Posts
Liars.
No golf to report due to the weather here the last couple of weeks. If there isn't rain its been a touch on the cool side. Being one that lived in Florida the majority of my life I have to admit I'm a bit of a wuss once the temperate drops below par. To be honest its not as bad due to the (generally) lower humidity, sometimes 60 here feels better than 68 in Orlando or Houston ever did.
While I haven't played I have planned on playing. I took the plunge and put together a golf trip to Hawaii over Memorial Day. I figured I'm as close as I'll ever get so I might as well take advantage of that fact. I decided to go to the Big Island since I have always wanted to play Mauna Kea. I'll also play the Hapuna Golf Course since I'm staying at that resort. Since they will be doing maintenance at Hapuna in the weeks just before I'm to arrive they're letting me play Mauna Kea three times instead of going twice on each. Seeing that Mauna Kea is the premium loop I'm coming out just fine on that deal.
I'll have some time on Saturday afternoon so I'm either going to take a look around as a regular tourist or find another course to play on my own, maybe Big Island Country Club or Waikoloa Village. The Champions Tour is playing at Hualalai this week and from what I've seen on the tele its pretty nice. Its not far from where I'll be but I'm not sure I can play there without staying at the Four Seasons so that might not pan out.
In the slightly more immediate future I do have a trip to Las Vegas in early April, just a weekend trek so that I can play with my good friend Bill Zimmerman once again. Since I want to use my GolfNow Hot Deal gift card thingy I can't really plan out anything so far in advance but I have some ideas depending on the April rates. I've played at The Paiute Golf Resort in the past and enjoyed it so that's an option since they have three good tracks to choose from. One course thay I have always wanted to play in the past is Reflection Bay but I had read that they may have had some trouble recently, I'm not sure of its status. There are a host of others in the area and we might just have to see what the cost is and go from there, however if Wolf Creek is listed on GolfNow then I will definitely have to take Bill out there. I've played it twice in the past and there just isn't anything quite like it. Its about an hour drive to Mesquite, NV but it is so worth the trip.
If I don't get to Wolf Creek in April, well, I am going back in July so I'll just have to play it then. Since I'm using the timeshare that I was convinced into getting (against my better judgment) by my wonderful late wife all those years ago I figured I might as well use it and not have to spend any money for a hotel. They allowed me to split the week in half so it worked out well enough. I'm not sure I want to go to Vegas twice a year each and every year though so hopefully I'll figure out a way to trade it for a golf package somewhere else next year.
Hmm, its not raining anymore, how nice. The army of frogs are out in force, I can hear those bastards over the television, sheesh. Anyway, hopefully my next entry will actually involve playing golf instead of dreaming about the future.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Monday, January 9, 2017
First Round of 2017 : Seven Hills Golf Club
Seven Hills Golf Club is about 30 minutes from me in a place called Hemet, California. This was a typical residential community course that winds through houses in a over-55 neighborhood. It reminded me a bit of Royal Oaks Golf Club in Ocala, Florida. This course isn't as good or as fun as Royal Oaks could be but for $21 on GolfNow I figured it was worth taking the new sticks out for their maiden voyage.
The sticks did just fine, the operator had issues with a snap hook on the range and to my dismay I carried it to the course for the first two holes, going bogey/double on two fairly easy looking holes. Fortunately I found a way to straighten it out for most of the day, though it crept back on me late in the round. The best thing I took away from the day were the three 7-irons I hit on the back nine that gave me reason to think I'm doing something right.
The first two came on the par three holes. The first one was 154 to the pin, but with a slight tailwind. I made what felt like a nice swing and saw the ball fly the pin by about 6-8 yards, a solid poke for me with a 7. Two putts gave me par and I was on my way. The next par three was at 155 and no wind, but from what I could see from the tee being short was better than long so again I hacked at it with the 7. Again, the ball landed about 6 yards deep and settled at the back of the green.
The last was on the 18th. I hooked my drive so I had to punch out down the fairway on this par 5 and left myself with 152 yards to the pin according to ye olde rangefinder. The ball was sitting down just a little so I figured we'd try the 7-iron again since the pin was in the back and had plenty of room short in case it came out low. Nope, I caught it pretty clean and flew the green, about 5 yards past the pin. All three had a nice little draw also, starting just right of the flag and crossing over just left of it.
Those three swings were solid and in pretty calm conditions. I hit a few other solid iron shots but with shorter clubs, I hit my gap wedge about 105 a couple of times, which was about 5 yards longer than I'd have expected. Of course, I had a bunch of other swings that were not so good so they were tough to judge for correct distance. I hit a 6-iron about 165 but I hooked it, another 7-iron I had felt a little heavy. Overall, it sure felt like the irons were giving me something more than the old ones were.
