DrMJG
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Everything posted by DrMJG
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Day 425 Worked again with the 7iw. Much better in terms of consistent lift. Still either what I was not seeing or I am expecting from of the club. Perhaps I am getting what I can expect from this club; I had not even practiced with it in the last 6 months. This weekend I will be using the Top Tracker so that I will have some statistics to really study. As well, I just re-gripped my 7i and my 4h. They really needed it. As I was now using a grip which is better for my arthritic right hand, it was a new feel to get used to over a dozen shots. Basically it had no negative affect; will go at it again to get it to feel totally melded into my hand.
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Day 424 Following some advice from my coach, I put the 3h into club purgatory and took out the 7i/w I have not used for some time. As well, I took more time to think of the club as a 7w with a position to be used when I would have used a 3h. It took close to 15 shots for me to believe I got a nice feel back. It was a while before I got good lift from the club; I was closing down way too much. Slowly I got ti back to go with the fairly good line. I also tended to grip too hard and it was a wee before I relaxed to let the club do the work. It will be a while before it finds a full time role in my bag of weapons. We shall see.
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Day 423 Only a bit of time available to me today Took 15 well though out 60º shots to a green about 40 yards away. I did have fairly spot on aim today and with the height of the loft, I was often leaving myself a 6' putt or less to follow up. I even rimmed two and left them fewer that 8" away. Too bad my schedule allowed no work with my other wedges.
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Day. 422 Another day of working with all 3 of my hybrids. 4h and 5h were spectacular and predictable with range, direction and loft. My coach was very pleased with all of the aspects of the play with all the work on those two. The 3h was another beast. He videoed my work and found nothing really off. Perhaps a little of this and that would make a difference. Perhaps. The bottom line is that a 3h is the most difficult to hit of the hybrids, at least the hybrids in my bag. And, I am not losing enough yardage between my 4h and the 3h, if a goes well. Rather than looking for a 3h to match the other hybrids in my bag, I would be better off to get a 7 wood as the basic replacement. Result, tomorrow will be to put the 3h into a "suspended from my bag" status and return the 7i/w that I have. Or to look for a true 7 metal. He also suggested I experiment with various 1/2 and 3/4 swings with the 4h. The goal, he said was 2-3 strokes/round on longer holes. So I will go this way for now. Onward, upward, Excelsior!
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My wife knows I am a golf nut. And she knows I do dress well when I play, even at the range. She recently was at a Goodwill and picked up, for a surprise gift: 4 PGA shirts, 2 Greg Norman Shirts and 2 Ping branded shirts. All were $1.50 each. None had stains, all were my correct size. Owner at local range said I looked like I take my golf seriously by the way I dressed. I only wear Bermuda shorts in hot weather as no one needs to needlessly look at my ugly legs!
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Day 422 As promised (to my self at lest) it was an intimate day with me and my 3h. I was very much able to make good full contact, and, I was able to get decent distance. However, good loft was almost not appearing as it should. Most only rose 8-10' above the planet. I made sure the angle of the club was proper for the club at address. I made a slight adjustment so that my grip was a bit more strong to keep it a bit more open. Again, solid contact but no great loft. As I stated, Karsten hybrid is not the same design as my other, more reliable 4h and 5h. The reality is this one does not have the dragonfly design normally found in Pings and the face is not made of the same resilient materials. SO tomorrow, I will be looking at a replacement to try out. Great thing about this range is that one is allowed to test any club in the store. I will look at all the 3h in stock from new G400 and G410 as well as some older models if they are in the used club section. I am simply looking to find a more consistent club to save one or maybe two strokes a game on the longer courses I play.
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Day 421 I must be doing something right. 20 dutiful driver events were such that , I almost dare say, I may know what I a doing; at least, for this week I do. It is amazing how much not forcing a club and the swing often gets me far better results. My speeds today were some f the best in terms of consisItency. Distance was solid, 200+ yards with god following role. I had only one push right. I was a but upset at first, but then came to understand, if that were a drive at the course scheduled next, it would have probably ended up in the second cut of rough at worst! Heck, I have seen many a pro do that as well. Except for that miscreant whack, I somehow got, primarily, a nice draw. Now, I cannot state all was glorious today. While my 6i was good with only one rather than shot, my 3h was lacking both loft and distance. I need to spend either time mastering my 3h, or seriously take a look the value of this particular club. (My coach had suggested that the Karsten 3h design might be the reason as it does not, in most respects, match design of my other bride. When we next meet, I will try out a 3h at the G400 line)
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Day 420 The day I hoped for yesterday. Early AM to get in 25 driver drives. Average speed was some of my best, 110 Without adding extra yardage for the stiff range balls, I was about 205. No arm of hand tension, good turning of hips and follow through. No fat or thin shots, a few pushes, but nothing gawd awful. Now to figure out how to take all this off the range so I can win friends and influence people.
