Practice Never Hurts

I had such a hard time with the driver last time out, that I resolved to visit the driving range specifically to work on hitting that club. Bloomington Downs has a large driving range, along with a couple of chipping and puting areas, so that's where I went on Saturday morning.

Before working with the driver, I spent about an hour chipping balls onto the practice green at the north end of the property. One bucket at a time, I picked a spot near the green from which to chip. When the bucket was empty, I gathered the balls and repeated the drill from a different spot. I probably hit three hundred chip shots by the time I was done.

Next, I found a spot on the range itself and began limbering up by hitting a few irons. I worked my way through an 8-iron, 6-iron, and 4-iron, hitting about a dozen balls with each club. I experimented with my setup, leaving less space between my hands and my body. This seemed to keep my arms more relaxed and the results were quite good.

I continued with that setup when I switched over to the driver. I also concentrated on dropping the right shoulder slightly to encourage hitting the ball on the upward part of the swing. The combination of these two adjustments seemed to work. I hit about fifty balls this way, in order to burn the swing into my muscle memory.

With the driver problems seemingly fixed, I spent the remainder of my time putting balls on the practice green. Overall, it was time well spent.