The driver, when I wasn't yanking it left, was also nice and solid. I hit it a little higher than I had on the range but it felt better than the old King Cobra did overall. I never had a chance to try either of the fairway metals though, I'll have to wait until next time to see if I get a spot to try them. The new putter worked out well, I think I had 28 putts for the round, making a couple of knee-knocking short par putts and drained a 25 footer for birdie on the seventh. I'm thinking the heavier putter could be to my liking.
Oh, my score? I recovered from the bad start to shoot 78 (39-39), though the course was only rated at 69.7/118 and was just over 6300 yards. Again, my bad shots didn't find a lot of trouble except on the second hole and my indifferent ones that missed the green gave me some fairly simple chips and pitches (which the new 60-degree wedge performed beautifully with). Naturally I was pretty happy about it.
I still have a lot of work to do on the swing though, I need to be able to repeat what I did on those three 7-irons more consistently with all of the clubs more often. I also need to figure out the right combination of ball position and tee height on the driver. I won't be playing forgiving courses every time and a few of these wayward shots would have cost me a bit more somewhere else.
Hopefully the weather holds up next week so I can try again, with rain in the forecast I'm not sure I can get any practice in during my lunch in the coming week. For now, I'll close this out and finish watching the National Championship Game. I'll root for Clemson though I feel Alabama might be the eventual winner. We'll see!
The sticks did just fine, the operator had issues with a snap hook on the range and to my dismay I carried it to the course for the first two holes, going bogey/double on two fairly easy looking holes. Fortunately I found a way to straighten it out for most of the day, though it crept back on me late in the round. The best thing I took away from the day were the three 7-irons I hit on the back nine that gave me reason to think I'm doing something right.
The first two came on the par three holes. The first one was 154 to the pin, but with a slight tailwind. I made what felt like a nice swing and saw the ball fly the pin by about 6-8 yards, a solid poke for me with a 7. Two putts gave me par and I was on my way. The next par three was at 155 and no wind, but from what I could see from the tee being short was better than long so again I hacked at it with the 7. Again, the ball landed about 6 yards deep and settled at the back of the green.
The last was on the 18th. I hooked my drive so I had to punch out down the fairway on this par 5 and left myself with 152 yards to the pin according to ye olde rangefinder. The ball was sitting down just a little so I figured we'd try the 7-iron again since the pin was in the back and had plenty of room short in case it came out low. Nope, I caught it pretty clean and flew the green, about 5 yards past the pin. All three had a nice little draw also, starting just right of the flag and crossing over just left of it.
Those three swings were solid and in pretty calm conditions. I hit a few other solid iron shots but with shorter clubs, I hit my gap wedge about 105 a couple of times, which was about 5 yards longer than I'd have expected. Of course, I had a bunch of other swings that were not so good so they were tough to judge for correct distance. I hit a 6-iron about 165 but I hooked it, another 7-iron I had felt a little heavy. Overall, it sure felt like the irons were giving me something more than the old ones were.
The driver, when I wasn't yanking it left, was also nice and solid. I hit it a little higher than I had on the range but it felt better than the old King Cobra did overall. I never had a chance to try either of the fairway metals though, I'll have to wait until next time to see if I get a spot to try them. The new putter worked out well, I think I had 28 putts for the round, making a couple of knee-knocking short par putts and drained a 25 footer for birdie on the seventh. I'm thinking the heavier putter could be to my liking.
Oh, my score? I recovered from the bad start to shoot 78 (39-39), though the course was only rated at 69.7/118 and was just over 6300 yards. Again, my bad shots didn't find a lot of trouble except on the second hole and my indifferent ones that missed the green gave me some fairly simple chips and pitches (which the new 60-degree wedge performed beautifully with). Naturally I was pretty happy about it.
I still have a lot of work to do on the swing though, I need to be able to repeat what I did on those three 7-irons more consistently with all of the clubs more often. I also need to figure out the right combination of ball position and tee height on the driver. I won't be playing forgiving courses every time and a few of these wayward shots would have cost me a bit more somewhere else.
Hopefully the weather holds up next week so I can try again, with rain in the forecast I'm not sure I can get any practice in during my lunch in the coming week. For now, I'll close this out and finish watching the National Championship Game. I'll root for Clemson though I feel Alabama might be the eventual winner. We'll see!
