Giant Step Back

Well, today I did the dangerous combination of a lesson followed by a round of golf.  Lesson was great.  Really felt like I made a lot of progress with using my body and physics to power the club, not my arms as I’ve been doing.  Felt really smooth and natural.  Of course, since I had about  things Keith had me working on, to use the Statistical Process Control definition, the process of my swing was totally out of control.  Like 18 sigma for you statistical nerds out there.  I knew I had about 2 weeks of letting this new swing “cure” with time on the range and in the back yard before it would be productive.

I sent Keith a text after the lesson and told him I was playing a new course with a slope rating of 141.  He told me to just play golf, try to keep the tension out of my arms and have only one swing thought.  Well, that’s easy for him to say but when he tells me something…or things….I chew on them like a dog with a bone and find it hard to let them go.

So, I went out on this new course and had zero solid ball strikes.  Just too much going on.  But I scrambled through and shot a 55.  My putting saved me. Yes, I 4-putted the first hole but then 2-putted every other hole except the hole that I 1-putted.  The only holes I got par or bogey were the two par 3’s.

Here’s the card….

 

And this is what its done to my progress metric.  Its really leveling off.  Need to increase the angle on that line.

 

I was proud of one shot on hole #3.  I was about 60 yards from the green that required a shot over a creek and sand trap and onto a green elevated about 20 feet above.  It looked like this but it doesn’t do it justice.

 

I pitched up hoping to bounce it off the hill just beyond the trap and have it roll down into the hole…hey, a girl can dream can’t she?!?!.  Well, I got it up to the hill just beyond the trap and it got caught in the grass.  Chip and 2-putt from there.  Bummer.

But, it was a beautiful course on a beautiful afternoon.  And once I can get some of the work from the lesson fully integrated into my swing, I’m hopeful for a big jump.  Hope is what keeps me going.