Reading the Greens

Transition to Winter Golf

2006-10-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

Come this Halloween morning I shall be playing my first of fall golf. Ok its definately not winter yet, but there is a very good chance i'll be needing some long sleeves and long pants. What i do wonder is if the briskness of the temperature will give me a better game. I've always noticed that on really hot days, the sweatyness and overall baking factor in the sun kills my end game. Playing in the fall I don't see that to be as much of a factor. Hopefully its not too chilly though.

Oh well. We'll see. As for that, i'm not sure there is much more else to say for golf for a while.

See ya in the spring most likely, unless i get some clubs for christmas.

Driving range tips from the week.

2006-09-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

honestly these tips probably will only help me, and my problem. But i like recording them here.

I figured out on the range yesterday that i definately need to keep my left foot solidly planted, to make for a good base.

Next, I'm young, i've got good range of motion, i need to take my backswing back full and open. Use my full range of motion.
--About the above comment: All of the sudden when i did this, I was hitting the straightest longest drives i have hit in a long time. In a verrrry long time.

Lastly, The grip. I need to have a good grip, and grip with my fingers. This is probably the single most useful change i've made in my game all year. I finally started gripping the club right. Because of it, i've gained a whole lot better feel, along with amazingly more consistant and straight hits.

Anyways thats all for my wisdom, mostly targeted at being reminders to myself.

lata

The Home Stretch

2006-09-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

Some days you deliver when you need to and other days you just dissolve. Over the summer I've had my share of both. Though this past weekend, i delivered. I didn't exactly post the most stellar score, though it was good enough to beat my playing partners by about 9 strokes. I was pretty much only 1 stroke ahead at the turn.

There was something that all of the sudden clicked in my swing as we made the turn. I don't know what it was. Maybe its that I remembered I shouldn't be letting my lower body move as much, or that i should pay attention to my left foot staying on the ground in my backswing. Thats a possibility. I don't know but all of the sudden things just worked.

What I think was the standout part of my game, was my use of the fairway woods. Every fairway wood i hit all day pretty much went straight where i wanted to. My driver also was amazingly cooperative when I pulled it out. This isn't to say i didn't hit some bad drives off in the woods. Mainly my biggest problem was unlucky hits on narrow fairways, as well as not picking the right club, and just plane spacing out on some shots, when i should have been choosing my shot a little better.

That'll kill you. If you don't come to address with a clear idea of what you need to do to the ball with the club you have, then how can you even hope to hit it good. You can't. I need to take shots a little more seriously sometimes. Most of my problem on the front nine, was my irons were all hitting a little before the ball pulling up dirt and just flubbing the ball. I don't know why i was doing it, but i just couldn't shake it for those first nine holes. I also missed some key short game hits.

Anyways.. thats all for now, just reflecting.

Tiger dominiating

2006-09-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

As most people may know, Tiger has won 5 in a row right now. He could come out in his next tournament and bomb, but who knows maybe we're on the cusp of something really special to unfold in golf. Could Tiger recreate his tiger-slam, along with not losing a tournament he enters in between? Thats be freakin amazing.

But anyways. Thats just a thought though.

For me, I'm golfing this weekend. I haven't played since the second week of august. I scored my best round of the summer that time though, and I'm hoping I'll be able to bring that same game tommorrow. Maybe I'll play even better. One of the things I always look forward to in a round of golf is having those shots where I feel totally comfortable. I'm walking up to the ball and I know what I want to do, then I just do it. No questions asked. I just take dead aim, and hit the ball where i want it. I've been having more of those moments throughout the summer. Though I've had an equal amount more of shots that just go horribly arye though as well. That sort of thing I need to cut down on. I also need to putt better. My putting this year has been horrid.

Personally I'm not all that great yet. My goals now are to be a bogey golfer. That seems like a high hope, considering my best round of the summer was 106. I think its reachable though. Maybe it won't happen this summer, but who knows maybe I could break a hundred, and honestly I'd be just fine with that.

But anyways I've totally diverged from my post heading. so this Post is fini.

Tiger 2 majors this year

2006-08-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Here's my two cents for tiger's two majors. Just a short few months ago, sports pundits were predicting the Tiger's rein as dead. They believed with his missed cut at the US Open, he would shrivel up and turn from the fierce golf predator that his name is synonymous with to an indoor cat with his claws removed. How wrong can we be? Very wrong. Tiger over the past week dominated the PGA championship, as a follow up to his dominance in the British Open (where he only used his driver once i might add).

When will Tiger's claws get dull? I have no idea. Its probably no time soon. Nicklaus is still the greatest, but Tiger is the growing legend, and he's just going to continue to grow until we see him dominating on the Seniors Tour in 2035 or something.

