Range Notes Saturday 10/29/16

Items to try:

• Very relaxed right hand grip
• Different kind of shoulder turn (see previous post)
• Hmm, maybe not much else

A right hand as soft as dawn, did not lead to the ball being drawn.

It mattered not to my elbow right, as I hoped would awaken in my sight.

Off went the brazen ball, into the colored leaves of fall.

No great progress I could see, but un-hurting arm was enough for me.


Now let's try the shoulder turn, in hopes it the ball would burn.

Sadly to my dismay, no changes did come my way.

Perhaps I already turned like this, but I needed to try and not to miss.


The only important thing I found, was to make sure my hips led the way down.

So this post must timely end, and off to readers I shall send.

(I'm listening to Marlowe's Hero and Leander.)

Friday's Report

"Ted, it rained all night and it's still raining.  Perhaps bowling should be the game of the day?" I inquired.

"What's your average, 250?"

"It's a lot like my golf, I don't usually keep score..."

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"This Thomas, how can I help you?"

"Thomas, my man, this is Mr. Hume with the 8:45 tee time.  My group has decided to forgo golf for the day."

"A wise decision, Mr. Hume.  We will see you another day."

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"Mike, if you want some training, today is a good day."

"How about 9 am?"

"I'll see you then," I said. 

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I cranked up the car with the anti-lock brakes and the traction control and headed down the the freeway to bill a few hours and work the minor miracles.  When I was done, the sun was shining and the course beckoned.  It would have been empty and a few holes would have been possible.  But I was tired and figured that I could sneak out to the range on the morrow.

For dinner we tried Tandoori chicken pizza.  Barb found it a bit spicy.  I was ok with it, but burning lips required some cold dessert to return them to normal.

More news tomorrow, I hope.

Thursday 10/27/16 a day of rest

It's been raining a bit here, but undaunted with a couple of youtube videos under my belt, I did wander off to the range to hit a bucket.

The technique that I was interested is was "How to hit penetrating wedge shots."  I was curious about this as the guy doing the video was hitting 80 yard 60 degree wedge shots with a 3/4 swing.

A full swing for me with that club used to go about 100, but it doesn't seem to anymore.  80 might be the current full swing maximum now. 

But undaunted, I thought I would give it a try.

The technique is to:

• Put the ball back in your stance
• 3/4 shot
• don't be shy about smacking down on it

What this gives you is less effective loft and the 3/4 swing ought to provide a bit more control.

I used the range finder and found a 70 yard target and gave it a go.  I was able to easily put the ball beyond the 70 yard marker.  80 and 90 did not seem out of reach.  The ball flight was lower which was part of the goal of the shot.

I don't know how much of this I'll use, but I can see that it might be handy.  I had a 70 yard shot yesterday that I hit about 40 yards and having a shorter swing with more of a hit might have made that shot easier to manage.


The other item was an analysis of Patrick Reed's swing.  The points that I wanted to try on this was:

• Very relaxed hands and wrists
• hands and arms being passive to the body spin

I was able to do this.  It's probably a good thing for me as I don't always start the swing from the bottom.  That's a habit I would like to break.


Finally, a video suggested that the shoulder turn is more like starting a lawn mover with the pull cord.  There is a use of muscles just below the rib cage.  This can be thought of as when one hand goes up, the other goes down.

Using that thought, it kept me from swaying and I stayed more centered in my initial setup position.

I look forward to see how this plays out tomorrow at 8:45 - weather permitting.

Wednesday, or How did I get so tired?

First a note to apology to my two readers, who having been in the Written Word business probably noticed a couple of typos that I didn't notice the first time around.

Yes, I do know that the past tense of the verb to shoot is not "shat."  It is impossible for me to have shat a 79.  I could say that about a 95 or so, but being on the good side of 80 is, in my humble world, a good thing.  There was other egregious issue that I don't recall, but if I think of it...

Ok, on to Today!

I was doing quite well until 13, when after a great good drive, I found myself with a slightly down hill lie.  I topped the sucker, pushed the next shot (an uphill lie) in the maintenance yard, lost the ball, which I really liked.  I had played 4 rounds with it.

I took a drop and took 3 more from 70 yards.  A smooth double bogey 7.

The next hole was not much better as a duck hook (no doubt due to extreme tiredness!) an 8 iron to get out, it didn't hook!  Then a simple 70 yard pitch went about 40 and a two putt was the end of that hole.

I almost had a hole in one on the next hole.  It was playing 170 and I ran the ball quite close to the pin.  It waved as it went by and ended up on the frog hair.  It was a back pin.  The birdie putt missed by a fraction of an inch and a ho-hum par was the result.

16 was not much better.  We start with a topped drive, ok 3 wood to get back in play and a wedge to a front pin.  Two putts.  Another bogey...  I managed to par in from there, but every shot was a struggle.


I was dragging as it was about 2:00 and I had not had breakfast and only a small peanut butter sandwich at 9 or so.  Dragging is the operative word here.  My concentration was also an issue.  Fred was a liberal and I was trying to convince him of the error of his thinking and it was distracting...

But I cannot blame Fred.  If I can save one soul, it will be worth it.

"How was the front nine?" I hear you ask.

Well, the blood sugar was pretty good and I was not feeling too tired.  I started with 5 pars, all quite easy.  I hit all the green with two putts each.  This is a rare start since I don't warm up.  The first two holes and the 4th and 5th demand good tee shots.  I usually think of the first nine as a "warm up" but the weather was warm and I chipped bunch, so it was painfully boring.

