I was no longer tired coming up 18. I was fully converted. My days of being a “carry snob” are over. I have seen the error of my ways. A nice lightweight, compact 3-wheel pushcart is perfect. No more carrying for this guy. Oh, and another thing, what is with those players with 4-wheel pushcarts? Are they grocery shopping? They look so silly. 3-wheel pushcarts are the only way to play golf.

Lots of people seem to think that you stand "taller" for longer clubs, like the driver. The only thing that really changes much is the angle at which your arms hang - a bit farther out for driver. Note: it's not true for all, but it's true for most. Rory tends to be a bit more upright with his driver.

I was tempted to post "I doubt it," but I have this blog to use, so I'll use it for a quick discussion of this. I've taught a few thousand people to putt. I've never seen someone with their finger down the shaft who I would consider a "good" putter. More often - far, far more often - those with their finger down the shaft have distance control issues. The pressure they apply with that finger leads to added loft and wrist flipping, while many good putting strokes have de-lofted putters (4° turned down to 1°) and lead wrists that are slightly more in flexion than they were at setup. I understand what people think they're feeling - the pressure of the shaft/grip being applied to that finger - but again I've got SAM data and visual data (recorded) that leads me to these types of statements. I'm not super picky about putting grips. I putt with a pretty standard/classic reverse double overlap. My daughter is a single overlap kinda gal. I've taught claw grippers, crosshanders, etc. I could put the finger down the shaft (at least for awhile), and remain a good putter… but part of the reason I might be a good putter is that I don't put the finger down the shaft, and I've learned to control the putter swing by having a better wrist action than the one that the finger down the shaft encourages. Again, I've never seen a good putter who can actually control distance well with the finger down the shaft. Take it for what it's worth. P.S. If you try to putt without the finger down the shaft for awhile, don't judge the results immediately. Give it some time. And read this: P.P.S. Just because I've never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It only means I've never seen it…

Today is a momentous occasion my friends. 25 years ago, my wife and I got married. She mostly puts up with my insistence to play this silly game called golf. I guess that makes her a keeper. She only accompanied me once to the golf course and rode along watching me play. This was about 21 years ago when she was pregnant with my son and overdue. I convinced her that riding in the golf art might help to induce the delivery of the baby. I really wanted an excuse to play golf, and that was the best idea that I could come up with. I was wrong and quickly came to regret it. Several holes in she told me that I stunk. I have improved quite a bit since then, but it often takes a little honest reality to kick you in the arse and motivate you to get better. I'm not sure if that was her attempt at getting me to give up the game, or if she was trying to make sure that I never invited her out to the course again. All I can say is that the last 25 years have been anything but dull.

I received a call from a business acquaintance last December. Over the years we had played golf together numerous times even with his living in Iowa and me in Michigan. Despite our age difference (I the elder by close to 30 years) and golf ability gap (his index around 1.0 and mine hovering near 10.0), our shared passion for golf made our friendship natural. He wanted to know if I was interested in joining him and his father on a golf trip to Reunion Resort near Orlando, FL. They had a group of seven Iowans and I would make it eight. We would stay at his father’s home on the Nicklaus course at Reunion. The group would prepare all meals in the home, and the cost would be 1/8 of the home’s cleaning fee and food purchases plus golf. “Yes!” I was in. A round trip Detroit/Orlando flight was purchased with accumulated “miles” and I waited for the big day to arrive. In early February I began to receive more information. Bring $200 as the gambling buy-in, fives and tens, please. Check! There was a hot tub so bring a bathing suit. Check! They had a car service that would bring me to the resort. Check! I figured the home would be a 4-bedroom house and each of us would share a room. Once I had the address to give to the car service I decided to “Google” the home’s location. Hmmm … I guess I had the wrong impression about where we would be staying. The house has 9 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms. Everyone would have their own bedroom with private bathroom. Check!!! Then I received the last item of information. We would be paying 36 holes of golf each day for 6 days. 216 holes of golf! What did I get myself into? The last time I had played 36 holes in a day dated back to 2017. We played two Newport Cup matches a day for two days followed by a singles match. Back then I thought that was a lot of golf. Now, almost three years later, I was going to play three Newport Cup’s in the course of 6 days. Bottle of Advil. Check!!!! The big day arrived and travel to Reunion went smoothly. The group ranged in age from 29 to 73 and handicaps were 18 to 0. The competition was divided into two 3-day segments with foursomes in the morning (gross alternate shot) and net stroke play in the afternoon. Having played or practiced very little since November, I was extremely rusty and put up some horrendous scores the first three days. My partner saved me in the alternate stroke round robin matches but little else was going right. The sole positive was one’s handicap was set by the handicap we brought down (9-10 for me) combined with our first three days of scores. My poor play got me a nice fat “14” for the second 3-day competition. Fast forwarding to Saturday, the last day, found us on the Nicklaus course at Reunion. It is the toughest of the three courses and conditions were difficult with a 17-mph wind, gusting to 25. The course apparently likes to make their front and back hole locations very close to the edge, giving us at most 6 feet of leeway. My front nine was okay with no doubles and a handful of pars. Then a I seemed to pull things together down the stretch. I found myself on #18 green with a 15-foot putt for birdie, 4 points (quota game) and the win. Sigh. I missed it right by an inch or so finished 2nd. How did I survive the 218 holes? First and foremost, Advil. Two in the morning and two at noon. Next, the foursomes/alternate shot format in the morning did not require the same effort as 18 holes of stroke play. It served as a bit of a break. Finally, we actually did not play 218 holes. We were partially rained out on Wednesday and only played 11 holes in the afternoon. Also, some of the matches only went to the 17th hole and one ended on #15. I only played 205 holes in six days, not 218. I managed to win back $190 of my $200 contribution to the pot and made some nice friendships. If I get a call next December, what will I do? I will let you know once I complete my physical therapy.😉

It is always fascinating to me how all sports seemed to have developed a structure that tests the participants for a sufficient length of time to separate the wheat from the chaff. In football one has to play both halves. Remember the Super Bowl? The seventh inning stretch doesn’t end the game, the 8th and 9th innings must be played. Long ago when the game of golf was being formed, somehow the founders knew that 9 holes would not require the consistency a truly sound golfer must have to succeed. No, the test would have to 18. A recent tournament in which I played reminded me of what I might call “The Nine Hole Conundrum.” The “NHC” is that a double-digit handicap player can play almost like a scratch player, but only for nine holes. If 18 holes are played, the longer contest inevitably sees the player revert to the norm. In the tournament, Greg had a rough start Wednesday. Our shot gun start began on #16 and he was 5 over par when we made the turn to #1. At that point he became a changed man. He shot -3 for the front nine. Every shot was struck crisply, putts were holed and he even chipped in for a birdie. Then, when we moved to #10, he fell back to his original form. At the end of the day, he had shot 33-49-82. Most of us can probably recall how we once (or still?) were in search of “breaking 80” (or 90 or 100). We could perform admirably for 9 holes. It was totally frustrating to know we had the skills to reach our numerical goal but lacked the consistency to hold it together for a full round. I don’t have the answer. While I do have those consistent 18-hole rounds, there are many times where I fall prey to the “NHC” and turn a promising front side into a mess.