I don't think anyone would have predicted he'd win the last two major's of the year after his showing at the US Open. But its history now, you can't take that back.

Little Red Book

2006-08-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

I got the "Harvey Penick's Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime of Golf" out from the library, and have begun to read it. I'm about 10 pages into it, and all of it so far is about gripping the club, and putting practice. I like it so far. Its a very ground up approach. A classic golf instruction book. This morning while I was at the gym, riding the stationary bike and reading this book, i realized that what this book was starting out with were things that just hadn't occurred to me to put much thought into. But now that I see it on paper, i realize that i'm silly for not starting with these fundamentals.

I've also come to realize that I should just buy this book. I've got a week at the beach coming up, where I'll at least be golfing once. I'm going to read the whole book through. After that though if i still like all of it, i'm going to buy it, and only focus on one section of it at a time, with things i want to do with my game. Also, this should be a task i do in the order of the book.

In the first three pages of the book, i already had some ideas that I think will really improve my consistancy.

Anyways thats all, go pick this up or go to the library and take a read.

UPDATE: I've tried to start gripping the club with a more correct grip (i.e. more with the fingers than with palms) and while the grip itself doesn't quite feel so natural right now, the swing feels 10 times more natural. I shall continue this, i think it will help me a lot.

Maybe Sergio's clothes were too tight.

2006-07-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

While Sergio seemed to be neck and neck with Tiger going into the final round, it quite possibly could have been his clothes that failed him. He dissolved in the final round of the Open, while Tiger pressed on. Ultimately Tiger won by 2 strokes over Chris DiMarco, with a -18.

No No, really what are you thinkin Sergio. I don't really care about the Yellow. Honestly, the yellow is kind of cool and obnocious. Don't shy away from that. But damnit why does it look like you accidentally went shopping in the pre-teen isle of the department store? Its a wonder he can even breath in that shirt.

Woods at 12 under, On top after the second day of the Open.

2006-07-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday i was saying I didn't think Woods would be on top after the first day, because of his slow start to his round. Little did I know, later that evening I checked the scores, and I was right. I was almost wrong though, because last time i had checked Tiger was at -2 on the 14th. He ended his first day at -5, to be tied for 2nd. (Whew i didn't eat too much of my foot.)

Now with the conclusion of his second round, he's -12, with a commanding lead over the field. We'll see what the afternoon groups can do, to match Tigers roar.

Check out this ESPN article about his Eagle on 14

Leaderboard

The leader from yesterday, shot 1 over on the day, dropping him to be tied for 11th.

Graeme McDowell, and the Open

2006-07-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

So right about now its 1pm EST, and a guy from Northern Ireland is -6, to be the current leader. Who is this guy? I look at his stats he made 66k last year, and 2k the year before that. Could this be another darkhorse candidate to win the Open? or his he goin to fall to pieces after today. Even if he's not on top, after the rest of the field finishes, he still may be an intersting story to watch.

The Open, 2006

2006-07-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

So I read. I read and I read, all the golf news. I've become somewhat of an addict in the past few months to golf news, golf tips, golf blogs, and golf equipment reviews. The culmination of all of this brings me to starting my own golf blog. A small and probably unnoticed blog. I have my own personal blog, which has its own domain, and all that jazz, but I've sort of become dissinterested in chronicaling my life in general terms. I wanted to get specific. Whats this have to do with anything?

The US Open happened last month to set the stage for the British Open to be a very hottly covered golf event. Why did this happen? Of course you already know. Colin Montgomerie, dissolving on the 18th. Phil Mickelson doing the same. Tiger woods didn't even make the cut. Not to mention the controversy surrounding Winged Foot as a hard venue in the first place.

Now we've started The (British) Open. The controversy has already started, and with the morning crew of golfers already finished by the time many of us americans were getting to work, the wonders are flying as to who will be victorious on sunday.

Here's a quick look at where a couple of key people I've been thinking about stand.

Pos.	Name	Today	Thru
1	Graeme McDowell	-6	16
T2	Greg Owen	-5	F
T2	Anthony Wall	-5	F
T4	Sergio Garcia	-4	F
T14	Phil Mickelson	-3	F
T14	Darren Clarke	-3	F
T30	Vijay Singh	-2	F
T30	Retief Goosen	-2	9
T47	Tiger Woods	-2	11
T92	Colin Montgomerie	+1	F

Full Leaderboard from golf.com

Phils sitting good, Colin, has dissolved, Sergio is having an impressive showing, and as for Tiger after the 11th, he's 2 under. Looking at the score card, he's bogey'd once and 3 birdies.

