My Journey 2 Scratch

Wow!!  Almost had my first hole in one this past week! A 149yard 9iron, just hit a perfectly flush high shot right at the flag just about a half inch to the right!  You can see how close the pitch mark is from almost flying it in the hole.  I’ve had a lot of near misses over this past year, but the golfing Gods continue to deny me!  If I keep firing these darts at the flag sticks, one day, luck willing I’ll get one to fall.

Overall, I actually had a kind of a disappointing week in terms of scores.  Hit a few drives that found the out of bounds and a couple 3 putts sprinkled in here and there during the rounds.  I’ve actually made a big turnaround in my putting since Wednesdays round however.  I’m really excited as I’ve been reading Dave Stockton’s book on putting called “Unconscious Putting” and I have had a lot of success on the practice greens since.  I’m making a TON of putts right now, anywhere from 3-15 feet and even a few longer bombs.  I played an up and down game last night at the driving range:  I threw 3 balls toward a hole on the other side of the green and then when I got up there I pulled back the balls a full club length and tried to make the putts as if they were for par.  I did this 5 times with 3 balls, so 15 total attempts and all of them I pulled back anywhere from 3-15 ft…I only missed 2 putts!!  That’s just insane and I did that on Thursday and Wednesday after my round as well, it’s like a complete 180 turn around in my putting.  Stockton talks about just picking a spot about an inch in front of the ball and just trying to roll your putt over that spot.  Obviously there is some other stuff involved too, but this has helped me keep my putts online and they are all tracking at the hole now.  I’m really excited to see how it translates to scores this next week, I know that if I get confidence in my putting I have the ability to shoot some low scores.  I’m going to need great putting in the Palm Springs tournament coming up here in 2 weeks if I want to shoot an under par round there and defend my title.  I’m confident in what I’m doing with the putter now and confidence in putting is half the battle…I’ve been close to zero confidence for so long that it’s a huge turn around for me, let’s hope I can turn it into scores! We have some thunderstorms here right now for the next few days, so I won’t be able to play or practice unfortunately till Monday.