I enjoy Rules discussions. One learns a few things and also experiences another’s perspective. I started playing competitive golf late in life (35 or so) but I made it a point to learn the Rules well before I ever entered a tournament. Frankly, I see no point in playing any game without a clear understanding of the Rules. Collecting double the rent on an unimproved Monopoly or “castling” in chess are details and one can play either game without knowing the rule. One is likely, however, to see more success if one is aware of all the “details”. Still, for all our efforts we all stub our toes on occasion. A discussion about Rules recently got me thinking about my top Rules snafus. I cleared a long cross hazard off the tee and got to my ball. It was just where I thought it would be, having barely cleared the hazard. Yep, “Titleist” was clearly visible. I laid up short of the next hazard because of a poor lie. Then I discovered that the “Titleist” I had hit was not my “Titleist”. That was the last time I have done that, so far. I and my other three competitors were finishing up a decidedly indifferent one day tournament. The organization that ran this particular event had a condition of competition that every foursome was to finish the round within 4 ½ hours or, if over that number, finish within 12 minutes of the prior group. As usual, every group suddenly stepped on the gas with about 3 holes left. For whatever reason, we just could not be bothered with sprinting between shots on the last holes. As we turned in our cards, the official said, “everyone in the group has been assessed a one stroke penalty.” He got ready for a tirade but we all shrugged and said, “okay.” He was momentarily stunned and then smiled. “I have never had 4 people accept a penalty so easily.” That was, however, the last time I was penalized for slow play. In the final round of our three day City Championship, I was surveying my severely downhill putt for par. As I addressed the ball, it rolled a ¼ turn. I had not touched it but back in the day, after taking one’s stance and grounding the club, any movement was on you. I announced the penalty and, fortunately, was aware enough to move the ball back to its original position prior to playing the next shot. I stopped grounding my club on the green for several decades. We were playing a tournament at my home course. I typically played the “White” tees but for this event, it was “Blue.” The driver of the cart I was sharing drove up and parked next to the “White” tees. I had honors. You can guess the rest. My pre-shot routine now includes checking the tee color. Of course, I have made both the ride and walk of shame back to the tee after losing my tee shot and neglecting to hit a provisional. Some might say I hit too many provisionals but honestly, I don’t plan to ever make that walk back again in a tournament. With the proposed changes to the Rules, I am getting ready to go back to “school.” There will undoubtedly be fresh opportunities for me to “step in it” a far as Rules breaches. Still, it won’t be because I did not continue to study and attempt to understand the Rules.

The first TST-Michigan outing is in the books. We exceeded our target with a total of seven TST’ers meeting up in Okemos, MI. A few observations: It was interesting meeting the people behind the user names and avatars. My plan was to get to the course a bit early to put out a small “TST” sign to attract the members as we wandered in. Before setting out the sign, I passed a gentleman a couple times and I strongly suspected he was part of our outing. Why? No idea other than he seemed as interested as I in everyone wandering around. Yep! @JonMA1. We got lucky with the weather. While it was much chillier than we might have wanted, there was no rain. We have had a very rainy start to the year in the Soggy Mitten (aka Michigan) and attempting to select a day without rain is a real crap shoot. A few members had to drive close to 2 hours. For me, nothing is more depressing than making a long drive to the course in the rain. I often look at user names and make assumptions. One looks at @MSchott or @tlazzol and it is easy to assume that their first name starts with “M” and “T” respectively. And so it turned out that was the case. Then we get to @Wally Fairway. Okay, his last name was unlikely to be “Fairway” but I might have bet his first was “Walter” or “Wally.” Wrong! Joe? How the heck is WallyFairway named Joe? I am not sure how @Braivo connects to Mark, but maybe next time I can get in his group and find out. Amazingly, we all got there a bit early. Considering the traffic, construction projects and distance some had to travel, getting everyone there 30 minutes before tee time was a minor miracle. Every time I looked at @dennyjones, I felt like wagging my head side to side. I wonder why? I think we all left with the feeling that we could have played better. Still, we all hit some good shots and next time we will have great weather and our “A” game. I witnessed one of the best birdies in a long while. We had a fairly hefty par 3 (184 on the score card). It is cold. The wind is in our face. There is trouble between us and the hole. There is greenside bunkering. @tlazzol struck a pure hybrid/wood and hits the green. Then rolls in about a 35-footer for birdie. Outstanding! If/when we have a next time, we might consider setting up a “game.” No big stakes but maybe play one group’s best ball score against the other for a drink after the round. Also, we will try to recruit an even dozen players. Aim high!

I watch my daughter, @NatalieB, play golf. Sometimes better than others, but this year, almost always in the 90s (and once, so far, in the 80s). She's playing from 5,000 to 5,300 yards, and she'll take 36-42 putts, and miss the green with chip shots, and hit the occasional shot that goes 20 feet when she's 140 yards out… And yet, she breaks 100 virtually every time. The other day she had two four-putts and a few three-putts, started with two triples and a quad in the first four holes… and shot 95. And yet, full grown men playing from 6200 yards who hit their driver farther proportionally than she does from 5200 yards sometimes struggle to break 100. My gut, instant reaction is often something like "my goodness, you have to play some pretty bad golf to not break 100!" But then I consider a few things. In no particular order… Generally speaking, @NatalieB advances her golf ball. It might be 120 yards at a time, but the truly bad 20-footers are few and far between. Generally speaking, because @NatalieB's good drives top out at under 200 yards, she doesn't hit them sideways too far. Generally speaking, @NatalieB aims away from all trouble, even if it puts her slightly in the rough. She just tries to hit the green from even 30 yards out, and eliminates nearly all risk with most shots. And that's it. That's pretty much how Natalie can break 100 without too much trouble. So why can't others? Why can't grown men, while a little girl can? And the reasons are simply the opposite of what's stated above. Guys struggling to break 100 generally don't advance their golf ball. They will flub more shots than Nat will in a round. When you're looking at shooting 90 to 95, five flubbed shots put you close to 100. They remove any margin of error. Guys struggling to break 100, when they hit their clubs, are not accurate. They might hit their ball 250 yards, which even if hit the same angle offline, travels much further offline! Guys struggling to break 100 don't take the conservative lines to every hole, every fairway, every shot. Long story short, and the real purpose of this post, which is borderline "too long to be a droplet," is this: if your goal is just to break 100, you could probably do that within a few weeks: focus on hitting your hybrids and irons somewhat solidly and putt and chip "okay." However, if your goal is to play good golf for the rest of your life, and to keep improving, just trying to break 100 is the wrong way to go. It'll set you back. You won't learn to hit your driver or longer clubs, you won't learn to take the right risks, and you won't learn to play the game the way you'll play the rest of your life.

Its been a while since I updated, so here goes. First: Thanks to all that were at the TST Outing in OH this past week. It was fun. I had allowed myself to let my golf training & weight loss fall behind the last couple of months. Simply got busy with other things and failed to make either a priority. Weight-wise I've added @ 8 lbs but feel I should be able to get that off quickly once I get back on the treadmill (TONIGHT!) and cut back on the hot dogs, pizza and beer that I enjoy a lot during the summer. As for golf, I do not have a good benchmark but suspect my lack of practice/training/drills has added several strokes to my score. I shot an embarrassing score at Virtues last Sunday. It is posted to GHIN and those in attendance know it but other than that I am not going to mention shooting a 112 (opps, just let it slip). @bkuehn1952 felt I began to rush my putts once I knew I was having a bad score and I need to not let frustration get to me. Still, it was more than putting that caused that score. I did my arm drill for the first time in quite a while this week and will get a video on Evolver soon and will get re-committed to improving. As for my foot recovery I am ecstatic. I golfed 45 holes at Garland May 28 & 29 then 36 holes in Ohio June 1 & 2 and then 9 holes June 4th. That is 90 holes in 8 days and no pain in the foot. 😊 That is a far cry from May 2023 at Little Mountain where I could barely finish 9 holes. On another note, @Hardspoon and @saevel25 are going to coordinate a 2025 TST Outing. I encourage all to attend that if they can as these outings are fantastic fun and a great way to meet other TST Members.

