I once again find myself at the start of a new calendar year, with plans to make this the year that I finally start blogging regularly. After several failed attempts with this and other blog ideas, I’m less than confident that it will finally happen, but it’s worth a shot. I hope to write something once a week, whether I’m able to play or not.
2023 Overview
In 2023 there were several things that kept me off the golf course quite a bit that were largely out of my control. I didn’t get to play nearly as much, and as a result my righty/lefty handicap rose a bit into the 15/16 range by the end of the season.
I had some injury trouble, notably a bad case of tennis elbow on the left arm that started in toward the end of summer. After a couple of months of physical therapy didn’t help, I got an injection which did. This was right before my annual 4-day golf trip, and I was fortunate to be able to play largely without pain. I’m about three months out from the injection and while I’m cautiously optimistic about the elbow, it’s a reminder that as I approach my mid-fifties, injury potential is very real.
Also over the summer, a situation arose at work that required a considerable amount of overtime. This included needing to work several weekends, which is very unusual for my job. I also got a promotion in the Fall which has increased my overall workload, at least until my prior position gets backfilled. I’m hopeful that by the Spring I’ll be able to let go of some of my prior responsibilities.
I also had some serious parental health issues to deal with at the end of the year which required several weekends of driving a few hours to my childhood home to help out with my parents. That situation has improved, but I fully expect to be making the trip at least one weekend a month.
However, I did a good job of maintaining my fitness. I also did make it out to the course to chip and putt some even when I didn’t have time to play. I had a few really solid rounds during the year, and managed to match my low lefty/righty round at my muni from 2022 toward the end of the season. I played in the Reddit Mid-Atlantic event and shot close to my handicap under some difficult conditions. I also had some really good stretches of golf during my Fall trip. While my overall game didn’t improve in 2023, I’m pretty happy with how I played, all things considered.
Equipment Plans
I’m still in a place where I don’t want to spend a lot of money on equipment. Through the 2023 season I continued using an extremely mixed bag. At the end of the season, there were no sequential matching head/shafts in the bag except for my two righty hybrids. I decided that for 2024 I wanted to try to at least get some matching irons for each side, but to spend as little money as possible.
I got really lucky with shopgoodwill.com, and picked up a lefty set of Adam’s Idea Hybrid Irons (Pw – 4i/h) for about $50 with shipping. They have regular flex graphite shafts, and definitely fall into the super game improvement category. They have springy titanium faces, and wide soles with some sort of weighting in the sole. From the 6 iron up they transition into hybrids.
On the righty side, through the latter part of the season I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do to create a more consistent set. I had moved back to blades for my short irons, having re-shafted my old Golfsmith PW and 8i with some random graphite shafts. This left me with a game-improvement TaylorMade 6 iron, and none of the three shafts matched.
I decided that I really wanted to fully move back to blades, and thought through a few options to do this. I have a set of old Ram Tour Grinds that I often played with prior to my back injury. The problem was that they had heavy steel Brunswick Precision FCM 6.5 shafts, which my joints just can’t handle any more. I briefly thought about buying some inexpensive graphite shafts and a boring kit to ream out the hosels from .355″taper to .370″ parallel tips, but decided I didn’t really want to alter these irons. They’re certainly not collector items, but it just didn’t feel right.
I kept my eyes open, then hit the jackpot at my local Play It Again Sports when a set of old Dynacraft Tour Caliber blades showed up. They had stiff Dynamic Gold graphite shafts, and were in pristine condition. It looked like whoever built them only hit a handful of balls with a couple of the shorter irons before polishing them and storing them away somewhere. Old blades don’t generally retain much value, and they had this 1-SW set for only $99. I’ve had one driving range session and one casual round with the PW, 8i and 6i, and I’ve been very happy with how I hit them. Below are actual pictures of the two sets.
Given the technological and spec differences between the two sets, as well as general improvements in my lefty swing, based on one range session and one round, I seem to hit the matching lefty/righty clubs about the same distances. If this holds to be true, it should help some with judging distances on the course. Having these sets also gives me the option to more easily put together a full lefty or full righty set, which I couldn’t do before with piecemeal clubs. I’ve thought it might be fun to just go righty for one of the two-person tournaments at my muni, or to perhaps try and play in a PGA PAT.
My equipment goal is to try and not buy any more clubs in 2024. I certainly expect to do some swapping around. I really like my righty Ping Eye 2+ sand wedge, but it may be fun to try the Dynacraft wedge. I’m also thinking it will be fun to occasionally swap out my righty Cobra Fly-Z 5 hybrid for the Dynacraft 4 iron. I also expect to play around with the settings on my drivers, but overall I want to see if I can make it through a season without changing things up very much.
Training / Practice Plans
Through the winter months, I’m trying to do as much indoor training as I can. I have been using a few training aids that seem to be helping both with my overall swing technique and my strike. My home office has enough room for me to swing an iron or a training aid, so I am able to get some swings in throughout the day. Given the assorted hand arthritis / elbow tendonitis issues that I dealt with last year, the more that I can do without actually hitting balls, the better.
Last Summer I bought the correct type of rope for the Dr. Kwon rope drills. Swinging the rope seemed to help quite a bit, particularly with my lefty swing, so I continue to do a few rope swings most days. I also bought a Divot Board in the Fall, which based on the one range session and round that I’ve played is helping quite a bit as well. My lefty low-point control is nowhere near as good as it is on the righty side, but the Divot Board really seems to be helping to improve both. Finally, I just picked up a used knock-off of the Orange Whip, and I think it’s helping my swing as well.
The rope and the “whip: are very different, but I feel like they have some overlap with the sorts of things they help with. The rope is much lighter than the whip and is completely limp. The whip is much longer and heavier than a standard club, and is much more flexible as well. The two devices give feedback in very different ways, but both seem to help with overall sequencing of the body movements and swing path. They also both seem to help with proper weight transfer, and with maintaining posture. I’m certain that the rope has helped improve my lefty swing speed, and I expect that the strengthening that I’m getting from the whip to help with speed as well, albeit through developing strength and mobility.
While my muni doesn’t have a driving range, it does have a practice green for chipping and pitching. It’s in an open area of the course where you can shag your own balls and hit shots up to about 150 yards. When things are quiet, you can also hop onto a couple of holes to hit some drives. While I went out there a fair amount in 2022, I didn’t as much in 2023.
When I played my best alternate golf in 2022 it was after putting in several sessions in this area. Given the length of my muni, less than 5400 yards from the white tees for a par 71, partial wedges are extremely important. It is also critical that I get in these sessions to work on clubface control, which is the one skill that I really can’t work on at home. My plan is to make more of an effort to get out to the practice are more often. I live close enough that even if I just have an hour to spare, I can get to the course and put in a productive session.
Handicap Goals
I’m going to try my best and not get too focused on having a handicap goal for the year. As I experienced in 2023, there are so many things that may affect how much I get to play and practice. If things go extremely smoothly and I’m able to practice and play a lot, I could see myself potentially getting down below a 10 index. However, everything would need to go just right for that to happen.
Beyond that, I really don’t want to get too fixated on my handicap. There are likely to be periods where I get to play a fair amount, and periods where I’m not able to get out much. I don’t want this to affect my enjoyment of the game. I know from past experience that it’s easy for my expectations to outpace my skill level when I’m not able to practice/play very much.
Other Golf Goals
One thing I definitely want to do more of this year is playing with a variety of people at more different courses. This past year I pretty much restricted myself to the local muni, the Reddit event, and the golf trip in the Fall. This year I plan to get the VSGA card, and make more of an effort to reach out to other people to play.
Alternate Golf 