You Should have seen me Saturday

The problem with golf is that it is fickle.

On Saturday I was ready to write the last post to this blog and then find a new hobby.

I had realized that the downswing is a mixture of just two things: 1) the creation of a stable platform to hit from, created by hip rotation and posting onto the left leg, without disturbing the alignment of the shoulders (spine angle).  2) Then just hit the ball from this stable position.  You can hit it as hard as you like as you are aligned with the swing plane.  You don't need to use your hands and as long as you keep the torso where you started, it's all good.

And it worked.

But the fickleness rose up.  I have this tendency to do two bad things.  I don't start the lower body to setup the hitting position and I tend to slide past the ball and that requires my hands to do some heroic things to hit the ball at all.

I've been playing enough recently to avoid a lot of this.  Staring at the spot on the ball you want to hit helps with this.  

I seem to be able to stay calm and behind the ball when hitting a short iron, but as the clubs get longer, I try to help the swing more.  That causes me to hit with my shoulders before the lower body and not stay behind the ball.  I then come over the top and usually hit a nasty hook usually under a bush or into a trap.

The last few times out I've been able to control a lot of this, which has led to the better scores.

However Monday was a disappointment.  I was great at the range on Saturday, not as good on Sunday and then Monday was a problem.

At my usual course, it's not unusual for me to shoot 41, 36 or so when I'm playng well.  There are water hazards on the front that some into play and not much of that on the back.  Then there is the first hole, which is a long iron, followed by another with water front, right, and left.  A double is not unusual as no one warms up before play and it's usually cold at 7 am.

So I shoot 42 or so and then move to the back and I can't get anything going there either.  It all added up to 83 or so and not much fun after the 77 on Friday.

Barb tells the story about Jay as a high school golfer, who when confronted with a bad round, would immediately go to Amazon.com for a solution!  It is tempting.

I have ordered a couple of wedges as I tend to wear them out and TaylorMade has some that they stress have faces that will last.  So a new sand wedge, 56 degree and 15 degrees of bounce and 60 degrees with a 8 degree of bounce will be here later in the week. 

On the club front, I have a 9 iron that has nothing in the way of grooves left.  I sent an email to Ping and they said I should talk to my local dealer.  Kind of a cop out it seems.  The last set was replaced when I needed a 6 and a 9 and Ping wanted $200 per club to replace them.  If this is a lot, the next set will be something else.  I tried the TaylorMade M2 irons and they have a nice soft feel to them.  I might go that route.