I told my daughter today that she'd never run out of golf students if she taught three things pretty well: That the body is responsible for moving the club around you and that the arms move the club up in the backswing. That this process reverses (and that people rotate far too early relative to the "down") in the downswing. How to get the weight forward. It's true, too. She might not be able to teach a Tour player, but there are a LOT of golfers who need to work on exactly those things. Consider how well you do those things in your own golf swing.

Yesterday was my first day back on the golf course since knee surgery. My surgeon said he wants me to start pushing it at my follow-up the week before. The good news, the knee felt pretty good afterwards. The bad news, everything else hurt. They had a taco bar after the outing, and I asked if they had an Ibuprofen bar. 😃 It was a charity scramble to support a scholarship fund and to bring awareness to addiction and mental health issues. About $10K was raised, and a good time was had by all. This was a great way to ease back in since I didn't always have to deal with my mess. The first few holes were pretty shaky off the tee. The first tee shot was a double cross into a field. After some not so stellar shots from my teammates, we were left with 200+ to the green on a par 4. We were in deep trouble after some other dribblers by the team, but fortunately I hit a decent 3w pin high to the right. My short game was pretty rough for the first nine holes, so we ended up with a bogey. Pretty soon I was nailing the driver down the middle with rock hard fairways leaving us with a lot of shots inside of 100. We started on 16, and when we turned to 1, I drove to 10 yards short of the green. We finally got a birdie! I do have to admit that I paid the donation to move up a tee box. It was only a 10-20 yard difference on most holes though. I even drove the green on a par 4 after donating to tee up from the red tees. I'll take it though. I think I was most happy with my short and mid irons. I had a lot of shots that were pin high GIRs. I would rather not discuss my putting. The greens were VERY shaggy, so I'm blaming it on that. It was nice to be back out there, and most importantly, the knee feels fine today!

I was thinking about the impending start of my 2023 golf season. Hmmm, it seemed like a decent topic for my “Blog.” Nope, I already blabbed on that subject a while ago. Then I noticed how rarely I am moved to write a blog entry. My blogging on TST began in 2016. My blog entries have slowly dwindled: 2016 27 2017 10 2018 2 2019 6 2020 5 2021 2 2022 3 2023 ? Undoubtedly there was much celebration when my efforts dropped into the low single digits beginning in 2018. My golf life is fairly mundane, which leaves few new topics to rattle on about. You have my pledge that I will increase my output by at least 33% over 2022! In addition to attempting to write a blog post, I read the efforts of our other TST members. Clearly the lack of new blog posts is not limited to just me. C’mon guys, let’s all add a little bit of content now and again. 😉

This year has been great! A lot of work, but something I’ve needed to further my coaching career. At my prior employment, the course was cart mandatory so junior golf was almost non existent. Now at a muni that has a great practice facility, junior golf is big. This summer, I coached 2 13U PGA Jr League teams (24 players), ran (ongoing) 4 junior camps with around 40 kids each time, and the course held a Drive, Chip, and Putt qualifier. Prior to the year, I completed ADM (American Development Model) for golf and it’s something I use a lot. A common conversation I have with parents is about how much instruction is needed for their kids. At a certain age, we want to give kids the tool and just let them explore and swing out of their shoes to develop, physically. They need to learn on their own how to have fun on the course. We can give them games to play, but we shouldn’t force golf on them. Then little by little, introduce new concepts, mechanics, etiquette, etc. so that we edge them in the right direction. Some parents were hoping I was going give their 10yr old kid the best looking swing ever. Not happening. My goal is simple, create life long golfers. If you want to become a really good player, we can do that after a certain age or development level. I am not here to potentially burn a kid out of playing because they are working too hard. Next year will be fun. There’s more things I want to do.

People often confuse tempo and rhythm, or they'll use them interchangeably. I've almost surely done it many times to this point, but here is how I intend to try to use them starting now. Rhythm is the ratio and tempo is the speed. Rhythm Good putting strokes often have a ratio of 2:1. Again, it's the ratio of the putting stroke. You can have a 300ms backswing or a 600ms backswing, each with a 150 or a 300ms downswing, and that's 2:1. Both strokes have the same rhythm. Tempo The tempo is the speed of the putter head. Short putts and long putts should have close to the same time (which is why, for example, I like to have a 78 BPM putting stroke), but will have very different tempos. The shorter putt will have a slower tempo than the longer putt.

I am constantly critiquing myself. I give a lot of good lessons. Lessons about which I feel I did really well. Lessons I'd give myself an "A" for giving; not an A+, mind you, which almost never happens. But As and A-s. And I'm a pretty harsh grader. But today I gave a C+ lesson that I may have recovered and turned into a B+ lesson, if only by recognizing it early enough. The details are unimportant, but basically, I found myself talking about something that was probably priority #3 or #4 for the guy. It had to do with hand speed, when really his focus is on his turn and hip drive/slide. He asked a question, and rather than my usual vocal "That's not something we need to worry about now" (or some variant of that), I answered it. Then when I was done I recognized that I'd said too much, that it was unrelated, and I backtracked a bit by saying something like this: "Look, I just made a mistake, so I'm hoping you can overcome that by forgetting all of what I just said, because it's not related to what I'm trying to get you to do today." Then I spent extra time really simplifying even further and re-iterating the two things I wanted him to focus on quite a bit. More than I might usually do (and I repeat things a lot in a lesson). I think that being very critical of myself is important, and today I slipped into one of the things I'm most likely to slip into: giving away too much information. It's not about the "giving away" - it's about how if the student is only going to remember three things from a lesson, I don't want one of those three things to be the irrelevant stuff where I just talk about swing theory or something that's not super-specific and super-fitting for them right then. I'll probably follow up with the guy later on, too, to re-iterate the two thoughts I want him to focus on even more. 🙂 So, a bad lesson in my mind. The student was happy, but I was beating myself up in my head.

Very good home-run hitting swing on the left. Better golf swing on the right.

