I took a couple of weeks off from playing after my golf trip. A large part this was because my left wrist was still hurting from whatever it is that I did on the second round of the trip, so I wanted to give that some time to rest.
In the meantime I also picked up a new-to-me left-handed super game improvement eight “iron-wood”(Tour Edge HL3) from Play it Again Sports. After having so much trouble on the firmer fairways with my lefty clubs digging more than I would like, I thought it might be a good idea to try and find a more forgiving eight iron. It was only $20, but it had a steel shaft. After confirming online that it used parallel tip shafts and wouldn’t be hard to reshaft, I pulled the trigger.
After reshafting the club I hit a few balls into my net with it, and though it was hard to tell whether I was actually hitting it any better than my regular eight iron, I decided to just put it into play and see what happened. I played with the regular Saturday morning group at my muni, and though it’s a very small sample size, I think it’s a good addition to the bag. I hit several thin shots with it, but the ball still got pretty good distance and certainly had better results than I would have gotten with the same swing with the regular eight iron. I also found that it worked very well around the greens for chipping. I had been using the hybrid 6 iron for these shots, and never got particularly good results. I think the shorter shaft made it easier to make clean contact, and something about the shape of the head or the color differences seemed to make it easier to line up properly.
I really wasn’t sure how I was going to play since my ego had taken somewhat of a hit in North Carolina. I was very pleasantly surprised to tie my low round at the muni. I shot a 78 for a differential of 11.5, which dropped my handicap down to 13.3. This is a new low for me, continuing the gradual downward trend. I did a good job of keeping the ball and play off the tee, not duffing any shots during the round. Particularly for lefty full swings, I worked to increase the tempo of my swing. I recently listened to a podcast where they talked about Tour tempo, and I had put in a little bit of time in the basement trying to increase the tempo of my swing.
Aside from hitting the ball better than average, what really seemed to make a difference was my putting. On the third hole I made a pretty terrible three putt. After crushing a righty drive, I came up short with a poorly struck lefty wedge. After a mediocre righty pitch shot, I decelerated badly on my first putt, leaving me well short. I did the same thing on my second putt, resulting in a pretty inexcusable three putt. I told one of the guys in the group to smack me if I decelerated on a putt like that again. I wish I had kept better stats, but I ended up making way more than my share of putz for the rest of the round. I made several putts in the 6th to 15 ft range that I would otherwise have been happy to just two putt. I had 30 putts total for the round, and I am sure if I was using some sort of strokes gained app, I would have been very positive with the putting.
I also only made one double bogey on the round, that coming on the third hole where I had the three putt. The only other hole where I came close to making a double was on the 10th, where where after slicing my lefty tee-shot into trouble, my punch out didn’t quite make it to the fairway. I was partially blocked out for my third shot, and came up short of the green. I hit a good pitch to about 15 feet, and drained the putt to save my bogey.
I also managed to sneak in a couple of birdies. The first was on the short par-5 seventh hole, where after a good righty drive, I ran a lefty hybrid up on the green. My first putt wasn’t hit hard enough, but I drained about a five footer for birdie. I also birdied the short 13th hole, a par four. After nearly driving the green with a righty tee shot, I pitched close and made the putt.
Hopefully I’ll get to play again on Saturday morning with the regular group. I was able to check out the Tour Tempo book from the local library, which had the CD still in it that had the “tones”. I’ve already put in a little time in the basement working with the tones, and I think they have some potential to help, particularly for my lefty swing. I know that I’m all over the place when it comes to my lefty tempo, and am looking forward to see if this might help.
Alternate Golf 