Have I sorted It?

For the past few months I've been playing really well, and consistently playing under my h/c. Was expecting a bigish cut at my next QC, so went into a couple of mixed open events a couple of weeks ago to hone the competition face, before the club medal.

The weekend was a bit of a disaster as I let the team down rather badly, by only hitting 30% of fairways with the big stick, and managed to scuff, chunk and slice my irons. My playing partners were too polite to give me a kicking, but couldn't believe what was happening to my game. Last weekend I decided to not play in the QC and just play with a couple of mates in a bounce game. I hit a 10 on the 1st and walked off the course on the 2nd tee as my drive went sharp left into the cabbage. I obviously apologised to my mates, but they understood and could see I was down.

last night I managed to get up to the practice area to try and sort it out. On my way there I was analysing what it could be and decided that maybe, just maybe I was reaching too much at address. This means that my hands were not close enough to my crotch area, if you get my drift.?? Anyway I loaded the driver up and tried hitting into the nets, and I watched the ball hit the middle of the net, without much pace as I wasn't trying to batter it. I continued for a while and decided it seems to be working. 5-iron again was feeling good and consistently striking it cleanly. I played driver, 5, 7, gap wedge, 9 and sand iron for 90-minutes and felt really good. But practice is one thing ......

Is it possible that my over reaching theory is correct, or have I just conned myself because hitting a driver into a net is not the real thing, although my irons were hit into practice greens.

I would think that even bad shots will hit the middle of a net, there's no way of telling if its going to slice or hook from that sort of distance.

Sounds like you went out with an expectation of hitting a good score, rather than just wanting to go out and play well.

SR you could be right there, but the difference was really seen when i was hitting irons to the practice greens, as I was getting hang time and a decent grouping on and around the greens.

Going back to the driver situation into the nets: It did feel better than the last couple of weeks. For some reason I seem to have managed to change something slightly which caused me to hit a lot of drives straight left. Couldn't understand how, as I was hitting most fairways before this and for a few months. fairways hit means more greens hit in regulation, which builds confidence and shooting decent scores. The only thing that seemed to be wrong at the time, was putting letting me down, as I was walking off happy about my play and knowing I had left a lot out there. Then the collapse came in and you know the rest. Last night seemed a bit like I was getting it back with the driver, almost like my body knew that it was right, whereas for the last couple of weeks I had no confidence on the tee. I had dodgy thoughts on my backswing and felt either relief or anger after connection. The connection seemed fine but the bad ones went straight left? A game of millimeters I know, and most of that between the ears.

Doc, sometimes it's best to wind back from danger, take a look at your strokesaver and see where the widest and safest part of the fairway is, it might be that hitting a driver puts you in a dangerous area beyond this safe area, so something like a three wood might be short enough to keep you out of danger all day long, but close enough to the green so that you aren't hitting a long iron in al the time.
I hit driver about 3-4 times a round, because of this very reason, not that I'm bad with the driver but a slight miskew can result in being bunkered or in rough, whereas a three wood, or 16 deg rescue in my case almost always places me in the fairway.

SR, played my first 18 holes since my disaster last week, trying the stuff I practised the other night. Striking was almost back to what it was and my drives were all good hitting fairways. So I reckon my little problem is now sorted. I only scored 31 points, but was very happy with how things went. I hit 3 greenside bunkers which cost me 3 shots, and had a couple of 3-putts, so played better than handicap in my head if not on paper. Just a timing thing with some irons

Woah, hold on Doc, you can't think that you've bettered your handicap in your head when you didn't.
We could all go back and think how many shots we left on the course. That's the beauty of the game, and the reason we keep playing, to be better next time.
Remember, bad shots are just as much a part of the game as good shots and are the reason we have handicaps and aren't all scratch, but bunkers and three putts will happe regardless of how well we play. If we just hit 18 greens in regulation and two putted it would be boring.

Glad the game is returning though.

SR hold on there .... What I meant was, I knew I had played well enough to better my handicap and wasn't too disapointed. I started this thread off by stating that I had been playing well under my h/c for a while, until the last couple of weeks, when I was almsot suicidal. The slight tweaks I made mid-week payed off, but just missing the timing, because I'm probably concentrating too much at take-away.

Ah, I see.
I used to know this guy who would tell me about his round and would say stuff like, well I fluffed it there and took a six, but I normally wouldn't do that so only counted four there then that's about normal. In his mind he was a 6 handicapper, but in reality was about 12 because he didn't understand that his handicap was measured really my the number of his bad shots.

I thought you were alluding to something like that.

Doc

s_r makes a valid point there about 'ifs and buts'. You can't say,'if I hadn't gone in the bunker' or 'if I hadn't three putted' I would have played to my handicap. The reason you went into a bunker is because you either hit a poor shot or because of poor course management. The reason for the 3 putts were because of poor first putts or putting the ball on the wrong part of the green etc. What you also have to remember are the things that went your way during the round like the lucky bounces or the odd longish holed putt, things that might not happen the next time you play.

All you can do is keep working on your game and it will come back to where you want it to be.

Sorry, not trying to dampen your enthusiasm, just trying to help you be realistic.

super_realist wrote:If we just hit 18 greens in regulation and two putted it would be boring.

Oh to bore myself just once...