The conference championship was yesterday, and it was a fun time, especially considering we were playing for a spot in regionals (we were second before the championship, and two teams advance to regionals), and I was playing for a spot in All Conference (top ten qualify for All Conference, I was somewhere between 8th and 12th, so I was close going in). We were so far ahead of third place that advancing to regionals seemed like a formality, so I was mainly focused on All Conference, which I said was one of my golf goals for this year. I wanted it badly. I had a feeling that if I shot 85, it would be enough. Nine teams showed up, so we had a shotgun start all around the front nine. We would play the front twice from the white tees, and the fourth hole, usually a 478-yard par 5, would be moved to the red tees and we’d play it as a 345-yard par 4, meaning par would be 70. Lucky me, I was the second group off the first tee. On my first nine holes, not a lot happened. The highlight was on the tough fifth hole, where I bombed my driving iron all the way down to the bottom of the hill (about 270 to that point), and only had a mere sand wedge in. I hit it to about six feet and barely missed the birdie putt for a tap-in par. Other than that, I had a double (hole 4) and the rest bogeys for a 44. Not terrible, but I knew another 44 wouldn’t be good enough for All Conference. I had just missed a one-foot par putt on the ninth hole, and I was just hoping that if I did miss, it wouldn’t be by one shot. Nonetheless, I knew I needed to shoot 41 at worst my second nine to have a chance. It started well, with a nice five-footer for par on the first and a driving iron down the middle of the second fairway. I had about 140 to a front pin, so I chose to hit a smooth 8I. Chunked it and left myself 100 in. I was thinking, “Okay, just hit this on the green, two putt for a five and move on. This isn’t a big deal.” Except then I thinned that over the green and into a near impossible spot in the trees. Now I was gonna be lucky to make five. My coach came over and told me to punch a 6I under the trees and run it up. I took the advice, and landed it exactly where he told me to. I put the club back in the back and grabbed my putter, knowing I had a chance to save a bogey. Except I wouldn’t get that chance. Five seconds later, it went in. For par. Everyone around the second green went ballistic, including me! Staring a double bogey straight in the face, I made one of the craziest par saves I’ve ever had, sidestepping what could’ve been a complete meltdown. Still a little giddy standing on the third tee, I composed myself long enough to hit the third green and two putt for my third par in a row. Now I just needed to bogey in for 41. But then I tripled four and bogeyed five. Now I needed two pars in the last four holes. Taking out my driving iron again, I split the sixth fairway and hit a wedge to four feet, but on a weird slope. Not wanting to do anything crazy, I hit it kinda softly. It dove sharply right, but I had a tap in par. Standing on the seventh tee, I realized that because three teams were represented in my threesome and only two would be going to regionals, at least one of us was about to play our last three holes of the season. I made an easy par on the seventh hole, lipping out a birdie putt, and then I three-putted for bogey on eight. The last hole is a short par 5, and I needed just a bogey for 85, but a little voice in the back of my head told me I needed par. I was safely on in three and about seven feet out, a legit birdie chance. Again I barely missed, and another tap in for par. I had shot 84 and beat my number by a shot, but now all I could do was wait and see whether I made All Conference. We finished with a team score of 323, with a low score of three-over 73, meaning the team chasing us had to go sub-300. One of the guys had just turned in a 94, but then someone else came in with a head-turning round. He apparently shot 34 on his front nine, but then went on a birdie binge. His back nine score: 30. A total of 64, six under par, and I believe the lowest score anyone in our conference has ever turned in for a high school match. They didn’t finish sub-300, meaning we had sealed a spot in regionals, but they did finish at 318, good enough to claim the championship. Then it was time to announce the All Conference standings. Top ten qualify, and it was announced that there was a three-way tie for tenth. My name was among the three. Since there was no playoff, I had qualified for All Conference! Later, I realized that my chip-in on the second hole was absolutely critical. If I had not chipped in, I would not have made All Conference. It didn’t matter to me that I finished tied for the last spot, because I made it, and that was my goal for the season. Now it’s off to regionals in a week and a half!!

My overriding goal is, of course, to lower my scoring and the unstated goal is to move from the B Flight to the A Flight in my league. I am not going to repeat my initial 2021 goals here but you can see them here if you like. There is a fair amount of detail on my game from last year. It would be arrogant of me to think that my initial plan is so perfect that it should be carved in stone and never allowed to change. The plan has barely begun and thanks to TST that plan is already evolving. Near the end of January, I realized that my golf clothes from last year were going to be a little tight (Ok, VERY Tight) thanks to my added poundage over the last 6 months. This led me to add “Lose Weight” to my goals as I do believe physical fitness can help one’s golf game. I set a goal to lose 33 pounds over 11 weeks. That would get me to my goal prior to the start of my golf league on April 20th. I started on Jan. 31st and to date I am down 10 pounds and well on track. This is requiring a lot of time on the treadmill and spinning bike as well as no beer, pizza, pasta and many other things I enjoy (enjoy too much that is) but I am OK with that. I know those will be added back into the menu once golf starts and we head out for dinner & drinks after the round to celebrate or commiserate and thus they are only a short-term restriction. I was reading the “Have You Ever Carried a ‘Gimmick’ Club in Your Bag?” thread and realized my putter, an old “Heavy Putter” was considered a Gimmick Club and that led me to a review of the Heavy Putter by @iacas from 2005. (https://thesandtrap.com/b/clubs/b3_heavy_putter_review). While reading his review I noticed some of Erik's negative points about the club were issues I was experiencing with my own putting. I am not one to avoid self-criticism but I am also open to blaming inanimate objects, such as a putter, for my problems. This made me begin to look at a new putter and a couple of weeks ago I stopped in a local Golf Galaxy to look at putters. Before I got to the putters, I saw a few Clicgear carts on display. I have been looking at Clicgear since last March and have not seen them on display in the past year and those on the web have been heavily marked up. Given my new goal to lose weight I decided to add “Walk More Rounds” to my list of goals as a way to achieve and maintain the weight loss. I’m now the proud owner of a Clicgear 4.0 and eager to get out and use it. Back to the Putter and the “Gimmick Club” thread. @dennyjones planted the seed for a Putter Fitting and he used the word “Investment” and I like Investments. So the next day I contacted Carl’s Golfland and scheduled the fitting for Feb. 28th. I’m confident that will be the topic of a future blog post….and also may result in a new putter😊. Added “Get Putter Fitting” to the list of goals. I will get this done prior to my Aimpoint Express lessons which were in the initial goal list so I can learn & practice with the new putter (assuming I get a new putter….if that is even an assumption) A short time ago Erik asked if I had read LSW and I admitted I had not. I have read many reviews on LSW and read many posts discussing LSW but I’ve never actually read LSW. Just like reading reviews on restaurants, eventually you need to stop reading the reviews and go eat the food. Thus, I added “Read LSW” to my goals and ordered my copy which arrived this past Friday. I currently have no idea what a “Cone” is (I’m confident he is not referring to an Ice Cream Cone) but expect learning about “Cones” and other concepts will result in further evolution of my Golf Transformation Plan. I scheduled my 4 lessons as per my initial goals and they had a special "buy 4 get 1 lesson free" so now that is 5 lessons. The only catch was I have to complete all 5 by April 1st. Thus my first lesson (driver) will be this Tuesday and my 5th lesson will be March 31st. The hard part will be making time to practice in between the lessons while also fitting in my AimPoint lessons. Erik also reminded me of my dormant “My Swing” thread so adding “Post to My Swing” to my goals. This will be tough initially since my home does not have space to swing freely inside but I will figure it out. I plan on asking my teaching pro if he minds me posting the video recaps of our lessons he sends me and may post those to My Swing. With my first lesson on Feb. 23 and my Putter Fitting on Feb. 28 I figure my next post will be something like “The Journey Begins" or "Time for Action".