Then on 6 blew a wedge over a green and could not recover from an aggressive chip. 

But I hit it to 6 feet on the par 4 7th and made the birdie.

I followed that up with a 9 iron to 4 feet on the 8th, a par 3 over a pond.  I made that birdie too.

Nine was poor tee shot bogey, so the nine came in at an even par 36.  Probably the 3rd best score on that nine.

When the dust had settle and we golfers had dropped our implements of savagery, I ended up with a 36, 41 for a reasonable 77.  I would love to try the back again as I've never managed 18 holes under par.

I'm going to take the day off tomorrow and probably spend some range time.  I was quite happy with a lot of shots, but I want to explore some things that arose as I played.

Tuesday 10/25/16 A Journey to Wente

Wente makes wine (the wifi password for the guest account is cabernet!  But you didn't hear it from me.) they also have a couple of restaurants on the site and a golf course that winds its way through the local hills.

It has a slope of 123 for the tees we played today, 124 for our usual set.

Rain threatened again and aside from the tiniest two spots of pseudo-drizzle, the weather was grand; cool and overcast and not much wind.  The wind can blow there through the hills.

I decided that if you are playing well, golf can be quite the treat.  I would have gladly gone another 18, but lunch and some wine was the agendum.

I shot a smooth 40/39 to romp home with a 79.  I've played the course maybe 4 times and I think the best was an 88 or so.  No doubles, which are easy to get on this course.  Only once in the sand on a 390 yard hole, and I managed the up and down neatly.

I only missed one green badly, ran though a few others and 3 putted a bunch.  The greens are undulating and seeded with bent, which make for tough putting if you don't know the breaks.  There is usually a very fast direction and a slow one based on the grain of the grass.

My driver never let me down -- we'll ignore the "breakfast ball" on the first tee - hooked into the grapes.  I reteed and hit it 260 in the fairway.

Lots of 105 yard shots to the greens and this is a comfortable number for me, usually a gap or sand wedge depending on wind etc.

I didn't think much about taking the club back inside and rerouting;  that didn't seem to matter much.  I was staying looser a la Freddie Couples.

My distance seems to be improving.  I smacked one three wood just like Freddie, nice long backswing and a delicious hit complete with a whoosh noise and a direction that cut the grape vine corner to setup a short iron to an elevated green.  Just like it was planned.  Ah, the joy of a number of shots, well struck, and in sequence.

I widened my putting stance and that helped with my distance control and accuracy.  I'll test this some more tomorrow.

Monday 10/24/16

My how the month has gone by.  At this rate retirement will seem to be over before it's well begun.


So the swing thoughts for today were to take the club back inside and not worry about it.  Also I have a request for GIR numbers and 3 putts.  I found myself paying a lot of attention to those numbers as I was playing and have come to the conclusion that I play better if I don't think about that sort of thing while playing.


It also seemed that those numbers may not be particularly useful depending on what I am trying to learn as I'm going along.

I don't record scores, nor do I have an index.  It is more a journey in discovery and learning.

I was also trying to pop my putts a bit - the back swing being 1/3 of the follow through to get an accelerating action through the ball.

Some numbers:
GIRs   13  Maybe being pin high would be useful to track?
3 Putts - 2 - playing around with a new putting stroke was an issue, also the greens were a bit slow
Pars - 11
Birdies - 2
Bogeys - 5 or 6 (one was a penalty stroke as the water jumped in front of a wonderfully hit utility club on the tricky 3rd hole!)

Score looks like it was in the high 70's, though it didn't seem that good at the time (I'm taking some liberty with some gimmes).

I lost strokes due to bad drives once, which is a very good event.  It's been times where instead of two bad drives, it's been 2 good ones.  I'm still sliding a bit instead of getting the lower body going first. 

I found that I was hitting the ball further - irons were recalibrated to 10 yards longer.  My carry distances were very good.

My direction was excellent with maybe 2 balls off line far enough to hurt.  One topped shot.

Tomorrow on a longer course with more terror if the fairway is missed.  Updates then!

As I played along, I got to thinking about trying to accelerate through all the shots, rather than to hit the ball.  The times I tried to do this, it seemed to work.  I want to think about it some more and do some testing.

I might be a sledge hammer driving Man

Background is in the last two posts. 

What I wanted to try was an inside take away and then a slight over the top move to get back to the "slot."

I am curious about this because I am very comfortable to take the club back inside.  What I think I struggle with is a move to get back to the slot and also a willingness to slide forward in front of the ball.

Sliding makes it very tough to hit it straight or anything else that one might want. 

I found that inside and then a loop back was easy for me to do.  It also seemed to keep me behind the ball a bit.  When I don't slide then I don't have to "save" the shot with some aggressive hand action.

The hand action was causing some very impressive hooks and the occasional push.  A tough combination to play with.

My ball flight was quite high and very straight.  No misses to the left and the pushes seemed to be less of an issue.

I'm quite excited about this.  The swing is more natural to me and the ball reaction better.  All good things.

I'll play tomorrow and we'll see how well it does off the range.

Interestingly to me, it seemed to work for 30 yards pitches too.  Chips were good as the right hand and the body rotation were tightly bound and controlled.

Ok, all things good and I'm eager to try it out.

Stay tuned!