Looking at all of the people who are finished their round, i could tell that many of them were making the majority of their birdies on the back 9. Though most of the top 10, have 2 birdies on the front 9. So if you're somebody who's rooting for Tiger, he's in good position, but he's probably not goin to come out on top of the leaderboard after today. But really, what does that matter, you save your best game for Sunday.

Something of note is, apparantly all the controversy over Tiger being paired with Nick Faldo, has not affected him. Tiger's -2, Faldo is +5.. hmmm maybe Faldo is more worried about playing with Tiger. Then again, the apparntly shook hands and practiced on the same range earlier. Though I haven't seen any reports that they're actually conversing. I so wish i had a tv around right now.

Taylormade r580XD

2006-07-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

So i bought this club about 3 weeks ago. I haven't played a round yet with it, thanks to a monsoon that the Maryland area had the day I last had an outing planned, though I have gotten to the range quite a bit with it so far. Here's my thoughts.

First the specifics:
10.5 degree
Standard flex, stock shaft (mas-2 or something like that)
400cc head (least from what i can tell from internet info)

I bought the club for the value, there isn't anything in the same price range of the same quality as this club, from what I could find. I mean i drool over the new biggest best thing from Nike, TM, Callaway, and the rest, but i sure don't have the money to go after that, nor would they help me out personally all that much more in the end.

My biggest problems with my previous driver had to do with forgiveness and seemingly well hit balls careening off into the woods. The 580XD helps that by having a decent shaft, and a nice sized club face. What made me fall in love with this club when I demoed it (and in fact from the first time i picked it up in the store) was the weighting. Compared to any other driver i picked up this had the best balance and weighting for what I wanted to feel. Some people like a heavier head, or some other kind of weighting, but personally i like that well balanced feel, that all I have to do is swing the club, and the clubhead is going to go right along for the ride.

On to my driving range impressions. At first, i really didn't see much of a difference from my old driver, which sort of troubled me. At the range i go to, the ball (when i hit it good mind you) was landing in similar spots that my old driver had been hitting. Combined with this i think i had reverted to some old habits when I was using the new driver. I believe this may have been the result of how much different the feel of the 580 is over my old driver. One thing that I did notice though after a bucket or two of balls was that the 540 was definately much more forgiving, as I'd hoped it would be. I had far less ultra-slices. If i hit it correct, it would head out straight, and if I hit it wrong it'd go off in some other direction. I knew when I hit it wrong from the moment I struck the ball. With the old driver, I didn't get that feeling sometimes. I could make a hit that felt totally great, and look up to see my ball taking a hard right into the woods.

But still the distance, that troubled me. The distance didn't seem to be there. Thinking about it now, i don't know if it should have troubled me though. I was making some poor swings that were going fairly straight and landing at about the max my old driver had hit at the range. At about the 3rd time out to the range with the club, i started to feel how i needed to swing it. I also started taking good practice swings, and focusing on swinging the club and not just hitting the ball. Plus i decided that previously, i had been trying to hard to creme the ball since this was my new driver and i wanted to hit it far. (many times having the complete opposite effect) So once i relaxed, and just swung the club, i could start to see a gradual improvement in my consistancy and distance. In fact the last time i was at the range i was consistantly hitting the ball 20 yard further than my old driver, along with making far less bad shots.

So in the end, much of my improvement is both in my head and my technique, along with the new club. I'm guessing I could hit the old club fairly decent with pretty good accuracy, by employing the swing practice that I've been doing lately, but it sure as heck would go as far, and it would definately punish me a lot more for screwing up.

So lastly, the sound... Its got this strange phink! sound it makes. I've never really heard it from anybody else's clubs. It very well could just be the difference of standing right over that sound and hearing it from behind though. Its definately a big change from my previous driver though. I like it, especially cause it only makes that nice sound when i do it right.

Anyways thats all i got. lata

Kick my ass if i forget these things:

2006-07-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

I guess an appropriate first post for my golfing journal would be some things I need to keep telling myself when I golf. Everybody has some reminders when they're golfing. Things that try to help you repeat that perfect swing you made back on the range.

0. TAKE A FREAKING PRACTICE SWING. TAKE A FEW EVEN. Make sure you're swing is comfortable before you actually have a hit at the ball. When you are comfortable. Step forward and do your swing, and don't even thinking about the ball, just make like its just another practice swing.

1. Take my backswing nice and easy. Stop whipping the club back like I'm trying to fend off a ninja stalking behind me. Just do it nice and slow to the top, and then put all i've got into swinging down through the same swing plane.

2. Set up to the club right. Lay the thing down near the ball, with the head a little bit across the ball.

3. If you're using a club with a big head tee it up high.

4. Bend your knees dangit!!!!!!! and keep the back straight.