I can almost sense the collective cringes of those reading that title. We’ve seen newbies make this claim one week, only to post the next week how much they hate the game. I've certainly been guilty of it, though I’ve since learned my lesson. While most of the time we are talking about the one swing thought or swing adjustment that will carry us to single-digit greatness, other times it’s a can’t miss epiphany on the strategy that will have us navigating around the course like a pro. During yesterday’s round, I arrived at a par 5 that has a wide landing area for the driver. That's the easy part. A decent drive leaves about 270 to the green, but with a very narrow bottle neck about 100 yards from the green created by a fairway bunker and large tree on the left, and golf ball graveyard woods narrowing the gap from the right. My choices were to use a wood to carry the bottleneck, leaving a half swing wedge from where it opens back up, or mid-iron layup in front of the bunker leaving a good angle with a mid-iron to the green. I chose the latter option and it worked out perfectly… I mean I couldn’t have walked up and placed my next two shots any better. An easy uphill 6 iron that stopped short of the bunker leaving me the best angle to the downhill blind green, followed by a full 6 iron that felt good coming off the club and confirmed when I walked over the hill to see the ball resting in the middle of the green. I finished the hole thinking that was easy, I’ll just play it that way next time. Next time occurred an hour and a half later when I played the 9 hole course a second time. An identical second drive set me up for my can’t miss strategy. I addressed the ball with all the confidence in the world and promptly hit a push slice to the right leaving a poor angle to the green. Ok, no big deal. I’ve been hitting fades all day, I thought. I’ll just have to start the ball close to the tree line with a 4 iron and it should come back close to the green. What could go wrong? A minute later I was hitting my approach shot with a pitching wedge after that “can’t miss” 4 iron started 3 yards too far right, hit a tree, dropped straight down and rolled out onto the center of the bottle neck a whopping 80 yards closer to my target. It could have been worse. One of my favorite expressions is the Mike Tyson quote “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. I think it’s profound in that we tend to put all our eggs in one basket with little regard to something going wrong, hoping so hard for the plan to work that we fail to have a contingency plan or even consider an alternate one. Fortunately, poor execution in golf doesn’t result in a right cross to the jaw from Mike Tyson, though we often react as if it’s just as debilitating. When I arrived home, a copy of “Arnie” by Tom Callahan was waiting for me on our table - a gift from my wife. I started reading it this morning and was struck by a quote. “From the Masters on” Arnold said, “I had a philosophy of golf: when you miss a conservative shot, you’re in as much trouble as when you miss a bold one.” Strategy, risk and reward, and execution are things we all love about this game. In my world, almost nothing really bad happens when I employ poor strategy or fail to execute. But somehow, it’s still important that it doesn’t happen. Yesterday, I was pleased that the bad results didn’t bother me. I’ve finally got it! Stay tuned for my next blog entry that asks the question "Should I quit golf?"

I made it back from our Florida trip on Tuesday night. It was great to get away from my crazy work schedule for a bit, and experience a little sun after the winter here in Wisconsin. We were able to go the beach and do a little fishing as well. My son and I both connected with Snook(bass like but longer fish) which is a lot of fun. Any time you can catch a Snook from the beach with an artificial lure, it is a very rewarding experience. On my lunch break this Wednesday I decided to head over to the range. It was time to give this golf thingamajig another go. I was confident that all the waiting and physical therapy post-surgery had brought me to the point that it was finally time to see how my wrist would hold up to some swings. I purchased the smallest size bucket of balls they had which holds about 30 balls. I did not want to try and hit too many balls at first as I would not be making full swings anyway. I took out a 7 iron and started hitting some little chip and pitch shots, it was going well, so I started adding a little more speed with each swing. This is not really news for those who have seen my swing thread this week, but I was able to work up to about 125 yard shots with the 7 iron. It was actually a little more aggressive than I thought I was going to be on my first time out. The wrist was feeling great though and I was elated that it was going so well! It was hard not to get a bit carried away after over two years of not playing. I even felt the wrist to be strong enough to hit a few light shots with my 7 wood as well. Today I went back to the range and was able to work up to about 150 yards with the seven iron. It was about 85-90% of a full swing for me. I also hit a few balls with the 7 wood again as well. I was again very happy with these results. The wrist feels a bit sore, but I think that is mainly because after the surgery it had not been used for many of the motions that are needed in the golf swing. Overall it feels sturdy enough though. Time will tell if the wrist continues to handle repeated swings, especially with the longer clubs. So far it feels great and I feel like the surgery was likely a success. It is difficult to describe how it feels to be able to hit golf balls again after so long of not being able to do so. Simple things like the sound of the ball contacting the face of the club head and the feel of a well struck golf shot are things I missed greatly. I miss the sights, sounds and smells of walking the course as well. I can’t wait to get back out there an experience those. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, my perspective is different now, and should there be any setbacks along the way I will be able to deal with it. However, being able to hit golf balls a couple times this week has felt like an incredible blessing and is so rewarding to do after all this time. One BIG step forward and I am looking forward to completing my return to golf.

Not sure which aircraft carrier this was, but imagine hitting balls in the wee hours of the morning and then this passes in front of you? Those white spots are seamen standing at attention, all surrounding the ship. Such a big object makes not a peep of sound.

I have always enjoyed golf, but in 2010 at the age of 30 I discovered a passion for it. I moved to the Milwaukee area that year from Minneapolis and golf became much more affordable to me at the same time. I started playing a little more and at the end of the year I set out to see how much I could improve my play during my 30s. I started the journey in 2011 at around a 15 handicap. It may have been a bit late in life to try something like this, but it was a way to challenge myself and also enjoy the outdoors. I started playing early morning 9 hole rounds before work 3-4 times a week and I would go to the range a few times per week on my lunch break. I faced my share of challenges along the way. I would say I have a pretty natural ability to make changes and improve my swing, but I often struggled with that intangible ability to just make consistent shots off the tee. I did make some nice improvements early and entered the single digits pretty quickly. Not long after however, I endured a major bout with the shanks. I had them on and off for over a year. In the fall of 2011 I found the TST community and became a member in the search for a better swing. Ultimately signing up for some online lessons with evolvr.com proved to be the game changing help I needed at that time. I continued to improve over the next few years. In 2014 as 3.8 handicap, I somehow started battling the hooks. There were even a few weeks when I exclusively used a 4 hybrid off the tee, and did not carry a driver or fairway wood in the bag. I continued to work on the driver and woods at the range during this time. Ultimately a trip to visit @iacas ended up helping me make the changes that were needed to fix the problem more permanently. I ended 2014 with a 3.6 index and felt ready for 2015. Fast forward to April 9th 2015. I was playing a round of golf with my Dad in Florida. I had a decent front nine going considering I was coming off a long winter break. I was on the 9th hole which was a par 5 and I hit a nice drive down the left side. I was looking at about a 200 yard shot to get the front edge of the green for a good chance at making par or better. I had to clear some water at about 185 yards in left front portion of the green but it was not really an issue. I took out a long iron to try and place a shot to the open area just to the right and in front of the green. I addressed the ball and quickly felt comfortable with the shot. I had no idea what that swing was going to cost me. I began my swing and on the downswing near the point of contact, I both felt and heard a loud pop. The club went flying in the follow through and I immediately hunched over grabbing my left arm near the wrist. The pain was excruciating.

