Learning Golf and Playing Golf

The last time I wrote, it seemed as if winter weather was never going to end. I did get out on the golf course again two more times in that last week of January, and I've been privileged to get out to play or practice five times this month so far. With the 10-day forecast showing about half of those upcoming days as playable, I am encouraged that spring is only a month away.

In an effort to find out which parts of my golf game need the most help I've started keeping track of how many putts I make in addition to the number of strokes. I've decided that I may need to do this for more rounds than I've played in the last 4 weeks because I have gotten widely varying results. One day I'll take 34 putts over 18 holes and the next time it'll be 41. I also realize that those numbers are not necessarily a reflection of my putting feel that day, but are just as much a result of my chipping and approach shot accuracy.

Since starting my quest, I seem to have made no external progress, at least according to the scorecard. Up until the last two rounds, my ball striking and ball flight was steadily deteriorating and the only thing I had going for me was my greenside chipping and putting. But last weekend it finally clicked.

Two things I changed has made a huge difference in the way I am swinging now and consequently the ball flight and distance. First was my setup. I had been pushing and slicing nearly every tee shot for almost two months, and when I would somehow manage to hit one straight, I still did not have the distance that I was expecting. All I did was move the ball further forward in my stance. At first it felt as if the ball was way in front of me, but in reality, it was now about even with the inside of my leading foot. This cured the pushing part of my errant swing. Now I was starting the ball straight or even pulling it a bit to compensate for the fade or slice.

The second thing I learned is more of a feel and not so easily reproduced or described. Rather than focusing of some facet of the swing, I tried to completely relax my upper body when getting ready to swing. I've always had fairly relaxed hands, but my shoulders and upper back were anything but loose. When I focused on getting a loose relaxed feeling there in my upper back as I was setting up to a swing, my actual swing was much freer and whip like. AND for the first time in a long time I had a flight path that not only did NOT slice, but I was actually drawing the ball on most of the shots.

I know other swing faults will likely creep in as time goes on, but with these discoveries, I am hoping to keep the ball in play a lot more and have more consistent stats to better analyze my game with.

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