2nd full 18 holes After action report

Ok gang,

Well I am feeling good. I hope you guys are feeling good too.

I was thinking of going to Patton's Glen for a little 9 hole par 3 practice today. When my wife suggested why don't I just go play 18 holes. I contacted a golfer I met the on my last 18 hole round. He said he would join me. I now have a local playing partner. WooHoo!

My goal this round was to see if my new chipping technique and putting practice would do well on a full 18 hole course.

My score was really bad on my first 9 (a whopping 62) :( and it was typical for me on the back 9 (slightly more respectable for me 56). I was having problems with my driver. I did not get a chance to warm up. I kept duffing it or topping it. As well I chose too much club a couple of times and had to take a penalty stroke and drop because of being in the woods or losing a ball in said woods. I did get a few good woodsy bounces so the Tree Elves giveth and taketh away.

However my playing partner said he saw that my chipping and putting were much improved. The time before I would hit it too hard over the green and than not enough on my way back adding quite a few strokes. As well that time I was not very good when it came to a putter in my hands.

Today on the other hand I was able to chip on more often than not. The only time I remember going past the green was on a pitch not a chip. I was also quite good around the 4-5 foot put distance. I nailed those today. I suffered with my lag putting. Many times I couldn't get to within 5 feet with only one putt. As well my 4-hybrid was on fire. I should have hit it off the tee when I noticed my driving was a F'd up.

The chipping technique I used btw is a technique where you choke down on the club and use a putting stroke to strike the ball. It is simple and there is not much mechanically that can go wrong. Now you can use a 60 degree lofted club to chip like this and your chips will make little high arcs. If you take a 7 iron and use the same power the arc will be lower and the ball will run longer. Different situations call for different clubs. I found another use for the chipping swing though.

Twice I found myself with some tree branches above and in the way of a traditional lofted pitch to get to the green. When you hit branches and leaves the luckiest thing that happens is you lose power. The worst is the ball deflects and goes somewhere else than directly forward usually deeper in the woods. So what to do? Well I held aloft my magic sword and said "By the power of Greyskull!...." sorry old 80's cartoon flashback. I took my 3 iron out of my bag. The loft you see on the 3 iron is 12-17 degrees. It is often times a difficult and unforgiving iron to hit well. But with my new chipping swing I says to myself "what the hell? I might as well try it." I just need to swing harder than I would with a normal chip. I stepped up and whacked my ball. What happened was exactly what I wanted. Yeah I was surprised too. The ball stayed low and rolled along the ground about 80 yards. I did it twice on the course!

My final score was still not where I want it to be but I was very happy with my progress of my chipping and putting. Little steps. I think if I can get my long game and short game to groove at the same time well that will be an interesting day of golf for me.

I am going to hit the driving range tomorrow with Aiden. With the goal of getting him some practice and trying to figure out what went wrong with my drives.