If you don't know what fisking is, take a minute to read about it here: FISKING | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary 1. the act of making an argument seem wrong or stupid by showing the mistakes… I'm going to have a stab at fisking a terrible article I read from the Guardian's golf correspondent on the rules "controversy" at the Solheim Cup. If you didn't see the whole controversy, a European player picked up an American ball that was overhanging the hole before she should have. That mean the ball was holed with the previous stroke, and the Americans won the hole instead of tying it. Cue the pearl clutching from some members of the media, in particular this Guardian writer: Controversy over Nelly Korda’s ball mars opening of Solheim Cup | Solheim Cup | The Guardian Europe lead USA 5½ – 2½ in the Solheim Cup after an opening day marred by controversy when Madalene Sagström picked up Nelly Korda’s ball too soon and was penalised And now, for the fisking. It probably won't be as elegant as some of the greats at fisking, but this article was so bad that I wanted to go through it paragraph-by-paragraph to trash and mock it. The key moment was the European player breaking the rule, Ewan. The stopwatch and television monitor are not necessary unless she picks up an overhanging ball. And, neither were actually necessary in this case - it was so obvious that the Rules Official watching the group with her naked eye had already identified the possible issue before going to television. Still, the key point that Ewan glosses over: none of this happens if Madeline doesn't break the rule! The rules officials don't get involved unless a player breaks a rule. An obvious bid to speed up play? Come the f*** on. We don't need an excuse for what it was - a brain fart. It happens. Ewan, being a Scotsman, should know that what Madeline did did not actually speed up play at all. It would have been faster for her to actually set up for her putt and get ready to play while Nelly emoted on the green. Another question for you, Ewan. You're on site at the tournament. Did you ask Madeline why she picked up the ball? Did she tell you she was trying to speed up play? Or are you just coming up with an excuse to paint her in the best light possible? Nelly said she didn't know if the ball had a chance to go in because she didn't get a chance to look at it. Sort of undercuts your first point here. Again, the hole was not won because of the rules official. It was won because Madeline picked up the ball too early. It is important to talk about the first thing that led to everything else happening! Ewan is very conveniently skipping over that whole problem here. None of this happens if Madeline doesn't break the rules. Dubious circumstance? Infrequent maybe. Dubious? Since when is following the rules dubious? This is one of the highest level competitions for women golfers out there. Why it is a question on whether they should follow the rules of golf at all? This is hot garbage. Europe could have protected the integrity of the competition by not breaking the rules in the first place. The integrity of the competition is much more dubious if you don't follow the rules. And why should the US give back a hole that they rightfully won? Are they trying to win the competition or get praise in the media? Sure, it would been widely praised in the golf media, but it might have also lost them the Solheim Cup. It came down to a pretty thin margin and every half point mattered. Final question on this - is Ewan Murray an authority on the integrity of the competition? Or the spirit of golf? Ewan, have you cracked open the Rules of Golf about what the spirit of the game is. If you had, you might have seen this as the first bullet when the rules are talking about the spirit of the game: The spirit of the game is following the god damn rules. You don't throw away the rulebook because your nebulous view of the integrity of the game is offended. And, to be honest, even though Ewan is a Scot, I don't really trust or care what golf writers think the spirit of the game is. Golf writers who apparently can't be bothered to turn to the first page of the first rule in the book do not have any authority on this subject. Even if they are Scottish. I'm highlighting this because I really don't think Madeline did anything awful. She broke a rule. It happens. She didn't have any moral failing. The ball was not going to fall in the hole. She did not cheat or even try to cheat. She just broke a rule. I feel bad for her because I think it was an innocent mistake, and it sucks that she is taking it so hard. And, I think this is the last bit I want to highlight, even though it's not from the writer. Why is enforcing the rules make golf look stupid? If you think the rule is wrong, why don't you come up with a different rule that will satisfy you? As a former Ryder Cup captain, I think your opinion would be taken pretty seriously. Also, note that Bjorn is European and undoubtedly has a rooting interest here. I actually think the overhanging ball rule is fine, and I'm not sure there's another way to write it that's any better. Maybe I'll write that up in a different post. That's all the energy I have on the article. The rest of it is just a recap of the day. I've already put too much time into this. Do better, Ewan Murray.

I find myself saying in lessons quite often^ lately "Do Less." For example, on the backswing, people will often move their hands around, bend elbows in every direction, move the clubhead everywhere, the knees are doing a bunch of stuff, etc. Their backswings are too long, and really, if they just make a little turn and "fling" (I use that word a lot too) their arms up and back, they end up in a good spot. I think that in students of the game can get caught up in trying to do "too much" and instead if they let themselves just tap into some natural athleticism they can reap some benefits. I've been doing a lot of the drill where you add weight to the club with the Torc (at various heights) to really feel the clubhead "throw" back and up. To do this, the wrists and arms have to be soft, the shoulders have to be soft. I am considering filming a video with the Torc showing a few of the ways I like to use it, specifically for the backswing stuff. I also use it for pitching work. Maybe I'll make another post specifically talking about it. I hope I don't sound like that to students. 😄 ^ I think there's some of Baader-Meinhof phenomena going on here as I just saw the video clip and was reminded of it again, so now every time I say "do less" I quietly chuckle to myself at recalling the scene.

Sorry for posting so late as regionals was over a week ago, but I’ve finally got a good time block to write this! Regionals was last Monday, and it was a fun day of golf! Talking in the hotel room the night before, we came to the conclusion that to have a chance to advance to states, I’d have to shoot around 80. Given the way I was hitting the ball in our two rounds the previous two days, that wasn’t out of the picture. It would be difficult, yes, but not out of reach. However, on the front nine I shot myself out of that possibility. I went +7 through five holes, meaning I had to par out. Not good, but I went +3 on the last four holes on the side to shoot 46 on what we considered to be the easier nine holes. My goal now: to break 90. I needed 43, definitely reasonable. I started with a bogey on possibly the toughest hole on the side, but then as we prepared to tee off on the eleventh, the weather horn went off. As we waited, I caught up with my teammates and learned that they shot 39, 40 and 45. Knowing we needed around a 320 total to advance, we were just about out of it. All the more reason to go for it on the last eight holes. When we resumed play again, I laced my tee shot down the middle, then hit a 9I to about 20 feet and two putted with ease. Then I hit my tee shot OB on the 12th, but still walked off with a double. Nothing interesting happened on the next four holes, but I went +2 in that stretch, meaning I stood on the tee of the par-3 17th needing just two bogeys for 89. The good news: the last hole was a par 5. It wasn’t long, either, at only 517 yards. But I had to get through 17 first. With a 6I in hand, I hit my tee shot into the right bunker. I was still feeling good, because I’d been in four other bunkers and had little to no trouble in any of em. But on this one, I caught almost all ball and nailed it twenty yards over the green. Now I had to get up and down for bogey. I didn’t, but I nearly chipped in for par. Double bogey, and now I needed par on the short but difficult par 5 18th for 89. In the distance, I saw a gallery of about 30 people by the green, consisting of my teammates and the other people who’d finished before me (not that many, because I was only the fourth group). For the first time all day, nerves got the better of me and I pulled my tee shot into the trees. But I had caught it so purely that I was still even with the other two guys in my group, who had also hit solid tee shots. I only had about 250 in, with two options: attempt to carry the water on the left (probably a 200-yard carry), with a great birdie opportunity and par almost a certainty if I made it but double almost certain if I missed, or a layup to the right to around 120 out where birdie is much less a possibility, but double is almost off the table. After taking a while to think about it, weighing the odds, I chose to lay up with a 6I to the right. Caught it a little heavy, but still had around 135 to the green. I chose a 9I and hit it just about as solid as I could have. I didn’t see exactly where I ended up, but I heard clapping, so I knew it was good. Walking up to the green, I was right: just off the green with about 20 feet left for birdie. My last test was to just two putt for par. I lagged up to within a foot, and my last shot of the 2021 golf season was a tap in par putt for 89. We then moved to the scoreboard to enter in our scores, and I saw that my teammates had shot 78, 89 and 91. A 347 total, far from what we needed to make it. But Brycen, who had shot the 78, was still in contention to make it as an individual. We went to get some lunch, awaiting the final scores. By the time the last group made it to the final tee, he was in third place (top four individuals advance), so unless two of the last three beat him, he was in. Ten minutes later, it was official: our number one player on the team made it to the state competition. We all wanted him to make it badly, so we were all happy for him! In fact, since I wrote this so late, the state competition was actually yesterday. He played at Longleaf in Pinehurst, and I was able to keep track of him through the app we used for regionals. He started well: only one over through six holes. But he started to struggle a bit on the last twelve holes, and finished with 83. Not great for him, but he’s still thrilled to have made it that far. A good ending to our golf season! I will probably make one more entry to this blog later this week, which will outline what I imagine will happen next season, but unless something else crops up, this is the last entry where I’ll go into detail about competition rounds. But of course, if you have any questions for me feel free to ask. Hope y’all enjoyed this blog!

