TryingtoPlay

I understand your situation very well. I have several priorities which I must keep in focus if I am going to play as well. I just got home from hitting a bucket of balls and I have extremely mixed emotions. The majority of my practice went extremely well. I am making alot of progress in key areas. I went through a few ruts during the session, but for the most part I was able to work through the problems that began to crop up. Once I got into a groove I was flushing my 4i out 200 yards and my 8i out about 145 putting the ball right on target. My father was with me and was making sure that I didn't lapse into any of my poor tendencies which is obviously incredibly helpful. After looking at some alignment issues when I aim to the right though, I stepped up to hit the last 15 balls in my bucket with wedge and 9i. I proceeded to top around 12 of them and duck hook the other three. Needless to say I was about ready to pull my hair out at the end of the practice. This can be a baffling game.

I think that my experience demonstrates that you have probably not regressed in terms of your ability by that much. I think that there is a good chance that you can be back to playing at a much higher level without too much time.

Hi Jon. I see that you posted this only a day after I posted about my utter implosion of a round that I played on Saturday taking out an entirely new swing (which I have since abandoned). I appreciated your kind words to me. My situation was somewhat similar to yours in that I had taken a lesson and began to make some major alterations to my swing and subsequently attempted to play which resulted in about the worst round I have ever played in my life. I am not sure what is best for you, but what has helped me tremendously over the last few days has been to generally revert to my normal swing, albeit while focusing again on those fundamental problems which tend to break down and induce my poor play. I have been able to get my long game functioning again very quickly. I also came out of it be reminded of a huge lesson in the game of golf. Major changes to your swing never come quickly and so it is imperative that you are conscious of how much you want to work on at one time and the potential ramifications are for different swing changes that you make. I have also noticed that my swing has actually improved somewhat from my experiment. I think that the exxagerated changes have helped me mitigate some of the things that I needed to improve in the first place even while generally abandoning the entirely new swing plane/path.. On Monday at the range I was hitting 5i beautifully, out about 185. So, just be conscience of what you change and how much those changes can impact.

Interesting discussion. I am currently not carrying either a 3W or a 5W. I am carrying a 4W which is probably a bit odd but I have been playing my 3H so frequently that it hasn't been something that I have changed as of yet.

The good news is that I think that I am back to working on more of what I should be working on again. I had a very productive practice on Monday and I think that I understand much better with my normal swing what it is that I need to improve.

I am interested in hearing people's general opinions on Jack Nicklaus designed courses and in Nicklaus as an architect. Personally, I have not always loved his layouts, but he has designed courses that I do also like alot. I am particularly fond of Valhalla which I find to be a beautiful layout and an absolutely outstanding test. He has designed a fair number of courses that I am not enamored with though. I am judging his courses both on those I have played and those that have hosted tournaments.

I think that it was probably ridiculous of me to attempt to completely rebuild my swing within only two weeks and expect that I would be able to play with it virtually at all. In hindsight, it was probably a disaster waiting to happen.

They are all actually on my phone though. I have never uploaded them anywhere so I have no URL to paste.

I appreciate it. I have plenty of videos on my phone of the swing that I have been working on. I don't know how to upload any though as there seems to be a memory limit for file attachments.

Thanks for the comment. It was probably absurd of me to think that I would be able to even play with a completely different swing than I am accustomed to after only two weeks (five practice sessions). Once I went back to my normal swing after the first ten holes I was back to playing the crazy, erratic golf that I am used to. At least I was able to play some though. Anything is better than hopeless. I appreciate the comment. I will take another look at Hogan's book.

Thanks for the link. I see your Buccaneers logo. I am a Dolphins fan. It is just unfortunate because I am still young, fairly athletic and quite healthy. I understand the game of golf and the basics of the golf swing, I.E. what induces what E.t.c. I just can't seem to put it together.

Boy am I terrible player. I spent last night and all morning working on my swing at the range as I was trying to rebuild it into something far better than what I tend to do. I wouldn't say that I hit the ball well, but I was consistently shaping the ball right to left with a more conventional path and I was able to hit some good shots. This is the swing that we have been trying to work on in lessons. When I got out to the course this afternoon though I was utterly hopeless. I simply could not hit the ball at all. I am talking a 13 on a 123 yard par 3 level hopeless. I reverted to my old swing after nine holes because I had just shot a front nine 73. Yes, a front nine 73. I love the game of golf, particularly the professional game, but I have just been so terrible my entire life that I sometimes wonder I bother playing. Maybe I will pick up darts or something.