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Day 419 Anyone else ever have a day like this? I had a limited time to work as I was on my way to an appointment. Plan was to hit 15, or, even a few more, whacks with the mighty driver before meeting my doctor for a fairly short bit of follow-up. My range allows you to use a pre-purchased card to activate the ball set up about 90 minutes before they open. So it was time to go. I felt forced to leave, as I could not put up with a loud, irreverent and even profoundly profane group of young gentlemen (using the term quite loosely) of, I surmised, high school age, who decided to utilize far too much foul language and invectives. I was fairly sure of their age, as I taught HS for 47 years. They actually were screwing around in the parking lot and did not even pretend to practice; I suspect they did nothave the card which allows the machines to work in the hour and a half before the range opens. Total time they were driving through the lot was perhaps 10 minutes tops. After I think I hit 7 or 8 shots or so, it became clear it was time to leave, as I could not concentrate at all. I was not even sure they fully saw me. So it was a morning dealing with "those types". Ok, I am an old geezer, but it was not fun. I do not blame the course as it was the actions of some, shall we say, idiots. As I was packing up and changing my shoes, they left. As then time was a factor for me. I am just venting as I have been substituting for 6th grade classes this week and the behavior level I saw this morning was about the same level. Perhaps the golf gods found a off the wall way to tell me that I need to take a deep breath, relax, and have a focused practice tomorrow. Thus ends the sermon from your favorite curmudgeon!
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Day 418 I took the day to work slowly with the three wedges. After physical warm-ups, I got ready by some short gentle swings using my 50º with my feet together. This allowed me to concentrate a bit more on the rest of the swing motion. When the time came to begin the smacking of the spheres, I was nice and loose. All the wedges performed well. I may not have gotten all the distance expected, but they were close. Direction was better, even though I still tend to finish a bit to the right. For the longer wedge shots, using my 50º, I was keeping it well into the 100 yard target areas. I made sure to keep my swing active yet not over powering as to loose a lot in total. I then tried a few gentler partial swing for shots between 50 and75 yards. Mostly good though I did hit a very ugly thin shot. 54º was good, though I still "over ran" a few well beyond where I hoped they would have stopped. 60º was the best overall as to what I tried to do. I am saving the sand trap shots for this weekend when slightly cooler weather will be upon us.
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As a Packer fan since before they hired Lombardi, no difficulty in saying GO, PACK, GO!
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Day 417 After 10 minutes with driver, 3h. and 6i, I was off to a quick 9 hole before Satan arrived to heat things up. Hit a fair 45, with 4 strokes due to penalty (OB and a splasher) and a rather comical sand trap event. My true amateur nature came through on that one! 16 putts, 5 FIR, 3 GIR. Average with the driver was 200+, hybrids played well. Big take away is that I rushed myself the last few holes to finish before the furnace kicked in. Last time I played this 9 I shot a 52, so I went to obtain more coffee with a smile.
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Day 416 I have decided I need to make sure all is in order before the first swing with a club.. On the course, I cannot make "I'm not fully warmed up" excuses. So before I even left for the range, I fully warmed up with my physical exercises. By the time I cot to the range, I felt a good relaxed feeling but full of energy. I decided to begin with the 3h. The biggest gain today was no thin shots. Good to excellent lofts. At first, I was getting ball speed more on the lower range., by the time I got to my 15th shot, I was in the mid to upper 90s. It is amazing, to some extent, how much thinking before an activity, can quickly correct problems.
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Day 415 Worked my hybrids, 19º. 22º. 26º (3h, 4h, 5h.) I hit many, many fine shots over all, good distance, speed running from high 70s to high 90s, direction was good. But it was not quite nirvana. With each club, I started with some really think hits, maybe 2-4. Adjustments were made (I had not worked with these weapons in some time). When I made the adjustment of not coming down on my swing, I got the results I wanted. I wish I had filmed myself to get a better sense of when and how I changed my swing. Will do that tomorrow.
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Day 414 More of the same with the driver, concentrating on more body turn and following through. While I was more focused on the mechanics today, and I liked the results, the end of it all was that the less I stressed and tried to over power the ball, the better the shots were in all aspects: distance, direction and loft. I am able to remember what to do. I have to work on keeping those things to keep the actions in the mind and body. That is the joy of repetition. What I do not need to do is try to over power everything when the mechanics are off. Today the speed was in the upper 90's to a few I the 100s. Loft looked great and I did not have any that were dangerous to fling birds. I was a consistent 200 yards as a result.
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Day 413 To quote the old tune "It's too darned hot". Actually the humidity, even just after sunrise, made it the less than ideal day! 15 with the driver is all I had time for. All things considered, I was OK with the results. I got good loft, perhaps even a little too much so. I was not using a monitor, so I can only report eyeball results. The direction was good, well within my imagined fairway. Distance was between 185 and 200. So good, not great.
