Fourteen

A couple of days after my “Sub 15” solo round, I snuck in another 18 after work and shot an 83, for a differential of 16.3. I was then able to play with the member group a few days later, and shot a 78, for a differential of 11.5. That dropped my index to a 14.0.

I hesitate to think of this sort of round as the “new normal”, especially since it tied my low differential since I started playing “alternate golf”. There were certainly a few good and bad breaks which seemed to offset each other. I seemed to to a really good job of keeping the ball in play, and leaving myself in positions where I was able to get up and down quite a bit. I had five one-putt pars, only one of which was with a lengthy putt.

I’ve been doing a very good job lately of choosing smart targets and playing safe shots. Having said that, there were two times in this round where I didn’t follow the process and ended up with double-bogeys.

On hole #3 I flushed my approach shot and went just over the green. My ball came to rest on a pretty severe downhill slope, and I was really short sided. I tried to hit a delicate lefty chip to land in the downslope (which had rough thick enough to catch my approach shot), hoping it would kick forward and roll out close to the flag. Of course it didn’t, and I left myself with another difficult chip, which ran 20 feet or so past the pin. I then two putted for double. In retrospect, I should tried a safer pitch the first time, accepting that even a 30 foot putt would acceptable from that position. At worst I probably would have made a bogey.

On hole #15, which is a semi-lengthy par five, I pushed my lefty tee shot a bit, and my ball came to rest sitting up in the rough on an uphill lie. I should have just hit a hybrid, but for some reason I thought with the ball sitting up and the uphill lie that I’d get more distance with a driver. I’ve pulled this shot off before, but clearly it isn’t a high percentage play. I helped prove this by topping the ball about fifty yards. From there I hit a decent layup, then came up short on my approach. I failed to get up and down, leading to the double bogey.

The math is pretty clear for both of those holes. There was very little to be gained from the low percentage shots, and a lot to be lost. If I were to hit ten balls from the same position on #3, I might have put it close enough to be in reasonable one putt range on one attempt at most. I also would only put myself in “two more shot” range probably half the time. I should have had a “get it on the green no matter what” mindset.

On #15, even it had hit the driver off the deck solidly, it wouldn’t have likely gone much further than a hybrid, certainly not enough to lower my expected score on the hole by very much. However, I introduced quite a bit of likelihood of doing exactly what I did, which was to get such a bad result as to add a full stroke.

Still, I am very happy with where my game is right now. The added length on my righty drives has continued, and there were several holes where the extra distance definitely made a difference. I was able to get pin high with a lefty approach on one of the long par fours, which I wasn’t able to do before. I pulled a couple of righty drives, but they went far enough to get past all of the trouble, leaving me simple approach shots.

From the lefty side, it seems clear that my face control is continuing to improve. I certainly didn’t hit every fairway, but I kept the ball in play. I don’t recall having to make any punch outs for the round. I don’t feel like I’m hitting it quite as far lefty as I was before, but I seem to be hitting it straighter. I expect that as I get more comfortable with the technique change, I should be able to start adding more speed and getting the distance back, hopefully even further than before. I was hitting it about two clubs less lefty than righty before, and now it’s even shorter. Distance isn’t everything, but it will certainly help my game if I can pick up some lefty distance while keeping the accuracy.

It’s been a couple of weeks since this last round, so hopefully I’ll be able to get out and play tomorrow. The forecast doesn’t look good, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m looking forward to playing a round where even if I don’t score my best, I do even better at making the right plays.