Opoponax

I had to take a good two weeks off from swinging a club. After starting again following an 18 or so year hiatus, I'd gone from 140+ in my first round back to low 100s/high 90s. Everything was progressing well. Now I suddenly don't have a golf swing anymore. It's this awkward stiff slapping motion like I'm trying to hit a mosquito mid-flight with a golf club. Even when I do manage to make good contact, I've lost 20 yards off each club. I'm thinking this is a back to basics rebuild. Anyone know of any good videos that covers this?

In my 20 years of on and off playing this game, I have never once fell over/slipped and fell down due to failure of any type of footwear to adequately grip the ground; and this past summer I played a lot in flip-flops (chicks dig the funky tan lines on my feet). I was gonna start going to the gym so I bought some gym shoes, but I never went to the gym because I hate going to the gym. Then I noticed that nowadays, golf shoes look a lot like sneakers, so now I just wear my gym shoes on the course and no one seems to notice. And I still haven't needed Life Alert (although that day is likely imminent) to save me from a catastrophic fall after zinging yet another drive into a parallel dimension.

98 at Oak Valley in Beaumont. I left the driver and 3 wood at home just to see what would happen. The longest club I hit off the tee was my 5 wood. I didn't lose a single ball until the 17th hole, when I lost two and then lost another on 18 for a combined +9 on those two holes alone (Ouch!). I'm still figuring out my wedge distances. They're way off from what they are at the range; anywhere from 10-15 yards longer on the course than at the range. Overall though, I'm encouraged. I'll keep working on my driver but playing with my 5W. Hitting nearly every second shot from a nice playable lie was a good experience and helped expose just how off the other parts of my game are.

104. I hadn't been able to practice or play much the past two weeks. Biggest problem was one that took me 16 holes to identify (chopping with wedges around the green instead of swinging through). But that's the way it goes. It's always something. That and sloping lies. No matter what, I just can't seem to get this down because I can't practice it at the range. I even have notes on my phone that I take with with regarding what to do on each type of sloping lie, but I just can't execute those shots to save my life. Oh well. It was nice to get out and I saw a coyote that was the size of a small wolf near the tee box at hole 8. Near that green I spotted some chunky wild rabbits and my guess is that those rabbits won't be there tomorrow.

In my second game back after a 15+ year hiatus, I got the shanks on the practice tee and couldn't shake them. In 9 holes I hit maybe 2 shots that were even marginally acceptable and lost over a dozen balls. It was like trying to hit a golf ball with a pool cue; an exercise in pure futility and there was no point in trying to fix something I didn't know how to fix, so I left (I was a single so I wasn't abandoning a playing partner). I then went and watched several videos on how to fix the shanks. It took a few times at the range, but I did get it fixed. I haven't shanked a ball on the course since then.

I quit for somewhere between 15-20 years. I was a terrible player (still am), but loved playing. I worked so hard at the game, but never seemed to get that much better at it. I took lessons, did my best to practice those things, but ended going from one instructor to another. Each seemed to tell me something different and it all just became a confused mess. One day I woke up, didn't feel like going to the range, and that was it. I didn't touch another club and had zero desire to play golf. I don't even know what happened to my old set of clubs. Then about 5 months ago I got back into it and I'm really glad I did. It's been good for my mental and emotional health--it's such a great distraction from the type of work I do. When I'm at the range or on the course, there's what seems like an almost physical barrier that keeps my concerns away. What's also helpful are all the quality instructional videos available nowadays that simply didn't exist back then. Because of that, I'm usually (but not always) able to self-diagnose and therefore have a well defined purpose when I'm at the range, which keeps things interesting. My first game back I must have shot a 140, but now I'm down to around 100 each game with a couple disastrous holes per round preventing me from consistent mid 90s. I think when I quit I was just burnt out on playing often, but not making any progress. So I'm mindful to not overdo it.