I figured out why I was driving the ball so wall last week. I know most of you will think I'm crazy, but it had to be the pants. Every time I wear that pair of pants on the golf course, I drive the ball great. Now I need to figure out which shirt helps my iron shots. Socks might be the key to short game and underwear the key to putting. I think I am on to something here...

Well, I've hit 1,000 posts here. Woohoo! Took me long enough (almost 6yrs). So I thought I'd do the whole journey of golf thing like other posters have done, although I'll abbreviate it as much as I can so this doesn't get too long. Just fyi, I'm a terrible story teller. Ufta, it is a little long, but enjoy! Child, born in 1990, to 15yrs old I started before I knew what I was doing. My parents got me the blue plastic, double-sided iron and putter with wiffle balls that I could smack around the back yard. I apparently loved doing it. My dad and grandpa wouldn't teach me too much except on how to grip and stand. My swing was interesting. Apparently, I would bring the club up to the top, pause so I can adjust my feet, then swing back down and hit the ball. My grandpa was always amused that I could hit the ball doing that. He tried to get me to stop up through when I joined my first team in 7th grade. I'm not sure when I got my first set of clubs, but I do know that it was the typical starting set with a driver, 5,7,9 irons, PW, and putter. There was a 9 hole, par 3 course near my home in suburbs of Chicago, that I played most of the time. My next set of clubs was given when I joined that team in 7th grade. The clubs were actually an older ladies set of steel drivers and irons, but I hit them well enough (set was 1,3,5,& 7 woods, 4,5,6,7,8,9 irons, pw and putter). At this point, I was brought to my first 18 hole track, where I would eventually work for 4 years. Course is called Chick Evans, a Billy Casper managed course. But for the team, they only wanted us to play the smaller 9 hole courses. The point of the team was to prepare us for high school golf. So we played in competitions with coaches going with each group to go over rules and stuff. My only memory of this team was when I hit a shot on a par 3 to a couple inches. I was so happy that I ran up and tapped it in.... but with the flag stick still in. So I got a 2 stroke penalty. Lesson learned. During this time, my favorite club was my wedge. I don't know why, but I was soooo good with that club around the greens. I could chip, pitch, flop, sand trap, anything with that club and put it close every time. It seemed like I was chipping in at least once a round. Then came the SW. My dad decided to give me a SW for some reason and all that short game confidence went away. Also up to this point, I had never received a lesson. I was stubborn and didn't want anybody changing anything. With the team, was a PGA instructor who we all took a few lessons from and the only thing I took from this guy was changing my grip from 10-finger to an overlap. I ignored everything else he said. During these years, my whole family liked to golf. It was an interesting transition because my sister really liked to play (she's 3yrs older than me), but only if she knew she'd beat me. Eventually, we got competitive and then to me beating her almost every time. She hated that and at this point refused to play golf if I was playing too. So that ended her playing for a long time until she could accept I would always be a better golfer. My mom had the weirdest start to her swing. She doesn't know how it started, but in the beginning of her take away, she would fully cock her wrists then swing her arms back. My dad tried to fix it, but it didn't work. Took me until I was 22 and just starting to think about turning club pro for me to change it up a little bit. My dad though has always been a good golfer and has always supported my game. He grew up on Long Island and played Bethpage Black before it became popular. That was his home course. To this day, he could recite for you the entire course, as it was back then. That is really cool, but we haven't gone back to play it since the changes. We will eventually. One of my friends growing up had parents who worked at a golf course, so he had access to new equipment. My friend and I would hit balls at his house into their practice net pretty often. His dad and him had the new Cobra 440SZ (I think it was), but they both didn't like it and decided to give it to me. I went from a small steel head 1W to this big honking driver. I crushed that thing. The next year would be high school and I was already known a little bit to be a good golfer, possibly making the varsity team. High school The home course for my high school was a weird track that ran parallel to a Chicago branch river through the city of Evanston, called Peter Jans. It's called something else now. Tight fairways and holes, was a par 60ish. So most of the holes were par 3's ranging from 70yds to 210yds. The par 4's were between 250 and 300yds. When I say tight holes, I really mean tight. As in you have a 5yd window or less to hit your tee ball on some of the tees. It was severely tree lined so there weren't any issues with hitting a house. In any case, I played it a few times before tryouts. But after day 1, they moved me and another kid to the varsity tryout. They decided to keep us on JV anyway. That year I went from shooting around 100 on a normal 18 hole course to high 80's. I got better slowly after that, because I got popular from my tee shots. I was the big hitter. I went through a few drivers from cobra and eventually ended having their first version of the Xspeed 460cc driver. But I was already hitting up to 300yds when I was 15. Don'y get me wrong, my average drive was more like 265-270, but on the few times I successfully smacked it, it went a long way. I was hitting further than any of the seniors and i became obsessed with trying to hit further. Who cared about consistency when I could smack it 300yds. Towards the end of my freshman year, I joined the varsity to play in regional qualifying, but ended up shooting 100 or so. Sophomore year, I played mostly varsity but a few matches as JV. I don't remember too much about this year. Junior year I was fully on varsity and starting to shoot lower 80's, high 70's. But, by this point, my peers had caught up and that other kid from freshman year who tried out with varsity with me, got better than me by a few strokes. I still was trying to hit my ball 300+yds. I still couldn't focus on trying to swing consistently. Somewhere between sophomore and junior year, I upgraded my irons to cobra and got a titleist 3 wood and a cobra hybrid. Junior year was also when I got my nickname. Since 3rd grade, I've been singing in choirs, and in high school, I was standing next to another Phil. We called him P-dizzle and me P-killa. So, what did I do? I put that nickname on my golf ball, pkilla. I was playing in a tournament where a hole had in course OB (I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE in course OB, I hate it so much, I find that OB every single time), so of course I sliced one right that went towards that OB line. So I hit a provisional ball out to the left and had my coach go look for the provisional. I ended up being a foot or so in bounds (seriously, i was). My coach and our #1 player, who had WD earlier in the day from bad play, came over with a big grin on their faces and I knew that they had seen what I put on my ball. So, I was now known as pkilla from then on. Senior year was a good year. I had dropped to #3 or 4 on the team and finally realized that I needed to get consistent. I was still the big hitter but I focused more on getting my scores down and coming up with proper course management. One particular tournament was at a course called White Deer Run. The first green had the pin stuck right on top of a mound that if you missed the putt, it came right back to your feet. I was going #6 this day and right before I teed off, one of those random thunderstorms came rolling through so we got everybody in for a couple hour delay. The coaches decided, due to light, to just make it a 9 hole tourney. I teed off on that first hole and it was wet enough that my birdie putt stopped right next to the hole on the mound, and I tapped in for par. I continued to play right around par for 7 holes, I had one bogey, and my coach came driving up to ask how I was playing. I didn't want to say 1 over because I knew it would jinx me. So I said I was doing ok. I think they took that to mean 3 or 4 over. As I was coming down the 9th hole, they were out watching and I parred the final par 5 to finish with a 37. Their faces were priceless when I told them. It gave us our first win in our schools history for a multiple team tournament. That year continued to get better and I was shooting right around par most of our 9 hole matches and around 75 in most 18 hole tournaments. So, during this time is also when you are looking at college. I knew, of course, that I wasn't good enough for Div 1 golf, but I thought if I went to a mid range D 2 school that I could play. I eventually went to WWU, from looking up golf, marine bio, and choir on a college search