Monday, January 2, 2017
2017
OK, now that we've kicked 2016 to the curb we can concentrate on the future, right? Sure.
To update the blog thingy here I thought I'd at least put down on internet paper the fact that I did get new clubs for myself. I am fully decked out new G-series irons, driver and fairway metals. I even bought a new Ping putter since the one I messed with at the store really felt good in my hands. I almost didn't get the putter because of the sentiment I had with the old Ping Anser I've been using for years but I always suspected it was too light. I can always go back to it if I want.
If the weather here will clear up by next weekend I'll try to play as I'm itching to see how the new sticks fare out on the course. I did get to try them when I had another session with the teaching pro but that's just not the same. The biggest change won't be the clubs but this swing improvement I'm trying to incorporate. I've always been a hands player and I know that I use them too much in my swing. I have some pretty good hand-eye coordination (from what I'm told by these pros) so I can get away with it when I play sometimes, but I know I'm losing out on some power and consistency.
So I've been trying to improve my weight shift so that it starts the downswing, allowing my arms to stay back a bit and create some lag and stay behind the ball like one should, but I couldn't figure out why I was having so much trouble with it. I was once known for having an extended pause at the top, which was the time I'd make the shift. I'm wasn't necessarily looking to repeat that but, as one does in the 21st century, I started using Google for stuff. One place led to another, and another, and then after a while it hit me as to why I couldn't stay behind the ball. I wasn't starting there to begin with.
In my ever constant fight to try and align myself properly I ended up getting my head in front of the ball at setup. From there I would either have to sway back or dip my head to get behind it, or do some other move to get into a position to strike the ball, like flip my hands. When I went to try and do that with a club in hand, I also discovered that I was leaning too far forward also, my shoulders were quite a bit in front of my toes, so I could lose my balance also.
After making those adjustments my swing now feels a lot more like the one that the teaching pro has had me rehearse with him directing the swing. I can keep my head in a steady position now while my body rotates around my spine better, especially on the follow thru, after where contact would be. With the crappy weather here lately I haven't been able to hit a ball and see the results as there is so much you can do with a shorter swing, hitting a ball into an oversized bed pillow leaning against a wall. The last thing I want to do is create some holes in the apartment.
So for now, we wait. We'll fiddle with it some more indoors and hope the light comes on a little brighter in the future. But until I can get outside I have to wonder if I've actually made any progress.
To update the blog thingy here I thought I'd at least put down on internet paper the fact that I did get new clubs for myself. I am fully decked out new G-series irons, driver and fairway metals. I even bought a new Ping putter since the one I messed with at the store really felt good in my hands. I almost didn't get the putter because of the sentiment I had with the old Ping Anser I've been using for years but I always suspected it was too light. I can always go back to it if I want.
If the weather here will clear up by next weekend I'll try to play as I'm itching to see how the new sticks fare out on the course. I did get to try them when I had another session with the teaching pro but that's just not the same. The biggest change won't be the clubs but this swing improvement I'm trying to incorporate. I've always been a hands player and I know that I use them too much in my swing. I have some pretty good hand-eye coordination (from what I'm told by these pros) so I can get away with it when I play sometimes, but I know I'm losing out on some power and consistency.
So I've been trying to improve my weight shift so that it starts the downswing, allowing my arms to stay back a bit and create some lag and stay behind the ball like one should, but I couldn't figure out why I was having so much trouble with it. I was once known for having an extended pause at the top, which was the time I'd make the shift. I'm wasn't necessarily looking to repeat that but, as one does in the 21st century, I started using Google for stuff. One place led to another, and another, and then after a while it hit me as to why I couldn't stay behind the ball. I wasn't starting there to begin with.
In my ever constant fight to try and align myself properly I ended up getting my head in front of the ball at setup. From there I would either have to sway back or dip my head to get behind it, or do some other move to get into a position to strike the ball, like flip my hands. When I went to try and do that with a club in hand, I also discovered that I was leaning too far forward also, my shoulders were quite a bit in front of my toes, so I could lose my balance also.
After making those adjustments my swing now feels a lot more like the one that the teaching pro has had me rehearse with him directing the swing. I can keep my head in a steady position now while my body rotates around my spine better, especially on the follow thru, after where contact would be. With the crappy weather here lately I haven't been able to hit a ball and see the results as there is so much you can do with a shorter swing, hitting a ball into an oversized bed pillow leaning against a wall. The last thing I want to do is create some holes in the apartment.
So for now, we wait. We'll fiddle with it some more indoors and hope the light comes on a little brighter in the future. But until I can get outside I have to wonder if I've actually made any progress.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)