Rebuilding

This weekend I had another poor round. I made the mistake again of trying something new and while I started very hot (first hole hit it to 4 feet, second hole to 3 feet) by the end of the round I was not hitting the driver very well. To compound the problem I putted horribly. I 3-putted the 1st green after hitting the ball to 4 feet, and also 3 putted the 9th and 17th holes.

I decided that I need to re-start. I need to nail down the things that my coach told me to work on, and in addition build the swing with good fundamentals. So I have been working on hitting the ball with only 3/4 swings. The purpose of the 3/4 swing is to get myself in the proper positions and once I get comfortable hitting the ball with 3/4 swings, I can add speed to get the distance back.

Here are some swings from my last practice session where I am working on 3/4 swings. This is going to be a long process, but I think the results will be very good.



Round Update:

San Jose Country Club

Fairways:                    8/13
GIR:                           5/18
Putts (per GIR/total):  2.20/34
Scrambling:                2/7
Score:                         83 (+13)

Latest Swings

Here are some swings from my latest practice session. I was working on standing up a little taller at address. It seems my coach did not like my plan to pre-load #3. I got too hunched... Oh well, likely a good lesson in not wondering off on my own little path of improvement when I haven't even mastered the things he has me trying to improve. I also worked on loading #3 faster and keeping the extensor action going. In the background I am working on keeping those hips moving forward. Most of my bad swings come from not having them forward enough.

The ball flight was a high shot that started to the right and drew back. Although it was quite windy on this day so the draw might have been from the wind and the shot might have been the dreaded push-cut. We will see at my round on the weekend.

Tournament Recap and Extra Round Summary

This past weekend we completed the tournament, and for the most part I played pretty well. The highlight was a eagle I made on the 11th hole the second day. I hit a beautiful drive then played a 3 wood to about 5 feet and sunk the putt. It was a good thing I made the eagle because our opponent made a birdie on the hole. The overall result though was not so good. We started by winning the first two matches 13-7 and were the leaders in the flight, but the final match on the first day we were beat badly 6-14. We then started out Saturday getting beat 6-14 again in the morning 9, but made a nice comeback winning 13-7 in the final match. We finished 3rd in our flight. My stats for the round are below.

I really feel that for someone to win a golf tournament one needs things to go their way a couple of times. I don't mean to say that you need to get lucky, because I don't really believe in luck, I think we make our own luck. But, things need to go your way to win. For example our opponent on the morning nine on Saturday completely mishit a chip near the green, it hit a hill popped straight up in the air, and went in the hole. I mean there was not much one can do when that kind of stuff happens. So that is how it goes sometimes.

My partner and I have a very impressive record in the tournament after 2 years. We went 7-2-1 over the 10 matches we had. A pretty good record.

Tournament Stats (note, there were 9 holes that I didn't record because my software can't do 9 holes, but I was +4 for those holes, second note, these are for 36 holes)

Fairways:             12/26

GIR:                     10/36
Putts(GIR/total):   1.90/56
Scrambling:          10/26
Score:                   154 (+14)

I then played a round on Sunday with some friends at Half Moon Bay. At I will preface these results by saying that the wind was blowing crazy hard out there. 20-40 mph. I played quite well considering the conditions.

Fairways:              8/14

GIR:                      6/18
Putts(GIR/total):   1.83/31
Scrambling:          4/12
Score:                   81 (+9)