My playing partner handled it amazingly well. He just chipped onto the green and putted out without even looking at the guy.

Ahh. So the fifth hole is a dogleg right par 4 with the left side of the dogleg around 30 yards or so short of the sixth green with trees protecting the sixth green at the dogleg. It opens however beyond the dogleg with nothing but some rough between the sixth green and the fifth fairway. The par three sixth runs back adjacent to the fifth hole with OB right. I had been playing behind other groups in front of me in the first place, so it isn't like we are going anywhere quickly. No one had been between me and his group though so he obviously noticed that he was catching up. They were a foursome on carts. I was playing with one other person. I am not sure what his playing partner did, but he had gone somewhere from where he had to hack back out up the fairway and was hence playing his shot into the fifth green from a short distance in (maybe 100 yards). That put him in the fairway next to the sixth green. I hit a terrible iron off of the sixth tee that went out of bounds right. I thought that it was probably still in play, hoping that it hit the trees and fell, but it went through them and over the OB fence. I walked back to the tee and hit another ball, another poor shot, thin and about ten yards in front of the green. When I got up to the ball he was standing on the back fringe of the green glaring at me as his partner was hitting. I waved him off, but he just stood there and wouldn't move so I lifted my hands as if to say "What the hell are you doing, get off the fringe." He shouted to me not to tell him what to do and that I should pick up on the hole which really sent me off. I told him to get the hell off of the green and I called him a "f@#%ing imbecile." He responded by saying "Listen s@$&head, I am not on the green and why don't you pick up so that you don't slow down. Look at the group in front of you they are almost to the next green already." I chipped on to the green, threw my bag down and walked up to him and I lit into him. I screamed and swore at him for about thirty seconds, three putted (in a rage) and stormed off of the green. He literally stood there until I left the hole. I apologized to my playing partner but I was in a pretty bad mood for the rest of the round.

I had never seen anything like it before and I really lost my head with him.

So, I was out playing and had to deal with extremely rude behavior from another player in a group behind me. My round began fairly well despite poorly playing the first hole and I went on to par both the second and third holes and I should have at least made par on the fourth. A poor wedge shot cost me a shot however My swing began to break down on the fifth and by the par three sixth I was really struggling. I ended up hitting a ball out of bounds and topping another. A player from a group behind me, playing the fifth hole mind you, decided to come up and stand on the fringe of the sixth green as his partner played his approach shot into the fifth green. I waved him off as I was still chipping in. He refused to move, telling me to pick up on the hole as he didn't want to wait for me when he got to the sixth tee box. Let's just say that I did not react well to this at all. I didn't hit him or anything, but I was really angry. Angrier than anyone should get on a golf course. I am not sure how I should have handled it, but I am not thrilled about how I did at all.

My hatred of the slice is almost pathological. :) I was working in front of the mirror just now in trying to take the club away more underneath, flatten out the path through the ball and rotate the lower body through the shot more as if trying to throw myself into a stuck position. The problem is that it feels like the shot will be a block.

The slice is just such a devastating miss for your game. It is a shot that I really have to eliminate from my game. I am an incredibly inconsistent player, to the point where I can be hitting a beautiful high fade and start to go pin hunting for several holes, having several looks at birdie in a row and then within the next several holes be almost unable to hit the ball without hitting a horrendous slice. I am so inconsistent that it is not abnormal for me to go something like par, birdie, par, birdie, par, quad, quad, quad in an eight hole stretch.

That really is crazy. This is the only course that I have ever seen in which a water hazard like a pond was unmarked.

It is interesting to hear the comments here. My natural shot is the pull-fade and hence my misses are the pull-slice, which is just a devastating shot and the pull which surfaces primarily with my short irons and wedges. It is funny because the slice has a reputation (probably justifiably so) for being the miss of the very poor player.

What shot in the game of golf is the miss that is most endemic and does the most damage to your game? Not what your worst shot is. Most low handicap players that I have seen are still capable of hitting the occasional mind-bogglingly bad shot, like a shank for example, but rather the shot that does the most damage to your game? Hook, slice, pull e.t.c.?

Live and learn. I had never seen a pond that was unmarked before like this.

I see. Good to know. Thank you. The problem with the scorecard is that it was already submitted. Aren't cards invalidated once submitted if incorrect, aside from several specific instances.

The hazard had no margins though as it was unmarked.

I appreciate the response. How exactly are we sure that I was in a hazard again? I also have a further problem. What should the procedure be if the card was submitted for handicap purposes? I assume that the round should be invalidated?