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A Good Walk Spoiled


Dolfan in NYC

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I played my first 18 holes this weekend and learned a few things along with a trip to the range. Any ideas/hints/tips/etc. are gladly welcomed.

1) The whole "this is a mental game" is no friggin' joke. At all. I was keeping score to track my progress and was playing like complete and total garbage. I was topping pretty much everything and on the rare occasion I did get something into the air, it sliced right into the friggin' woods. I was getting so frustrated and had roughly 10,000 hours of YouTube instructional videos going through my brain all at once. I then took a break for a few minutes and just told myself I was actually just taking a hike in the woods but hitting a ball along the way, and to just have fun. I stopped keeping score. I have no idea if I actually did do better but I think I did. It definitely felt like I did.

2) I'm pretty happy with my short game. I mean, obviously I'm still learning. But I had a bunch of chips that landed on the green. I also learned that "if it's downhill, the ball will roll faster" a few times when chips indeed did just that. I also managed to use one of my wedges from maybe 30-40 feet out to get it on the green. It's great to finally know what clubs can do what and to actually pick the right club and speed to go with felt Speith-ian. I have no idea how I did it, but I thought that a nice half swing with that club would get me close and I somehow pulled it off. I also had two two-putts. I was always a decent contact hitter when I played baseball as a kid and am really good at Ping-Pong (which is another post entirely). And the one thing I was every any good at in basketball was stealing the ball. I have a weird innate ability with things like this. This is a weird thing to say because I am really uncoordinated.

3) This is proof positive whenever I use a driver and my 3- and 5- woods. I am absolutely terrible off the tee. I popped everything up or just grounded them. I mean, a bad slice is fine because I'm new to this and that's a matter of correcting the clubface/going over-the-top, which comes with experience. But this was just absolutely humiliating. Thankfully, the course by my house is really short. There are two or three Par 4s and that's it. I just played the final nine holes without teeing anything up. Just off the ground with irons I felt comfortable with and it went a lot better and I actually made one or two fairways. I didn't use irons with the tees at all even before that -- I probably should in the future, but I'm comfortable enough hitting irons off the ground. If I top the ball, it's because I pulled my head up/posture was bad and I know that. But I am a friggin' mess with longer clubs.

4) My awfulness with long clubs also shows at the driving range. I actually had two drivers in the set I bought. The first driver had a really big clubface and was pretty forgiving. However, the face flew off last week. The face on the second driver is like 25% smaller or so I want to say. I was daisy cutting/popping up everything with this. I was even doing this with half-swings. Thankfully, the guy next to me saw how bad I was and suggested I used a smaller tee. I didn't even know such a thing existed at the driving range. They do, and I was at least getting the ball in the air on half-swings with the driver.

 

5) I've decided to focus on just watching one person's videos on YouTube. That's "Paul Wilson Golf." His videos are really easy-to-understand. I was using my 7-iron at the range and working on using my hips more to get more distance. I've just been trying to hit things straight so there's not a lot of body movement. But now I'm starting to use my hips more. I was inconsistent doing so but definitely was getting a few more yards when I got a clean strike.

6) But I'm going to spend the rest of the week at the range using my 5- and 3- woods off the mat. I mean, I have to use them at some points on the course and since I'm terrified of driving or using anything off the tee, I might as well to start with them until I'm ready for the next step. I did alright getting good loft and power with the five. I was a lot more inconsistent with the three. It's just that little bit of additional length screws me up. I top the ball, ground the rug first, slice, etc. Just all over the map.

I'm going to take lessons soon. This is so addictive.

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1) yes - It's 90% mental and 10% mental. especially when you hit a few bad shots or you miss an easy chance. 

 

2) short game for me was the first thing to go after a lay off. i got golfers elbow after a work day...so i had to lay off after cortozone injections to my elbow. sucked ass. so it's good that you have a good short game. open that face though on the bunker shots. greater area of contact...

 

3) you pop because you either stand up on the downswing, or you're trying to be tiger. Trust in the swing, swing through the ball rather than try to take the hide off of it, and let it do the work. dont grip it and rip it, reduce the swing size by half and swing through. 

 

4) For me, I prefer to hit irons of fthe black tee at the range, and the big boy clubs off the green tee. we've got ranges round here with automatic feeders. pop the balls in the hole  (hurr hurr) and it pops them up automatically.

 

5) David Leadbetter was of a generation, never heard of david wilson.

 

6) I'd encourage using a 5 off the deck, but for the time you're going to spend on the 3 wood off the deck, put that time into hitting longer irons off the deck. think about it. you're not going to be hitting long balls that often, but you are going to be hitting longer irons. 3 wood off the deck will result in sally gunnells all the way, long irons, from th deck or the tee may result in better looking shots which will improve confidence.

 

lessons are the way to go though. be prepared for the changes in club grip to feel fucking awful and painful.

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I was looking over some timelines, working out just how ridiculously old The Old Course is. I think my favourite thing I stumbled across is that the Old Course established in 1552 is 30 years older than the universal establishment of the use of the Gregorian Calendar in western civilization.

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Jesus... Tiger is at +4 at the end of his first round.  

 

He currently sits 3rd from last.   