101. It felt better than that though because I had two catastrophic par 3's ( a 7 and an 8 ) that put me over the 100 mark. If I would've just double bogey'd those two holes I'd have shot a 96. And I putted exceptionally poorly. It's usually a stronger part of my game, but I had a couple that stopped and peaked in the hole without going in and a few I misread so badly. This whole counting-every-shot thing is tough. 🙂

Thanks to everyone for the advice and shared experiences. I'm going to keep working on driver, but next weekend when I hopefully get to play, I'm leaving the driver at home. I'd do a practice round but I still have about 15 rounds to go before establishing an official handicap, so I'll keep scores. So my next post will probably be, "Should I just be doing practice rounds?"

After my 15+ year hiatus from the game, I decided that when I started playing that I was finally going to learn how to hit driver. My game has steadily improved, but over the past three weeks/rounds, I've kept track of my shots when a hole goes wrong. For example, I'll write down "T" on the scorecard when my tee shot goes awry. I'll write down "A7" for a bad approach shot with a 7 iron, etc. I've now gathered enough "T's" to absolutely confirm that the driver is 75% of my woes. I may duff a shot with an iron and I may skull a wedge over a green, but only very rarely is one of those shots catastrophic to the hole (e.g., leads to a triple bogey). But when it comes to using driver, nearly every lost ball can be attributed to a spirit crushing slice or pull OB. Then there's my 7 wood. I don't know why I hit it so well. Maybe it fits my eye, my swing---whatever. It's the most rock solid reliable club in the bag and I can hit it 200-210 pretty reliably (and why does my F&$#*(g driver only go 230???). And I hit my 5 wood off the deck just as far, if not consistently farther than driver (and much more reliably). I want to just leave my driver home next time I go out, but it feels like accepting defeat. I also bought the damn thing just 5 weeks ago (Callaway ST Max) and so yeah... there's that. Anyone else play without a driver?

105. But I did birdie a 188 par 3. It's my first bird since I took up the game again 4 months ago. I was horrible off the tee. So I switched to 3 wood on the 10th and promptly hit two OB. Ugh. Went back to driver and for whatever reason I managed to keep it in play after that. It was all getting steadily better, but the Golf Gods must have decided that I was their favorite comedy act over the past two weeks.

And this brings up another pet peeve: marshals who don't enforce pace of play rules. No one wants Golf-Stalin ruling over the course with an iron fist, but we also don't need marshals whose job is best described as professional cart driving b.s.'er.

I accept slow play as part of the game when the course is backed up. It's inevitable sometimes so whatever. However, I usually play as a single and not being allowed to play through by a group that has no one in front of them is extremely frustrating. Last Friday I went out by myself and got stuck behind a foursome. One guy played the blue tees, two guys played the whites, and the woman in the group played the forward tees. Not only that, they seemed to mill about before teeing off. I know this because after watching them walk off the green on #4, I skulled a shot into an adjacent fairway, thinned that one over the green, hit the next one into a bunker, then hit a nice shot out of the bunker, and two putted. When I arrived at the next tee box they hadn't even teed off yet. Not one of them. I began to get nervous about teeing off in front of them because it's always nerve wracking to have strangers watch you. But it turns out I needn't have worried because they didn't offer to let me play through. They saw me, looked at me indifferently, and proceeded to spray their respective shots all over the place. Thankfully they stopped at the turn and I was able to get past them and finish the rest of my round in about 90 minutes. Anyway, I think what all these complaints boil down to is the lack of courtesy. Not fixing pitch marks, raking bunkers, playing music (god, what a scourge that is), etc. all have to do with a discouraging lack of awareness that others exist.

I was so frustrated after a round at one of my local courses that I looked this up. The accepted rule is that if you're inside 20 feet, then call it a two putt. One writer described aerated greens as close to GUR, hence the rule. I'd describe the greens I referred to earlier as unplayable. You can almost never get a read, and even when you can, the ball is at the mercy of the bumps and punch-holes. The only seemingly viable solution I read about is to aim dead straight at the hole and hit the ball hard enough for it to go 3-4 feet past the hole. The rules of golf are as they should be, but there is no rule of golf that demands you voluntarily ruin your score.

