My posts have been getting a tad lengthy, so I'll try to keep them short and sweet from this point forward. The weather last Thursday was remarkably warm, so I decided to play some golf. After shopping around, I settled on an afternoon round at The Royal Ashburn Golf Club. In my only previous visit to the club, a chilly affair late in the 2010 season, I registered a very poor score. Having gained some knowledge of the course and with better weather this time around, I was hoping for better.
I regret to report that my drives off the tee were not ideal. I hit about four that were nice; most notable was a high draw on hole #12 that travelled about 260 yards to the right edge of the fairway. This hole bends to the left, so a drawing tee shot is perfect. All of my misses with the driver were straight pulls. Clearly, I am having difficulty neutralizing my outside-in club path. With each practice swing, I tried to get the feel of the club head coming from the inside. Obviously, I have to practice more.
Despite the fact that I pulled many balls off the tee, it didn't hurt me that much. Some of these balls ended up just slightly in the left rough. Whenever I hit trees, I was in a position where I could at least chip back to the fairway. I did not pull any balls out of bounds or into water hazards. On a couple of occasions, I wisely left the driver in the bag, in favour of an iron off the tee. One of these was hole #3, a 486-yard par-5 with OB on the left and a creek that pinches in on the right. I hit a controlled 3-iron straight down the middle.
That was one of the few iron shots I hit well. Rather surprisingly, I hit a lot of irons very thin, sending the ball rolling along the fairway, instead of flying through the air. Mid-way through the round, I put the ball a little further back in my stance and reminded myself to swing down with the club, or to compress the ball between the club face and ground. This helped me get the ball airborne, but then I hit a couple of hook shots. My grip may have been a little strong, which leads to the club face closing up as the arms turn over. Just as I have a tendency to swing outside-in, I am inclined to set up with a strong grip.
My short game was hit and miss. On a couple of occasions, I hit very serviceable shots from the 30-100 yard range. These can be difficult because they are less than a full swing. However, there were some occasions where I came up way short of the green. Usually, these involved some sort of intimidation, such as a pond fronting the green on hole #8. A disastrous chip on hole #7, a par-3, lead to a terrible triple-bogey. The duffed chip attempt put the ball in a greenside bunker, where my sand woes continued. The best part of my short game was putting. I had a respectable 34 putts, with only two 3-putts.
In the final analysis, the imprecise driver and iron shots did not hurt me; what really cost me strokes were the miscues with the wedges and a complete inability to get out of bunkers. As a result, my score inched up to the century mark. As was the case with Tangle Creek earlier this year, my sophomore visit to a course produced a round that was not horrific, but just bad enough to reach the dreaded triple digits.
Score: 100
Putts: 34
Fairways: 4
Greens: 2
Penalties: 1
No comments:
Post a Comment