Testing the New Cart

 

The morning broke bright and early. With a tee time of 9:39 there was time for coffee and Barb and I ventured to Peete's for some brew.

We ran into a coffee friend we have not seen since the lock down. He is Vietnamese and it allows me to practice my two words of Vietnamese. “Sin Chow!” is hello, it's different for a gal, so be careful!

It was cool and it's house painting week at the casa, so we parked off the block. I had packed the new push cart in the GTI and I loaded my clubs into the boot yesterday. At 8:30 I drove off to Calippi, which seems to be some sort of butterfly. I got a good parking place and pulled out the cart, unfolded it, placed my bag on it, attached straps, and off to the chipping area I went.

On the way, I had a couple of curbs to negotiate. That showed up some problems with my cart setup. Basically I needed to tighten a knob, which controlled the main handle position. The joints in the cart have modest teeth and when tightened create a mechanical lock to hold the front wheel and handle in place. But if the grip is not tight enough the cart will change orientation and you can feel and hear the clicking as the teeth slide over each other.

It was a warm day and by the time the round was over the car suggested it was 95 degrees. There was a modest breeze all day and it didn't feel too warm. Oh, I was sweating through my shirt and huffing and puffing up some of the hills, but it always seemed that it could have been worse.

There were a couple of things that I'm going to look into. The cart has a bit of a hook to it. It likes to run to the left at all times. This is not too much trouble, but it caught my attention all the time. Maybe there is a shim or something I can adjust to fix this.

Also the brake adjustment wasn't enough to hold the cart on some of the hills. I thought it wasn't working at all, but it will hold, just not enough. I'm not sure if the cable has stretched or I never had it tight enough. I'll tighten the cable and see what happens. The the problem that might arise is that the brake pads might drag and make it harder to push.

Speaking of pushing effort, I was surprised how much energy it took to move the cart along. A modest down hill is best, but too much and the cart will pull you along. On the flat it's not too bad, but it's pushing three wheels through wet, lush grass. Up hill was a workout, see huffing and puffing above. I looked for short cuts where I could leave the cart for the next hole and not go down hill then back up.

When the smoke cleared, I was very happy to have the cart. My back was sore all day and if I had to lift the bag 150 times or so, I would have been hurting a lot. I'm feeling ok right now, it's about an hour after we finished and I had a beer at the course and I'm working on a hard seltzer water now. But there seems to be little long lasting physical wear and tear. I probably won't know until tomorrow.

Thanks again to R2 for the cart1 I think I can give it some new life and few additional miles on various courses.

On Pins and Needles

I went off to the diving range to test the new swing changes.

I have great hope for this change, which was to get my hands over my shoulder where they should have been the last twenty years.  I was careful as I had some leg issues with my left leg.  It was feeling a weak as if the nerves were not firing properly.  The strength didn't feel that it was there and my tendency was to roll over the left foot.  That's not a good feeling.  I didn't hit golf balls for a week so that the issue went away..


So I wander to the range yesterday afternoon.  I spent some time chipping, which is normal for me.  If you can't hit a pitch, then you can't hit a full shot.  It's a good life motto and I've been using it for a while.  The pitching went well and even that type of shot allows me to practice getting hands on the proper plane. 

A guy on the hitting line leaves and he has left some golf balls to hit.  I'd not gotten a bucket already as I wanted to see how the pitching was going to go.  As it went well, I grabbed my bag of weapons and dashed over to claim the abandoned golf balls.  There were about six or so, but I scampered on the range to collect a couple of balls that had not been hit very far.  I don't feel that this is cheating the range too much as I feel I'm moving the balls out to an area of the range that allows for easier pickup.  So I'm really helping the range out, :-).

Normally I start with the 9 iron, then 6, then 3 wood, drop back to a sand wedge, then finish with the driver.  With just a few balls, I will normally skip the driver.  The new hand position is working well and I'm getting speed, direction, and solidity of strike.  It can't get better than this!  The 3 wood has a new sound to it.  It was not clear that the balls were going a lot further, but I was really happy with the strikes.

Being careful of the left leg, I was happy to cut the session short and start back to the car.  Then I started to get a shooting, sparkling pain in my right big toe.  It is really painful and I have to stop a couple of times as I limp back to the car.  This is not fun and I'm a little worried about what it is.  Diabetes is supposed to create this kind of pain.  I consider gout too, but I think that's supposed to be in the joint and my pain is running up the bottom of the toe.  I can't suspect diabetes either as I've had so few carbs the last six months.

I get home, the driving wasn't too bad.  I've settled in my recliner and am about to put in a busy afternoon nap, which I feel I've earned at this point.  But I get up to get some water.  It's about 89 out and I've had two sweaty sessions between the golf and two hours of pickleball in the morning.  As I get out of the chair, the pain fires anew.  I mention it to Barb who is working in the recliner next to mine.  I tell her about the pains and how sharp they are and what it might mean.  I collapse into one of the kitchen table chairs and take off my shoe.  I'm expecting a very red, unhappy toe.  But what I find is a two inch sewing pin stuck into my big toe.  A pin that Barb dropped on the floor while doing her sewing, didn't find and I picked up in a sock as I was putting on my shoes.  One of the things that gives me the willies is the thought of a needle going into my foot. 

With the pin pulled out the pain was gone.  The fears of gout subsided.  I glared at Barb a bit.  Relief from multiple fronts came together.  I got my drink.  Went back to my recliner and napped the nap of the recently alarmed, but now recovered.