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Day 412 Only enough time for 20 driver whacks off a tee. Felt good and looked good. Ball speed near 90 and only one was off, a pull that still landed within my target "fairway". Averaged 205, most had a solid loft. No worm burners in the batch. Tomorrow will probably be the same due to anticipated heat and air quality levels.
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Day 411 Again, up early to avoid the full on heat. I went to a course today which has a great practice green and a practice sand trap. I started out with 15 putts toward the same hole from 2', 5', and 10' 2' were good even with a very slight right handed break. All 5 were well dropped into the gopher hole. 5' were a little more iffy as the break from the right side came a bit more into play. Despite getting the five in, the first two were iffy when it came to finding the proper speed. One slowly rolled around while the second one was hit a tad too hard and dropped in a bit by luck, Adjustments were made and the other three were fine. Only 2 of the 10' dropped in. Again, speed messed up the approach to the break and the first two were way hit too fast. Third was good and I was happy as speed seemed solid throughout. #4 stopped 2" short, which I would have felt good about in a round, but in this game was a miss. The last one was what I would like all longer putts to be. I took 10 shots out of the trap, only working with the 54º to get some mastery of both lofting and aim. While this is still a real work in progress, my use of vulgarities in the many languages I know was not too bad.
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Day 410 Based on yesterday's finding every sand trap I could, today I spent a quick 40 minutes at the sand trap works with both my 56º and 60º wedges. I played from soft shallow sand to up tight with deep sand near a lip that guards the tree. Took about 25 sand shots. I mainly wanted to see which wedge when. Got a lot of good data. Tomorrow will be more of the same to improve my knowledge for traps. I think I could have readily saved quite a few shots yesterday. I will be playing that course again soon. I have to be honest, I have not spent enough tie on this aspect of my game!.
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I should have added this to make it clearer. OBs are tight on this course and none was out by more than 1 foot. So OB. but not lost, only lost shots on the card. I play a red ball so readily seen. Damned "lucky" I know. One hit a tree and almost came back in. I readily could have been dishonest and played the OB with am sneaky foot wedge and pretended they were not OB; but I play too damned honest of a game. All 3 were significantly longer than "hitting 3". All 3 went out left and were the result of my poorly aimed feet.
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Early rise round today, I hit the first tee at 6:19 AM. This was my first full round in over three weeks. I overcame a fairly. strong muscle pull that took weeks to settle down and, in terms of my golf, a fully new approach to my 6i, as I bored many of you with too much detail! Course is rated 65/105, 5300 yards played from the senior tees. Par is 72 My HCP remains a 18. This course has a bit of lack of forgiveness due to the very narrow width of its fairways. 25% were FIR but I hit 3 OB off of drives. I landed in sand on 6 holes, mainly from not playing the course well in terms of planning, I could have gone for a lay up on 4 of them by playing a different club. The remaining shots did well and made for easy carry to green or near green. I thought I chose a correct lay up approach on the "lay it up" shots, only to have a differing carry than expected. Putting made up for less than wonderful results getting to the green. 32 total with 6 one putts, 2 three putts (with both including a rim out), and the rest 2 Putts. 32 putts in total and this included a high for me in 1 putts. I tried my best not to force my play by over hitting the clubs. In that area, it felt good. But I did not "play" the course very well, especially on the two most pronounced dog legs, and there was a bit of marching in my round ("left, right, left, right"). All in all my 94 fit good after my lay off. I finished the round before the temp hit 90º and, I played the round using the same ball, first time this year. I did hit a ball into the water by about 1/4" but I played it out of the wet and almost greened it from 160 yards out! That was my best, or best unexpected shot, of the day.
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Day 409 Practice before the round: Physical warm-ups did my usual including 10 swings of the Orange Whip® 25 or so warm up whacks! Driver felt good, as did the under practiced 3h. 6i retained much f the new found strength. 7i and wedges were "ok"
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Day 408 Early morning rise to simply go through the bag, 6 shots each club. With the exception of the 3h and 50º, I was quite happy. Most were fairly on line, with more than acceptable loft and acceptable distance. The 3h was the exception in that 2 of the 6 were hit thin. I did have really nice shot for the last 3 so I finished on a happy note. The 50º was great in distance and loft, but I still tend to hit it too much to the left. Even allowing for this was not really what I wanted. Perhaps I need to spend 5 days isolating this club as I did with the 6i. Lined up a round for tomorrow, will see how much I am ready to go at 6:20 AM.
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Day 407 Return of the leg pull (slight but noticeable) Today ended up being a few exercises, primarily focusing on shoulder turns and setting club position and grip setting. I suspect (hope) to be back to my singing life style tomorrow.
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Day 406 Good day with the 4h. Averaged higher 80 speed with really solid loft. Finished a good number of them more to the left than I would have liked. Still I would feel that 80-85% were solid enough that I would not have felt anything but happy with the results. Tomorrow I will add it to the game options of the past few days.
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