Wednesday/Thursday
Hit the ball fairly well on Wednesday night, am starting to get more comfortable with the new swing path and grip. On Thursday, I decided to just work on chipping for the day, went over to Carmel Mountain Ranch Golf Club and chipped for 2 hours. My chipping has been steadily improving over the past few months, really utilizing multiple clubs for certain situation and not solely relying on my 60 degree lob wedge for every chip and pitch. I’ve known that the ideal way to chip is to just land the ball on the first 1/3rd of the green as quickly as possible and have it run out like a putt the rest of the way. The chipping swing should almost be exactly the same every time, in terms of set up, length of swing and speed, the only difference should be the clubs for different distances. It takes many hours of practice to really hone in on your chipping distances with every club, from lob wedge all the way up to 5 or 6 irons. The lowest lofted club I chip with right now has been a 7 iron. I’m really going to try to practice chipping hard and learn the distance each club travels. That is really going to help you lower your scores when you are on the course. It gives you not only more options for shot types, but confidence to know that this certain club will go this certain distance and you can have a clear picture in your mind before performing the shot. Short game is the most important aspect of scoring well, you must get up and down at least 70—80% of the time to shoot consistent low scores and right now according to my golf stats over the past year and a half am only at 22% successful saves. Recently however over my last 4 rounds, I’m saving at a 42% clip so definitely improving as I get more comfortable with my distances and shot selection.
Friday
Did some more chipping today over at Carmel mountain for about 2 and a half hours. Chipped amazing today, only was chipping 3 balls at a time and no exaggeration, I counted 8 times I chipped in and several more would be tap in putts. 8 chip-ins in 2 and half hours just hitting 3 balls at a time is a pretty awesome feat. At a proper range they give you a sleeve of about 20-25 balls to hit and I have chipped those for 3 hours straight before and chipped in maybe once. So to do it 8 times while hitting probably 80% fewer balls than I would normally in 2 and a half hours feels really good and means that my chipping is seriously improving. I’m giving my chips chances of going in and that feels good, now I only wish I could take this over to the course! After work on Friday night I went to the range for 2 hours to work on my long game. I was hitting my wedges really crisp and nice, new grip and swing plane felt good, but once I got to the longer irons and driver I couldn’t seem hit it how I wanted. Admittedly I got frustrated with myself after I hit the ball fairly well on Wednesday night with these clubs. After getting frustrated, I started to lose focus and just started hitting balls and not really analyzing each swing and feel or thinking about what I was doing right or wrong. I was just pounding balls for the last 40 minutes and that is not the way to improve in golf. I’m not too concerned, but I do want to try to get a lesson either Sunday or Monday so that I can make sure that I’m implementing the correct changes to my swing that my teacher wants me to. I need to remember that these changes are going to take some time and I’m not just going to hit the ball amazing over night, it’s going to take a lot of work, time and patience. One of my biggest faults, like many in this day and age, is that I always want that instant gratification. Golf is not the game for that type of thinking and I need to keep reminding myself that with time and constant practice, I can get to where I want in this game. “Change is not a process for the impatient.” – Barbara Reinhold
My Journey 2 Scratch 