It's a Wrap

Ok, I think I talked about the magic 7 iron that took place on Wednesday.

I went to the range to make sure I could repeat it.

I played today and was able to play with this new technique.  I did realize that I have to turn away from the ball and not slide.  The slide I was doing was not much, but it was enough.  Also I was only doing it with the driver.

I realized that late in the round.  However when the smoke cleared and that's saying something with the Camp fire filling the sky, I had two drives that got me in trouble and 10 or so that split the fairway.

On the front there are a couple of holes that are usually tough because they are just long enough that I struggle to get to the greens.  Today they all dissolved into birdie opportunities as the driver was serving me well.

My iron game was spot on and the shots were more solid than usual.

If I can keep this up, then the long game need not be discussed again.  I think we will have to alter the topics and probably move to putting.

I'd talk chipping, but I miss so few greens, who cares?  And in all modesty, my chipping and pitching and sand play are pretty solid.

We might as well jump in to putting.  I ran across an interesting putting video on Youtube the other day.  The lead "expert" was talking about what they have seen with the putters (people) they have looked at.

His finding was that people are better at line than they think and not as good with distance control.  Today I was working on distance and not paying much attention to line.  It seems to be a reasonable way to putt.  The only three putt I had was when I got the speed wrong. 

Working on speed with just a modest interest in line seems to be for me a fairly low Angst way to putt.  There is a lot of speed adjustment done subconsciously.  I take a few free practice swings to "feel" the line and then step in and hit it.  This is basically how I pitch and chip.  The feeling is the club just swinging and catching the ball along the way.  No interest in trying to hit the ball.

I will keep working on this and report back.

The front nine today was even par, with a birdie on the par 5 second and a three putt birdie on the 5th.  All the other holes were straight forward and pretty simple.  I did have a nice sand shot on the 8th hole green side bunker and my playing partners just kicked the ball back.  

The back was not a lot of drama.  Got in trouble with wayward tee shots on two holes, otherwise I hit all the rest and two putted.

It's been a good week.  I think I've figured out how to swing properly and easily.  I'm expecting this to continue as the big mistakes are gone.  My swing thoughts are just move the arms with the shoulders, get the left should under the chin, then move it back to the setup position, which is all of 5 inches -- a simple swing!  If I just do that without trying to swing hard, the ball goes straight, long, and up in the air.  The very thing we are looking for!