Playing After A Lesson – Smart?

Have you ever played a round where you were bombing your driver and leaving yourself with some awesome looks at approach shots, but you subsequently bungled every one of them?  Last weekend I had my best driving day of the year but the 80 I shot at Poolesville was the absolute worst score I could have recorded for that very reason. The carnage included seven unforced errors from the “A-position”.   So yesterday I took my final lesson of the 2018 seasonal package in hopes that I could correct my awful iron play.  As usual, my instructor corrected something small just as we started (I was standing too far from the ball) and then we got to work on my major issues.  Of course, they were the same issues I’ve been dealing with my entire career, which is why they’re still issues.  We made great progress on the lesson tee and I booked a time at my club to play today.

What is your experience playing after a lesson?  Smart, not smart?  I think it depends on the lesson and where you are playing.  Last time I tried it the day after my putting lesson.  There was no adjustment period and was if someone else had possessed my body with the putter.  I made everything I looked at and the game was very easy.

Today was different.  Perhaps my club is not the best venue if you are working on swing mechanics because the first four holes at Blue Mash are very demanding and often require long iron approaches.  Last time out I hit four 3-irons on the first four holes.  It’s one of those stretches that if you start 3-over after four holes, you are playing fine.  Today it was 3-iron, 7-iron (downwind) from heavy rough, 3-iron, and another 3-iron.  Before my round I warmed up poorly with my 3-iron, but my approach on number one was pure and settled eight feet from the flag.  The second on #3 was good but went into a green-side bunker and I saved par.  The third was an awful pull hook (my big miss) and I made a lucky par out of some gnarly green-side rough.  On holes 5 and 6, I hit two stunning short iron shots that yielded a par and a birdie.  I was thrilled and it seemed I had it solved, but the problem was that I was playing golf swing and not golf.  The roof finally caved in on #8 after I laid the sod over a pitching wedge from the middle of the fairway.

This has happened before after taking a lesson; it’s always been a full swing lesson, and I’m always thinking too much.  I guess I was encouraged after the easy success of the putting lesson.

My favorite thing in golf is to play.  Next favorite is to take lessons, and least favorite is to practice.  But I know I need practice on this one and will get out to the range a couple times before next weekend’s round.  What has been your experience playing after a lesson?

Stay tuned: course review is coming from next weekend’s venue:  The Links at Gettysburg!

Play well!

What Good Can Come From A Bad Round?

Today was my opening day for the 2014 golf season.  🙂 I was going to write a post on the entertainment value  John Daly provides to golf, and about how ridiculous the 90 he shot in the second round of the Valspar Championship was, and how that included an octuple-bogey 12 on the 16th hole, and how that was the 16th time that he’s carded at least a 10 on a hole in his PGA Tour career. . . that was until I carded a 92 today in my season opener.  I did not get the number of the truck that just ran over me but I am still reeling.

We played in brilliant sunshine with heavy wind, and my game was just horrible.  The score was my worst since a 98 on November 23, 2011 and my first time above 88 in two years.  So who’s worse off, Big John or me?  I don’t have the fame, fortune, two majors, and all the notoriety that he does, but he’s clearly worse off.  Golf his his day job and just a hobby here.

Can you find a nugget or two in bad rounds?  Absolutely.  The company of my friends was great and just getting out of the house was wonderful.  With the golf, I only took 28 putts. . . even if it was an artifact of only hitting two greens.  And I managed to shape/place about five or six tee shots using the ball flights I’ve been practicing from the Nine-Shot drill, but that was it.  The irons and wedge game were putrid and I made several rookie mistakes like trying to curve balls playing directly into a strong headwind.

I kind of saw this coming because we moved opening day up from tomorrow when D.C. is supposed to get another round of snow and ice.  Saturday is usually practice day with Sunday being game day and I felt completely unprepared out there.  In fact, past rounds moved to Saturday without the benefit of a prior day’s practice have yielded similar results.  At least J.D. gets to practice before game day.

I’m not too worried about the bad start because it was the first round after a four month layoff imposed by a particularly brutal winter, and it was played in very difficult conditions.  The good news is that there’s nowhere to go but up and we’ll be back at it next weekend!

BTW:  I’m keeping 2014 season stats off a new page on the blog’s main menu.  Check back anytime to see my latest metrics.

So I’ll probably head out in the cold tomorrow before the snow starts to try and correct some of the short game problems experienced today.  They will be hard to live with all week if I don’t fix them.  Finally, I can take some encouragement from past history because back in 2011, I followed up that 98 with a 70 in the very next round.  Weird, but here’s hoping history repeats itself.  How was your opening day?

New equipment debut: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Christmas came early this year as I put my new set of irons and wedges through a full game practice yesterday and battle tested with a round at Poolsville this morning.  Let’s look at the Good, Bad, and Ugly.

The Good:

Most noticeable change with the JPX 825 Pro irons and the H4 hybrid irons is the ability to attack the ball with confidence.  I was able to swing hard and not have to worry about hitting the big push.  I love hitting knock down shots into the wind and pulled off a beauty with the 6-iron from light rough on my third hole today.  Then I played an awesome 3/4 recovery swing from under a tree with the 3-hybrid from about 175 yards on #4.  These clubs hit the ball where you aim them and that is huge for me.

Big plus on the new 50, 54, and 58 degree Cleveland wedges especially around the green.  I hit the 54 and 58 from the practice bunker yesterday and both proved more than capable.  I’m looking forward to controlling distance out of the bunkers by having two go-to clubs.  Today I tried a lower running pitch with the 54 and got plenty of check on the ball.  Previously I would have played that shot with my old 56 and tried to carry it farther which is harder to judge because of the added air time.  Another plus is the crisp contact and straight direction chipping with the JPX 8-iron.  The low leading edge and classic look builds confidence and promotes crisp contact.  I’m absolutely giddy about building a new short shot repertoire with the Cleveland trio.

The bad:

Absolutely no complaints with any of the new equipment.  I will need to get used to the Cleveland 50 on full swings.  I reliably hit my old Cleveland 49 gap wedge 100 yards and the new 50 seemed a little hard to control trajectory and distance reliably.  Again, the sample size was limited to 15 swings on the range and one shot in play today so no worries other than the obvious lack of available practice time with winter fast approaching.

The ugly:

The dirty little secret about good scoring is that it’s set up by good driving and mine is a mess.  Over Thanksgiving and again yesterday, I spent time on the range trying to straighten out my driver and couldn’t.  I was all over the place today and finally pulled three wood on my last five tee shots to keep the ball in play.  The iron club fitting has opened my eyes about playing with properly fit equipment.  Everyone has got swing deficiencies but mine cannot be as bad as the results I was getting with the driver.  To capitalize on these new irons I need to be straighter off the tee and am going to get fit for a driver during the winter and make the purchase before the 2013 season starts.

Final verdict:

The jury is still out on full swing distances and yardage adjustments as one round in moderately cold weather is not enough time to make a judgement.  But playing any golf in December is a big plus 🙂