engine. I had myself, my coach, and all the above to try and get a hold of the college team coach. Never had a single answer until the day before walk on tryouts my freshman yr in college, although at this point the whole team was filled anyway so it was just there to appease the fans I guess. I had hard feelings then, but I got over it and played on my own. Anyway, back to senior yr high school, I ended up shooting a 74 at our smaller regional tournament and a 75 at the bigger regional tournament to move to sectionals. I had placed 5th, while our #1 guy shot 73 to finish 3rd. It was the first time in a long time that our school qualified for sectionals. But we were in for a hell of a day. Tight country club type course, but with howling winds. I played a high ball flight, so I was S.O.L. Both myself and our #1 guy shot 87's and the rest of our team shot worse. We didn't make it to state. One highlight that day came on #10 a short par 4 that if you carry 260yds over water, you can hit the green. My coach always says play conservatively, so I take out a 7iron or whatever. And he walks up and says, Phil, I want you to go for it. I was shocked, never in my life would I imagine him saying that. The wind was cross wind but helping a bit. Driver would go over the green, so I pulled 3W. With all the coaches and parents watching, I hit a pure push draw that landed on the green and rolled to 20ft away. Ended with birdie and it was sweet. But that was the only good shot that day. Oh well, time to go to college. One note from high school. But first, a bit of back ground on Chick Evans GC, it's a short course, par 71. But it has one of the hardest holes in the state, hole 3. Par 5, 500yds, you have to carry 180yds to clear water, BUT there's water left of FW and water right of FW, AND the fairway has that bow to it that any drive that hits the left or right side of the FW will bounce in the water 100% of the time. It just has to be a perfect drive. When the course is busy, I've seen as much as 4 groups on the tee, because they all hit 2nd drives instead of moving on to drop over the water. The hole continues with water down the whole right side and then it cuts through the FW in front of the green. This was my least favorite hole and then became my favorite hole. One summer (I think I was 16 or 17yrs old), I was playing with a 2-some, without my dad unfortunately, and I smoked a drive 330yds past the left water and to the wide part of the FW, but I found the ball to be lying low in a drain pipe grass area. I ended up skulling my 7-iron and it hit the front of the green, but rolled all the way to the back of the green where the pin was and dropped in for a double eagle!! I must've jumped 20ft in the air. haha! I couldn't believe it. Ended up around a 80 that day. College to today Well I already stated how tryouts was a bust. I will add that they required you to shoot even par on a newly aerated course (it was seriously the day before they had finished aerating). So it was impossible to play well. Anyway, I played on my own during the year and during the summers, I would go back to Chicago and work at Chick Evans as outside staff. So I was the guy that cleaned carts, gassed them, I was the marshal a bit, and I was the starter. The years during college I slowly got better and got to a 1 handicap or so. I continued hitting 300yd drives and at Chick Evans, there were only 2 par 4's left that I hadn't driven the green. Both of those holes were 370, and all the others were 340 or less, so I drove those. My lowest score was a 68 I think, so nothing special but it was a 60's score. When I marshaled the course, I would stop by and watch groups and offer tidbits of help if they'd like and I got reasonably good results and compliments from that. I didn't ever push it too far. But this was the beginning for me to look into being a golf professional one day. Also at Chick Evans, when I had just turned 21, I was on the #10 tee box playing with my dad. 170yds, into the breeze and uphill, but you can still see the green. I hit my 7iron and it one hopped into the hole for my first hole in one! Haha, my dad was more excited than me I think. Course I had to buy a few rounds after that round. That was the same 7-iron from my double eagle. I still have it stored away, but my plan will be to put it in a glass case. That's a special 7iron. My junior year, I started dating my wife, Kelly, and senior year was that time that I'm thinking about us but also graduate school. Univ of Washington had the program I wanted but is a super hard program to get into. Deals with diatoms inside hydrothermal vents and how it feeds the entire ecosystem around the vents as well as why diatoms show up at these vents. Cool, but because I golfed during summers instead of internships in the field as well as my GPA or whatever, I didn't get into UW. After graduating, I moved in with a buddy of mine for a year while he still attended WWU, and I started to work at Shuksan GC. I worked this time as pro shop staff. At this point, I'm figuring out what direction to take my life. This job was seasonal, so I had to find something for the winter. I ended up quitting and going to the casino to work as a customer service. I would eventually go to part time supervisor and part time slot attendant. But I worked night shift for the 2 years I was there. So start somewhere between 4:30pm and 8:30pm and work til as late as 6:30am (yes late, not early, it's still nighttime for me at 6:30am the next day, haha). But this gave me the opportunity to golf during the day. At this point, I had moved in with Kelly into a condo. She finished her MBA and then went to work for the state auditor's office and I worked nights and played golf during the day. During those 2 years, something clicked for me in my game and I went down to a +3 handicap at my home courses. But I still shot around 0 to +1 at newer courses. So, I decided to try a US Open qualifier. I used to love playing tournaments in high school. I loved the pressure, but that went away as I hadn't played in tournaments for 5yrs at that point. The qualifier was at one of my now favorite courses called Tumble Creek. I had a buddy of mine that I play golf with caddy for me. I played terribly and embarrassed myself by shooting 90. I made a thread on that experience and I was embarrassed to post that 90 for a year it seemed like. It shocked me and took me a while to get back to the course. But when I did play, I was back to shooting 69 or 70 at my home course and so I started to take lessons from a local pro who had worked with and caddied for Ben Crane in the past and is a good friend of his. He changed my weight shift and swing and I like the initial results. But those were the first real lessons I've ever taken before. My swing has always been just that, my swing. When lessons started, it wasn't mine anymore and I didn't know how to trust it. I stopped with lessons after 6 or 7 of them so I could find trust again. (It's honestly something I still haven't been able to quite do yet, but it's very close now). But in those lessons, my teacher was surprised at how fast I could pick up what he wanted me to do. I could do any swing he wanted, but the problem was that I couldn't duplicate it on my own. In any case, I continued to play obviously and started on the track to find an Assistant Golf Professional position somewhere close by. During that time, I got married, bought a house, and passed my PAT test, so that it would look good for my resume to say that I'm ready for the PGA program. When Kelly and I were moving into our house, I found an open Assistant position at one of the nearby courses. Funny, because the post was literally up the night before, and the morning after I walked my resume in and talked to the boss. I was offered the job a week later. I joined the PGA program in a few months and I'm still working on it, but more slowly than I first intended. Since joining the apprenticeship, I've been playing in a lot more tournaments and while my handicap is 0ish (I don't keep a real cap), my tournament cap from those events is a 3.4 (this is a cap kept & updated by my chapter of the PGA). I'm to the point again where I don't feel nerves on the first tee and I can just play my own game. But as I said earlier, I don't 100% trust my own game. I love my irons and wedges, it's my driver and 3-wood that I don't quite trust yet. I can keep them in the FW most of the time, it's more of ball flight. Sometimes it's a small cut, sometimes its a small draw. I could play one or the other if I knew which one would show up. Yes I can control one or the other to some degree when the shot calls for a draw because of a dogleg. It's on the straight holes that I have the problem, go figure. haha! So these days I'm just going as I go. My wife and i are thinking baby time within a year. So playing golf may get put on hold, but I love what i do and I plan to keep doing it for as long as I can. I'll keep at the US Open qualifiers for fun to see if I can make it one day, but I'm not actively looking to play on a mini tour or anything. I definitely need to have a plus figure tournament handicap first, which is my goal this next year.