Sorry for the long silence. Things have been happening and for the most part they are going well.
I shot 79 at Wente, the tough course in Livermore, yesterday. Second time I've managed to do that. I was able to get off the tee all day. Might have dropped one shot due to an errant drive, but that's it. I found myslef hitting short irons into greens and that's my money shot.
Then I was lent a Scotty Cameron putter to try. It's 34 inches, which is about 2.5 inches shorter than my current SeeMore putter. It's a mallet, but asymmetrical, as the toe end has a bit more mass than the heel section.
I used it today at the muni course and made 4 birdies. I had a ten footer to shot one under par, but pulled it a bit. I've never been under par, so this round matched my personal best.
I hit a lot of greens. I took a penalty stroke on 9 when I hit a tee shot through the fairway into the pond. I've never been in the pond before. I'll have to rethink the club for this hole. That penalty stroke saw me around in even par. I had two birdies on the front and the only other bogey was a plugged bunker shot that I couldn't get up and down.
What I am trying to do with the swing for the last couple of days is basically do as little as possible. Slow backswing and slow down swing. I'm letting the arms and hands and club just do what the centripetal forces require them to do, i.e., move out away from the body and eventually give the ball a wack. I find that as long as my shoulders stay on plane, I am good to go. Two rounds like this and I'm all smiles.
I've found this swing is making me longer and straighter, which is a nice combination. The tee shots are matching my short irons, which is all I want. The duck hooks have gone away and the miss is now a bit of a push. Oh, I pulled one today and that cost a stroke, but otherwise it's a new game for me.
So empirically I should gobble up this putter with all these birdies.. It's used and not very expensive. But I'll try it for a couple more rounds and then decide. I found it was pretty deadly on the shorter putts, but maybe a bit light for longer ones. I had some trouble getting longer putts to the hole.
Ted and I have an early round tomorrow at 6:45. It will probably be cool for a few holes. Then Friday is a foursome with the gang at 9:00. The weather has been variable this last week. There is some wind and allergies are up, but it's very cool for the most part. It's comfortable and all, but a fleece is required for the early holes.
What's nice about early tee times is that the pace of play is usually quite fast. We played today in about 4 hours with very little waiting. What a pleasure. The "hit, walk, and wait" type of play drives me nuts and tends to allow my back to tighten up.
As you can see there is not a lot of news and my bragging is probably pretty boring. But as the technical exploration seems to have ended for a bit, there is not much else.
I guess I might add the odd thoughts on the slower swing with better contact. I'm not losing any distance. This would indicate that contact is much more important to distance than swing speed. Or perhaps it would be better expressed that the contact has to come first and then worry about distance. I find that one can play pretty well with a straight and consistent ball flight.
Ok, that's it for now. I'll drop a line as new things come up. Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment