Jacob10

I was able to play 9 holes last Friday in preparation of a family outing on Saturday, with a new driver, Ping G425 Max. It neither helped nor hurt during this 9 holes. I hit it mostly solid but could never get it on line. I managed to shoot a 39 (+3) with 19 putts, thankfully, I two-putted each of the par 5s for birdie, otherwise it would have been rough. I narrowly missed a 12 foot downhill eagle on the first, but i hit it about 4 feet by. After that, I gave nothing over 5 feet a decent chance, including a 3-putt from 35 feet on 6, and no giving an 8 footer on 7 a chance for birdie. Iron play was very solid for me, finding 6 of 9 greens.
My oldest daughter (6) begged all afternoon to go to the golf course that day after I got home. We got to the range to found several balls left, so she had field day trying to hit them all. She got the ball airborne regularly, and she carried a couple 50+ yards. I took a few of the range balls to work on the new driver to see if I could figure out the setup to get it on target. I hit probably 15-20 solid shots with my normal mid height fade, but still struggled getting it to start on my intended line. Probably a personal issue as I rarely, if ever, work on setup and ball position. Nevertheless, I felt comfortable with the ball flight. Saturday's round (details below) was not as comfortable with the driver and cost me a few strokes. 
That brings me to our annual Memorial Day family event. We can have up to 15-20 people with us and most play, but only a few of us are competitive about our score. Three of us placed a small bet before starting and we were off to play in soggy conditions with casual water on most of the course. That is close to where the fun stopped for the day, for me. I had good looks for birdie on 1 and 2, short par 4 and short par 5. Left over from Friday's round, I hit these with little conviction. No. 2 was the first driver of the day, and it was similar to the previous day, off line but playable. On 3, I had about 5 feet for par, and I finally had good pace and line. It rolled over the edge for a bogey. Very disappointing to be +1 through 3 with the putts I had missed. Not only did it not get better, it got worse on the front 9. A 3-putt on 5, not a good look for birdie on 6, shortish par 5, OB on 7 and 8, but salvaged a bogey on 9 after 2 chunks to keep from closing with 3 doubles. A 44 (+8) with 18 putts, 1 fairway and 3 greens.
Going into the back 9, I was down $10 and had no confidence in my game. Holes 10-13, I managed to be even, thanks to good shots around the green, and 1 good putt. After this, I was thinking, I can at least make some money back with a short par 4 and short par 5 coming up. Made par on 14, and destroyed my hope on 15 by bogeying going into the closing stretch which is the toughest part of the course, finishing bogey, bogey after a drop, par. I closed the back with a 37 (+3) with 12 putts, 1 fairway and 1 green. 
Not sure when my next round will come, but I need it ASAP, to get the taste out of my mouth and get some swings in with the new driver. I imagine I will figure the driver out, as with any new relationship, it takes some work.

First night of league last night and while we didn't score great as a team, had some solid ball striking and a great finishing hole. We weren't keeping the scorecard as the group we played with was, so I'm not even sure what we finished at. my guess is somewhere between +8-10. Keep in mind, my partner for the scramble league hasn't golfed in about 6 years, so there will be an acclimation period to getting back into it. He hit some great approach shots yesterday which was awesome, and we had a really good time.
On the final hole, which is a shorter slight dogleg left par 4, I hit what is so far the best on course drive with the Darkspeed X. I have never carried the furthest fairway bunker on this hole, so I was absolutely thrilled with the shot. Hit my 60* to 13 feet, then missed the birdie putt by about 6 inches. We've got some better golf ahead of us, and overall I struck the ball quite well. Feeling really good with the direction my game is going right now, and putting for me was much better last night than the day before.

9 hole league night last night was a good luck / bad luck experience.  I had 3 tee balls that worked out much better than the contact would have suggested thanks to a very strong tail wind on one getting me past the dogleg tree line, a nice cart path bounce on another  getting me past the dogleg tree line and the third somehow found all the open spaces in a tree and ended up in the fairway on another dogleg. 
Bad luck balanced those out, in two cases immediately. The 2nd shot on one rolling out right up against the heavy rough collar and the scuff from the cart path being bad enough that you could see the ball flight take a sharp left turn and come up about 10 yards short.  I didn't get up and down in either case as the person doing pin placements needs to understand that pins 5' from the fringe is frowned upon. 
The third bit of bad luck was another questionable pin placement at the top edge of a false front.  I had advance info from someone saying to make sure you are below the hole there on the approach.  I positioned myself perfectly with about a 10' uphill putt from the right side for birdie.  The putt lipped in and then sadly out and had just enough juice on the lip out to trickle 20' down the steep left side incline to the collar of rough/fringe.  So i took a 3 putt bogey there.
The scoring ended up with 3 birdies and only 1 par paired with 4 bogeys and a double to end up 3 over.  As is said here often...thats G O L F.  I did end up winning the match 5 1/2 - 3 1/2 so it was a decent points night to help the team.

Absolute mixed bag of nuts on this one.  Took me 4 holes to sort my damn driver out. So many recovery shots from under 150yd just to get back in play.  My nemesis hole also killed me (18).  I was pretty sore from working on my car for two days lol.

Interesting evening in league last night.... Driver was not terribly sharp again, but approach and short game were pretty stout. Putting was kind of iffy - I got there late and only got to roll a few putts before we tee'd off, so distance control was terrible. At the same time, I made a lot in the 5-7 foot range. I only hit one solid drive all night and ended up in a pond. 3rd shot into a greenside bunker, up and down for a bogey. Almost every other drive was a weird, heal-y slider that was low and short. I guess the good thing about them being short was they couldn't reach as much trouble. All told, I ended up with 5 pars and 4 bogies with two of the bogies being 3-putts 🤬 (one was bad, the other from really long range). Once again, I had GIR's on all three par 3's, which almost never happens. Anyway, happy with another 39 (+4) given the way I was getting off the tee. I'm playing with @DiscipleofPenick Friday afternoon - we are going to figure out what I am doing with driver. I thought I had it figured out a couple weeks ago, but apparently not. 

Got to share here the round from the last Saturday. As background, I started to play golf last year May and progress has been steady and going forward quite nicely. Last summer I was getting some sort of consistency even though the results were not exceptional yet. I was playing normally a bit over 100 strokes a round, broke 100 couple of times. 
After the season, in the winter time I went lot to the simulator and practiced my swing. The season started this year at the end of April / beginning of May. The first rounds were already quite promising and I played my best round, 93 quite soon. However, the Saturday was something exceptional. For some reason, everything felt more or less automatic and everything just clicked. I played 81 which was 16 under my handicap. On one hole, there was a downhill put for eagle that ended up being a par. I guess that breaking also 80 with that round would have been too much 😀 However, basically all my targets for this summer were crushed in one round and the feeling during the round and after it was euphoric. I had already quite good spark on the game but this amplified it even more. I bet that next rounds will not be always as good as that one but it was nice to see the potential that is in me.
 

Squeezed another 9 in after golf course duties. Didn't walk it because they literally let me out between turn times. Also didn't have the ability to snap but 2 pics. Last 4 holes I actually paired up with a twosome after I was able to play through a walking 4some of High school kids. There 2 4somes behind me and they were just out enjoying "nature's light" finest beverages and music.
Shot decent off the tee. 6/9 fairways.  Approaches were decent, but still overshootimg my club distances by 10+ yards on long wedges. Hit 1 of 2 greens on the par 3 holes. It hit the flagstick 2 feet above the hole and ricocheted off the front of the green down a hill about 30 feet. 60⁰ saved me and put it 2 foot from the pin, saved par. The other par 3, 120 to the front, and 140 yards to the pin, and used my PW as I was hoping for a little roll out as I was elevated 25 feet above it on the box. No tee, off the deck, I pured that shot because it landed 20 feet past the pin!
One of the guys I was playing with used a tee and a shortened swing with an 8i. It dunked the cup and bounced out!!!  He nearly cried!
I had 2 , 3 putts also.
I know i missed some opportunities on fairway to green shots, and i really need to get my distances dialed in at a top tracer range.

The best part was this sun setting photo on #9. It just spoke to me in silence how grateful I am to be out here, able to play and enjoy this sport.

Shot 47 on a soggy water clogged course, walking 9 after work. Not the best day, and my right arm is telling me the graphite shafted D200s are going back in the bag. 

On the good side, all my tee shots were playable. Not always from the hole I was supposed to be on… but playable. Short game touch is non existent right now. 

Shot 4 over through 9 holes. Cant hit driver if you payed me to atm, only hit 1 fairway yeeet.  Chipping is saving me though. 
Birdied a shortish par five with a nice 2 putt.
Hoping to spend more time with my driver to put a few more down the middle.

I thought I might expand on last weeks return to basics plan-
shot a 79 today, but had at least 3- 3 putts, prob 4. And a few other self inflicted wounds, really stunk the putting today- but that’s neither here nor there as that’s kind of a separate deal from getting to the greens.
so one thing that’s kind of happening is that I’m developing a shorter backswing, then really accelerating thru the ball now- starting to get a consistent little baby draw- that is beginning to get predictable and easier and easier to repeat- resulting in more and more pure strikes with the same little draw- 
the funny part is that the distance seems to be increasing as well- I suppose it makes sense as the draw goes further, but until you start doing it yourself, it’s just theory- basically I’m getting ten more yards per club, with more accuracy-
well see if this trend keeps up- but I’m starting to feel a lot more confidence with every shot again-
simple swing - shorter backswing, better contact- more predictable flight, more accurate- what’s not to like about that

The range was lovely and I didn't see many carts going off so I stole a quick nine. Wasn't going to even keep score but it started off pretty good so why not?

I don't think I missed a single putt inside of 7 feet. Had some driver misses that weren't punished and made some great recovery shots for position with my hybrid. Hybrid hasn't been a confident club for a while now.

4 over for the 9. No birdies. 5/7 FIR but only 3/9 GIR. The scramble was strong today.

Besides two thin shots, striking was excellent. Definitely hitting my irons a bit further now that it's warmer.

I think it's time to look at a spinnier ball. Not seeing much zip.

I'm playing the golf I dreamed about playing last year at this time. Which means more practice, not less. Turns out, playing a whole bunch may have been the difference. Whodathunkit?

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Out on the course with a bit of regularity, it's clear I've made some improvements. I've been able to take about 18 strokes off my score from last season. I'm still having some blow-up holes, and I'm making some easy mistakes with my short game, but I think I'm getting there.

Despite the wet conditions and cool temps our league ventured out this morning. The first 4 holes were a tad bit cumbersome trying to shake the dew off. Rained a few hours last night so everything was a bit slow. As long as I could keep my shots lower they managed a bit of a run. Shot better than last week by 5 strokes. I had some decent shots once I got warmed up. Hoping to take the grandson out after school tomorrow for 9.

Played 9 before getting called off. 
Decent ball striking but couldn't get the putts to fall. 2 lip outs and several close ones.  One bad hole that I hooked my 3 wood and had to take an unplayable. 

Walked 18 holes this morning at 7am, it was a nice 74 degrees.  Warmed up nicely by 9am! I played well on the Front 9, no bogies & 2 birdies.  Ball striking was good, my misses today were better.  Total of 27 putts, no 3 putts. 
Tweaked my equipment a bit - New Titleist T200 irons were all to be bent 2 degrees upright. PW came 1.5 degrees flat, boy there were some FAT shots. Had the PW fixed to the 2 degrees upright & today was the first time playing it, which led to one of the birdies on the front.  Set the driver to 9 degrees with draw bias & the 4 hybrid, set to 21 degrees with draw bias. It seemed to click today.
Back 9 shot even par, one birdie & one bogie.  While not happy with the bogey on Par 5 after pushing a PW to right, into the wind and ended up in a greenside bunker with a fried egg. I Played the shot with square face, but turned the toe in. The ball popped right out & ended up 24 ft past the hole.  It was a good shot. 
@edingc I just started using The Grint as well. Like how it keeps the Round Stats! 

Didn’t play the best , but with the heat and walking I’ll take it . Buddy and I decided to play earlier in the Arizona heat , luckly nobody pushing us all day . Nice and Calm round 

Shot 45 I was 3 over for the first 7 holes then I triple bogeyed 8 and 9. Nice way to end a round. 😩

Played Tri Mountain (Ridgefield, WA) yesterday, 43/39 for a total of 82, which I'm pretty happy with. Felt like I was playing the course all day, as opposed to the opposite, even with the usual 1-2 club afternoon wind. Iron striking was good on 90% of shots, driver was good contact and in play all day except for one that push-faded into a bunker (doubled that one), and though I mis-read too many long putts, many of the 4-8 footers were dropping.
Only one hole had me disappointed in myself...#6, short par 3. GIR, but about 45' from home. Putt was mostly downhill to a pin about 8 feet from the edge. I missed the "downhill" part, and it went off the green and about a foot into the rough. Instead of walking back to the bag for a wedge, I putted from the rough. Mistake. Walked off with a 5.
Round highlight: for once the ball listened to me ("Go in!!!"). Third shot on the par 5 13th, 139 yards out from the left rough, found the bottom of the cup for my first ever eagle. YES!!! Good contact, good flight, landed about 8 feet short. Making it even cooler was the surprise of actually hearing it hit the pin, removing any doubt.
Good day on the course.