 

Know what's worse than missing the cut?

 

Having to hang around until Saturday because you couldn't finish your round on Friday and knowing that you missed the cut already.

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"Wrong Johnson" is a really good sockpuppet account name.

 

Anyway, Zach seems like a really down to earth guy, so it's nice he won. The Grand Slam remains one of those unconquerable sports mountains. I feel kind of bad for Jason Day though. He's become Mr. Top 10 in majors but just can't get up that hill.

 

I wonder if Rory can even get back for the PGA Championship. By the sounds of it that's no real guarantee.

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I went on vacation last week and was able to play three times over the week with a friend of mine. It was pretty awesome. I don't get to play much anymore and it really gave me the bug to play again. I didn't play bad either which was nice since I was playing courses that I'd never played before and we played the back tees. Can't wait to play again.

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Played my first round of the year today. Definitely should have gone to the driving range in advance.

 

The good: hit the driver pretty well. Only lost one drive to the trees, and that was on the 18th hole.

 

The bad: topped way too many fairway shots. It took me until the 12th hole to finally stop lifting my knees as I came down to hit the ball, and then fairway shots got much better.

 

The UGLY: my short game usually saves me a bunch of strokes. Not today. My pitching wedge was godawful, and I took 35 putts during the round (I am usually around 30 putts).

 

It was a great time though. Me and one of my oldest friends getting out early on a holiday Monday to swing the sticks. 3 1/2 hour round walking the course, can't complain about that!

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I've played a few more times since I last posted.

I bought a "new" driver and 3-wood from the club shop at the local Par-3 in my neighborhood. This is because the head of both the driver and the 3-wood flew off at the driving range. The "new" clubs are used clubs I picked up for $20 each. I like them.

I've been using a 2" tee at the driving range and that has made all the difference. I'm not daisy-cutting anything anymore. I mean, it's impossible to do this with a tee at this height. I'm also not topping the ball as much (with any of my clubs). I top the ball when I go too far back in my backswing, which lifts my body up and out of posture. Or, sometimes I think about rotating my hips too fast and that gets me out of sorts, too. But I generally know how far back I can go and retain staying down.

I was slicing the driver to an insane degree -- like essentially a right angle from the tee. I just watched some videos on correcting an over-the-top swing and tried to concentrate on that. That straightened out the driver a lot. I still slice, but it's not insanely going right. I know the clubface is open and I have to try and fix that. Slowly but surely.

The last I played was two Friday's ago. I had a few bogeys. I missed a few chances at par off of putts that just missed.

I made my first par two weeks ago, though. It was on a Par 3 at 200 yards. I hit a 5-iron off the tee. (I didn't even bring a driver or 3-iron since I would slice it too much.) I got to like 20-30 yards or so. I then pitched it onto the green somehow and made a 8-foot putt. I almost whipped my club in the air and someone at the tee next to me gave me a dirty look for screaming so loud. screw it, though.

 

Like, all I think about is playing golf. It's the best.

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So this happened to me today at the municipal course. How the hell would you handle it?

The place was more crowded than usual. It's the first day in a week or so that the weather hasn't been horribly hot. Things were moving a little slow. I ended up playing with this really nice guy. And while there was a log jam in front of us, it was empty behind us. We played a few holes.

We were on one of the few Par 4's on the course and both in or near the fairway. I noticed right when I was moving towards my shot that a group of five were behind us at the tee. No big deal -- I figured they caught up or jumped holes or something. All of a sudden, though, I hear a ball whipping in the tree right above me. And then another one. These dudes were teeing off when we were clearly playing.

I had no idea what was going on, if I was breaking some etiquette thing or whatever. The guy I was with asked if they were joining us. They looked at us like we were aliens. Finally, they said no.

The dude I was with asked them what they were doing then. They kept on asking us what we were doing. They said they thought we were lost on the course so they could play. We clearly weren't, and the dude I was playing with let them know that he really didn't appreciate having a golf ball whiz by his face. The guy in this new group kept on spitting out sunflower seeds tho whole time he was explaining why he thought it was remotely okay to hit a golf ball while someone is in the middle of the fairway. I walked away right when it was starting to get loud, especially because members of the other group started hitting anyways.

I'd chalk it up to inexperience but these bros definitely played before.

How do you handle this?

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In the past when people have hit up on me I've either hit their ball directly into the woods or hit it right back at them. Hitting up on people is dangerous. Other option is to call the clubhouse and have a marshal take care of it.

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That happened last year to me and some friends. The first time it happened, we didn't do anything, second time, I stepped on the guy's ball (it was in the rough already) until the ball was 3/4 in the ground. Then we told the course marshall what was going on, and I think he spoke to them as well.

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Played my second round of the year over the weekend. The highlight for me was very good beer cart service. The highlight for my friends was my ability to hit a ball in all three water hazards on the course.

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  • 1 month later...

Got an email yesterday that I got selected for the opportunity to buy Ryder Cup tickets.  Will be able to purchase them between November 3-5.  I don't really know what the market is like for Ryder Cup tickets if I get them and end up not being able to go.  I would only want to buy them if I knew I'd get my money back most likely in the event I can't make the trip to MN. 

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  • 6 months later...

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