It's good to be good

Finally after 3.5 months of golf I am playing to my potential. After an extended period of only 1 round under 80 I posted 3 out of my last 4 rounds sub 80. Last tuesday I was 74, then 78 on friday, stumbled a little with a 82 on saturday, and turned it back on to shot 76 yesterday. What a run. In just 1 week I dropped my handicapp 3 points to settle at 5, and it feels fucking great to be back where i was 2 years ago.

I've been so frustrated with my play for the last 2 summers. I might aswell have not even played last year it was so bad and I was losing a lot of confidence this year. Well, actually it wasn't that bad this year. I knew I had it in me, i just couldn't seem to put it together. But after another swing change this year, my 3rd in 3 years, i felt i had the right stuff to get low. Now it's actually clicking perfectly.

So what has been the difference you might ask?

As i've mentioned before i have been trying to force shots. Thinking i can work the ball left to right, right to left, bounce off this hill, suck it back here and there, whatever. Instead of imagining these amazing PGA shots I've been just stepping up and hitting the shot. Trust the swing. So i'm swinging nice and smooth with a good tempo and just hitting the ball straight. I guess you could say letting it come to me.

My putting has been very good as far as I'm concerned. My lag putts have been good enough to leave 4 or 3 foot par putts when needed. And the odd time I needed to make long putts to save par have been dropping for me. I'm being a little more aggressive with the putting to make sure every ball gets to the hole.

One of the most improved things of my game has to be my wedge play. Not the chipping, which I'll get to later, but the 50 to 125 yard wedg shots. My gap wedge, always dependable, has been phenominal. I've been very accurate with it and have a lot of confidence in it. I've also changed my use of the 56 degree wedge. Where I use to use the gap wedge for shots 25 to 50 yards out and kind of run it up, now i pull out the 56 and treat it like a full swing, sort of. With a short backswing depending on the distance i just slowly swing all the way through and trust the touch. The results have been better accuracy due to a soft landing and getting a little spin to stop the ball from rolling. I'm very happy with that part of my game.

My driving has been off the charts. With my new R7 Superquad, which in my hands should be considered illegal, I am just killing the ball. I think over the last 4 rounds I've missed my drive maybe 5 to 8 times. The rest have been long and straight. The beauty of this new club is the force I can swing with. I've always had a very quick swing with my driver. The shaft in this one seems to be just a little more stiff that my previous driver which allows me to use everything i got when I need to. I can just swing and hit a nice 270 yard drive when it's called for. But when I want to really go after it I can cork up and come through the ball hard and blast it in the 300 range. Not saying I can hit it 300 everytime, but when i need to I can really get it out there. With my wedge play combined with these long drives i've seen the huge improvement.

All i need to do is get the chipping straight. I caught Ryan, my "teacher", on the putting green on friday and got some quick tips on chipping. He told me to put my fee closer together and move all my weight to my front foot. Then he gave me the biggest tip to help my rock hands touch, swing lighter. WOW!! Who would of thought that if you are constantly chipping it past the hole you are swing to hard, fuck i'm dumb. I've always been one of those guys who sometimes just needs to hear someone else say whats wrong with my swing before I get it. So i took his advise to the course and it did work. Still some bad chips here and there, but no where near as bad as it was previously.

Anyways, thats enough. I've got a match to play this week for the Langly Cup. Hopefully I can get a win and advance past the second round for the first time. Kind of stupid. I've waited to play this match for over a month and now the greens are getting punched today and i'm going to have to play in terrible conditions. Should of thought about that last week. Then the club Championships are the following weekend. If i can keep the form I've had this past week I will be able to compete this year. Not win, but compete. I'd just be happy with a top 10 finish, actually that would be just as good as winning to me at this point. My only plan is to try and get atleast 1 round in during the week before the CC. I'm sure i can find time to do that.