113. Ugh. After my glorious 99 last week ;). There were no memorable shots except maybe one 5 wood I hit really clean about 240 yards. But I was already hitting four on that shot. The greens at the course I played at (Yucaipa Valley) were godawful slow and I just never adapted. I only 2-putted twice. Everything else was a three putt. The swing was just off today. Nothing ever felt right. No groove was gotten into. It was like the heat (104F at tee-off) was mocking me. There was a foursome in front of me (I was playing as a single) that refused to let me play through, but I'll gripe about that on another thread.

There's two reasons I don't go to a better range: 1. No shade/cover. It's consistently 100F+ where I live. My "home range" has horrible range balls and it's ugly to look at, but you're in the shade. 2. Chairs: the range I go to has chairs you can sit (in the shade) when you need to take a break. Around October or November, the above won't matter so much, but right now it's essential.

I'll speak for myself, but I think it's applicable to a lot folks who don't know their distances as well as they'd like. The only driving range that I have time to go to is about 5-10 minutes from my house. The landing surface is hardpan dirt with a lot of rocks and has dried out rivulets running through it, which can cause the ball to do all kinds of wonderful bouncing tricks when it lands in one. The balls at this range are in bad shape and some are likely old enough to buy beer. Cracked, fuzzy, etc. you name it, these balls have it (along with accompanying bizarre flight patterns). Most though, just fall into the overall "bad" category. Even my 7 iron distances vary up 20 yards on purely struck shots. When it comes to fairway woods and driver, forget it: these balls die at about 200-210 yards (and then can roll another 75-100 yards due to the hardpan surface). So what happens on a course with a new, decent quality golf ball? I'm still figuring it out. IOW, I'm learning my consistent distances on the course. Therefore, I shoot for the middle of the green and am always happy to not see the ball take off on a nice looking plane, suddenly rise up like it has a thruster attached to it, and then plunge nearly straight down like a rock dropped off a cliff. Frankly, this was just an excuse to complain about my local range. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I broke 100 yesterday/Friday. 🙂 Is this how I claim the achievement?

Burying the bodies deep enough this time so that my dog doesn't unbury them again... oh, wait we're talking about golf goals. Okay then. Low to mid 90s consistently by December. I live in SoCal so I can play year round. No such thing as an offseason here. 🙂

I work on driver a lot. It is the absolute bane of my game; I'd estimate that 90% of my worst problems come from the tee box. Just yesterday, I shot a 42 on the front 9 and was really playing well off the tee. I tripled bogey'd the 9th due to an errant tee shot and struggled through the rest of the day off the tee and shot 57 on the back. I'm pretty solid from inside 100 and as long as I don't go for a hero shot from 220+ I don't usually hit very many catastrophic shots. Anyway, by working on my driver I've managed to shave about 15+ strokes over the last 3 months. To be fair, I only started playing again about 4 months ago, so take that for what it's worth. But keeping the ball in play off the tee leads to me only having to hit 8 iron or less on my second shot rather than hitting 3 off the teebox. Therefore, when I'm at the range I've been working on driver more than anything---and it's helped a lot.

Shot 42 on the front. Shot 57 on the back. But even though the back 9 was horrible, what really matters is that I broke 100 for the first time since coming back after an approximate 17 year hiatus, and it's only my 5th time playing an actual round in the past 3 months (although I do hit the range at least 3 times per week). Good for me!

Like I said, it's a long road to recovery. 😉

Shanks can't be helped until after they happen. Only then can the long road to recovery begin.

It's the utter lack of consideration. It's the "I'm the only person that matters" attitude. It's often a matter of the person blasting their music wanting to draw attention to themselves when in fact no one is interested in them. Like everyone else, I pay to play golf. I shouldn't have my round disturbed by some jerk who acts like they're the only ones who paid to play. It's simple: if your conduct is bothering other people, then you should cease that conduct. It's not the world's job to accommodate the inconsiderate jerk.

1. No there isn't (good decaffeinated coffee). 2. I know how crotchety I sound. Pitch marks, unraked bunkers, a painfully slow foursome with the remaining 9 holes open in front of them, etc.. All of it's nothing worse than a minor annoyance. But the music thing I just can't tolerate.