The trip to Southern Pines was a success. The golf often wasn’t very good, but I did manage to play all four rounds this year. No significant injury issues, and no stomach issues. I did torque my left wrist on the first day, likely due in part to having strained it a couple of weeks before the trip. Aside from some pain, it didn’t really seem to affect my swing too much though.
I played very consistently through the four rounds, though not in a good way. Going in to the week with a 13.5 handicap, I was expecting to shoot 5 to 6 strokes higher than normal, but with similar differentials to what I shoot at my home course. Instead, the differentials ranged from 22.9 to 23.8, which are all near the bottom of my most recent 20 differentials. I posted a 23.1 at my muni last month, so it’s not like I didn’t think I was capable of these sorts of scores. I just wasn’t expecting that all four days. In this somewhat rambling post, I’ve tried to break down why I think I struggled so much.
The first think that came to mind was that these courses had firm, Bermuda fairways. My more skilled righty side loved hitting from the firm/tight fairways. However, these fairways required more precision than I have as a lefty – there’s just less margin for error. The shaggy fescue/crabgrass/dandelion blend at my muni makes it harder to make really pure strikes, but it seems to be more forgiving for swings that have more variety in ground contact.
This carried over to pitch/chip shots around the green, where the tighter lies gave me some fits. Combined with greens that were also much faster than I’m used to, I found it much harder to chip it close. It was harder to make clean contact, the ball wouldn’t check as much even when I did make clean contact, and it would roll out a lot more. In retrospect I wish I had spent more time on a practice green the first day working on bump and runs to get the pace down. I played a few of these shots on the course, but I never got comfortable enough with the pace to get good results.
The assorted junk that was in play off the tee (water, dense woods) also particularly hurt my lefty tee shots. On my fairly wide open muni, I can more easily aim away from the few places there is trouble, but even if I hit a terrible shot, it usually doesn’t hurt me too much – usually just one stroke. That wasn’t the case on these courses. I drove the ball really, really well from the right side – better than I remember from my low, single-digit handicap days (thank you technology). I certainly lost a few strokes on my righty tee shots because of the added trouble. However, it really hurt on the lefty side, where my dispersion is so much higher.
All in all, it felt like my more highly skilled righty side lost about as many strokes as I expected based on the courses being longer and more difficult. However, the less skilled lefty side lost a lot more strokes than I expected. It definitely gave me a some ideas of things to work on to be able to play more competently from the lefty side next year. I flat out need to get more consistent off the tee. I don’t need to hit it any longer – just a consistent 200 yard bunt off the tee will be more than sufficient. I also need to work on my ground contact. Just like the tee shots, I don’t really need to worry about distance. I hit the ball long enough right handed that given the length of courses that we play, distance isn’t a problem.
The trip highlighted for me how much bigger the skill gap really is between my right and left sides. Going in to the trip I would have estimated there to be about a 10 stroke difference in my skill level. I now think it’s probably closer to 20. I think the short length and lack of difficulty at my home course masks how lacking my lefty game is.
As some evidence of the gap, after the second round I teamed up with one of the other guys on the trip to play a 2-man captains choice for nine holes. I decided to just play righty, in part because I was kind of demoralized with how I had played through the first two rounds. For context, I was in the 5 to 6 handicap range for several years in the early 2000’s, and was in the 1 to 2 range for a short period of time back around 2008 when I lefty my assistant pro job. Prior to herniating a lumbar disc two years ago, I was about a 10 handicap, and while I thought I my righty game might be slightly better now, I didn’t really know.
For those nine holes, I played like a low single-digit handicapper again. Because almost half my bag is lefty, I was only carrying seven righty clubs, plus my trusty Bullseye putter. We were either even or one under for the nine holes, and came out $5 richer each. We only used a handful of my partner’s shots – on several holes he didn’t bother hitting tee shots. I estimate that I would have shot one or two over just on my own ball. I made one solo birdie, partially offsetting a drive I put in the junk that likely would have led to a double bogey. I felt like I was playing near the edge of my abilities and it was a blast.
For a few hours after the round, I really questioned whether I wanted to keep doing the alternate golf thing. I seriously thought about just playing right handed for the last two days. However, I felt like I owed it to myself to stick it out after all of the work that I’ve put in to developing my lefty swing, putting by bag together, starting a blog, etc.
When I got home from the trip Sunday evening, I also realized that I had just played four and a half rounds over four days without my back acting up. There is certainly a part of me that wonders what sort of righty potential I might be leaving on the table by not just playing right handed. But I also know that I’m not likely to feel any more satisfaction by getting down into the low single-digits again. I kind of feel like I’ve been there and done that. Also, if there’s any chance that playing alternate golf is helping to keep my back happy, that’s reason enough to stick with it.
One think I’m still curious about though is whether my experience in going from an easy muni to longer, more difficult courses is unique. In other words, I wonder what the experience is like for low vs. high handicappers when playing more difficult courses than their home track. There are certainly lots of variables at play – i.e. why exactly the home course is rated as being easier versus the more challenging courses. My intuition is that the low handicappers are not affected as much as the high handicappers, but I don’t have the data to investigate this. Perhaps it’s time to reach out to people who might have this sort of data.
Alternate Golf 