WatchOutLeft

I've been watching Tiger's group online because it's interesting and because Rickie is my favorite and who I picked to win (oops!). I don't know if I feel good about the fact that even the pros can look bad or feel bad because as bad as they look, their score would be the round of my life even on a much much much easier course.

Practiced pitching and putting on the practice green before playing 27 holes today. Unfortunately I had a massive migraine yesterday so I'm out for this month. Probably still post here. Practicing every day has really helped me on the course. This site has given me so much help improving my golf game. Gonna get LSW soon. Even if I don't get anything out of it (which I doubt from what I've heard here) I wouldn't feel cheated considering all the free help I've gotten here.

That is beyond slow. There is no way I could handle that.

I want one of these... I could probably play 18 in under 2 hours by myself with this.

Worked on this drill for about 20 minutes. A change from my usual practice of doing the same put over and over trying to get it perfect. This one you have to hit a slightly different put every time.

20 minutes working on pitching into a bucket in the backyard. Started about 15 feet away and worked my way back to about 45 feet.

I voted online because when I do schedule tee times that's how I do it. I play the local municipal course which doesn't require tee times during the weekdays. The only time I play other courses is if I have found a somewhat comparable price at another course on Golf Now. Seeing as I play as many holes as my legs will carry me for at the muni for $12, I don't play elsewhere very often. Every now and then some $15 deals will pop up at courses that are usually $25-30. Riding a cart and playing a nicer course is worth it sometimes over getting to play 27 or 36 holes. Also if I am playing with someone I usually let them pick the course and the tee time. I've yet to find anyone willing to go on my 5 1/2 hour 36 hole excursions with me.

Why didn't I look into this before picking the winner at 7 under? I want outrageous speed damnit!

More of practice with the driver just swinging as easy as I need to to hit the sweet spot consistently

Practiced this drill for 30 minutes. I have no feel right now on my putts so I'm trying to get to the point where I know what different distances feel like. Then in theory I can focus more on the line and actually try to hole putts outside of 10 feet.

Don't you think women's tees and having a separate Ladies' Par on some holes takes care of the distance difference? When I started golf I was a very short hitter and couldn't used my driver so I played from the Ladies' Tees a lot. It didn't make me score that much better because my technique still sucked but it pretty much took care of my distance problem. I'm still relatively short but I play from the white tees (second longest of 4 sets of tees at my course). I played the red tees once just to see how well I could score, and while I didn't post an amazing score it was pretty boring from a distance perspective. Other than the lone Par 5 (9 hole course) I was hitting a partial sand wedge on every 2nd shot with the exception of 2 holes (which are both all uphill by about 50 yards and both play as par 5s for the ladies). The easiest hole on the course is a downhill dog leg left 257 yard par 4 with trees along the left side that I can hit over with my driver and usually end up within 20 yards of the green in any direction. From the ladies tees it plays as a straight 198 yard par 4. When I played from those tees I flew the green by 20 yards with a 4 iron (which I average 182 yards with). All together the ladies get 678 yards and 2 strokes on a 9 hole course. I don't know what distance the average female golfer drives the ball (I guess I don't know that stat for all male golfers either) but on my course from the red tees you would have to average a drive of 146 yards to have a 2nd shot from 100 yards. On the 3 ladies par 5s you would have to average 120 yards on your first 2 shots to have a 100 yard approach shot. I would guess that I am fairly far towards the short hitter end of the spectrum for adult males and if I played the ladies tees I could accomplish these distances using nothing more than an 8 iron for my tee shots. I would guess that a female with similar swing technique skill as myself should be able to at least match my 8 iron distance with their driver. My course is very short to begin with though so I don't know what these numbers would look like on a longer course but it seems pretty doable to me.

I walked 36 holes in 5 hours today. The course was pretty empty otherwise there would have been a lot of "slow" players out there. I didn't do the slow down on putts and approaches thing that I did last time out. Putting was fine but approaches were kind of streaky. I think shots into the green is where I need to slow down my game and think about what I am doing. Putting and hitting driver off the tee I think I need to keep it simple and just do it. Thinking too much gets me in trouble, especially with the driver. I have finally changed my swing at least with the driver. I just take one slowed down practice swing to make sure I am using my new swing and not my old swing and then I hit it. Putting I think I holed one putt outside of 10 feet today so just lag it up close and tap it in unless I hit an approach or chip between 5 and 10 feet, then take a little time to read it. Hopefully I'll get better with practice outside of my rounds and eventually need to put more effort into putts in the 10 to 20 foot range. But approaches are where I can really gain or lose strokes right now. Being on the green is a huge advantage because those are almost always 2 putts at worse. If I'm off the green there's probably a 70/30 chance of 2 putt to 1 putt, so more than likely it's an extra stroke for every green I miss, and I pretty much need to hit my approach to inside of 10 feet to have a chance at birdie. So that's where I need to spend a couple moments judging if I am correctly aimed at my target, if I need to run it onto the green or get it there in the air, if I'm better off short or long, etc. Pitching/chipping fits in with putting and driving. I'm at such a low skill level with those right now that too much thinking does my head in and I hit some terrible shot. I definitely need to put in some practice with my short game, been neglecting it big time.

Worked on putting and chipping on the practice green before playing 36 holes.

Hit into the net for 30 minutes working on key 2

Worked on my putting stroke. Still working on being able to hit putts to the same distance consistently. I think its time to look for some specific drills like I use for all the other aspects of my game. Winging it is not working.

Worked with my driver into the net for 30 minutes today. I hit it all over the face so I sprayed it with foot powder and took some full swings first to see where I was hitting it most often and it was on the heel. So I did some small swings feeling like I was trying to hit it off the toe. Started finding the sweet spot more often but still not great. Got the drill from a video with Mark Crossfield and a couple other instructors who's names I can't remember.

No thank you. I'll remember this the next time I'm feeling sorry for myself because I'm hiking up the side of a mountain. High 80s is pretty hot here.

I would blade it over the green. Or did you mean how would I attempt to play it?

30 minutes into the net with my 6 iron. Started with chip shots and took bigger and bigger swings until I got to the point where I was mishitting. Then I backed off a bit from that and hit some shots into the woods. Dead straight and good contact on every one of them. I think I'm going to use this as my warmup before going to the course from now on. 8i and under I am confident hitting fully just about any day with the odd misshit. 6 and above I kind of figure out how I'm hitting them that particular day on the course. If I have an idea how big a swing I can control that day then I can use that on the course and take however much extra club I need. Seems like a better idea than getting to the first par 3 on the course and guessing whether I need 5, 4, or 3 iron and ending up 20 yards short or long of my target.

So it's more healthy to keep arguing when it's pretty clear neither of us are going to change our opinion?

I've never been quite guilty of that from 290. I do hate when I'm 230 from a green with people on it though. I can get my 3 wood there if I hit it really well but I'm much more likely to screw it up and hit 190. Nothing like the group behind you watching you wait for a green to clear and coming up 40 yards short. I'd still rather have the group behind me be a little perturbed with me than hit someone when they're putting, and if I went for it with people on the green that would undoubtedly be the one in 10 shot I got it there.

Hit into the net for 20 minutes trying not to move my head forward during my downswing. Smallish swings.