I'm starting to get into some unfamiliar territory flirting with even par more often than once a season or so.
Last six 18s: 75, 77, 76, 79, 76, 77
Last six 9s: 40, 36, 38, 38, 38, 39
Was even par through 15 yesterday in some awful driving drizzle and wind before wheels fell off on 16, 17 and 18. Started slow this morning +4 on the front in some rain but was one-under on the back in better weather before making a mess of 18 with an ugly double.
Grint has my estimated handicap down to a 5.7 which I believe is the lowest it has ever been, but more importantly my anti-cap (the other 12/20 rounds) is down to 10.6. That's huge for me because it means I'm getting more consistent.
Still a lot of work to do - my driver gets very squirrely on me at times and I'm still struggling with weak fades with my irons too. But I'm doing a better job of keeping my mind in check during rounds and recovering well when I need to.
EDIT: Oh and I forgot to mention! After 5+ years of being a member I finally, finally birdied No. 11 this morning. I have birdied every other hole multiple times but 11, a very tight par 4 dogleg right, has always eluded me.
I didn't even hit a great tee shot (hit a tree on the edge of the dog leg), but I had enough room to punch a 5 iron from about 200 out up onto the green and sank a 30 foot putt. 

Played my first round ever on Sunday! I struggled a bit in the beginning but found a decent groove as the holes went on. Definitely have a lot to work on but great to get out there to play. Irons need work for sure. I also need to control/slow my swing down quite a bit. Chipping/putting game seemed to be my skill where I played decently.
Kind of lost track of scoring, wasn't an honest score day either since we played best ball. I managed to hit par with help of a good drive though.
 
I can see how this can be come addicting, I am already setting up my next tee time! 😅

One of the worst feelings is having a tee time on the calendar days in advance, looking forward to it, preparing.....and then going out and playing terribly.  Everything from from topped tee shots and approaches that you should be putting after but instead you're hitting the exact same club again, to multiple 3-putts and irons that barely found the club face.
In every frustrating round there are highlights, however.  I had a chip in as well as an absolute dart from a little over 120 (divot was 6 inches from pin).  Ended up shooting an 88 (+17), a score that is better than I felt I played.  Can't complain about a day of golf though.

Played nine with a buddy today. lost my pencil for my scorecard so went off of memory and shotscope. 49. Had a chip in birdie which was pretty cool. Tried the driver in a new position today with COG and weight and was a disaster. on 9 after losing a ball i set things back to neutral and then hit a 281 yard bomb. Silly game. I guess my woes on saturday were more due to nerves than anything else. Will see how things go going forward.

Did not play the greatest yesterday the course was loaded with people that didn't play fast at all and would not allow people to play through.  I got a little frustrated and it showed in my ball striking.  But on the bright side their slow play allowed me to try shots that normally I wouldn't try along with different putter grips.  Tried left hand low, claw, over wrap right over left and left over right, I actually found a new putting style that allowed me to hole more putts.  Something that I have been struggling to do for years

Played a quick 9 yesterday and shot a 44 that included a triple, two doubles and FOUR 😱 three putts. One of the worst putting rounds I have had in awhile, and I credit that to me taking the wrong approach to green speed. We have had a significant amount of rain over the last week, so I assumed (incorrectly) that the greens would be running a bit slower. Blew multiple lag putts past the hole and left myself with long second putts. Off the tee and approach was as good as it has ever been for me, hitting 5/7 fairways and 5/9 greens in regulation. That included both par 3s, which I typically am not great at, lol. 
Scramble league starts tonight and I am really looking forward to that. Hoping to keep the good ball striking rolling!

I got out Saturday afternoon with a friend at a pretty tough muni that was designed by the same person who originally designed the Firestone South Course. I started out beautifully - 5 straight pars and finished the front with 4 bogies. It all sounds great and I was happy with a 39, but I also felt like I was on the edge of disaster. I wasn't driving the ball very well but was getting away with it and scrambling like a madman. It all fell apart on the back. Driver was no longer "serviceable misses", it became "all over the planet". I ended up shotting a cool 47 on the back for a +15, 86. I am usually happy with anything in the mid 80's at this place, but it was kind of a disappointing way to do it.