The weather here in the Mid-Atlantic broke its cold streak on Sunday, allowing my lady and me to get a quick 18 holes in. We walked on to the local course and loaded up the cart, and started our day. I was looking to focus my time and attention on my ball strikes today and keep building out my hip movement during the swing.
I made solid contact from the first tee and left the ball in the middle of the fairway, leaving a long iron for the approach. I picked up my trusty three-iron hybrid and struck it thin. Then a wedge and hit on the green only to follow up with a dreadful three-putts. Double Bogey! I try to make sure I do not hit double bogeys for an entire round, and now I’m walking off the first green with one already recorded.
I tried to shake it off and focus on my next shot heading to the challenging par 5. I made good contact again with my driver, leaving my ball in the fairway with a good look at the dog-leg right on the one handicap hole. The second shot was great; pitching wedge left the green. Wedge land on the fringe about 20 feet from the pin; three more putts on the scorecard.
What an awful feeling. Continually scrambling on each hole and having a real chance to keep scores lower, and my putting was falling apart time and time again. My putting woes didn’t stop here, two holes later; perfect off the tee, five-iron to 15 feet away, green in regulation in the books. I make my read, step up fully committed and leave the ball just two inches short of the pin. It felt amazing! Then the wind picks up, and my ball starts moving. It ended up rolling well down the hill about 10 feet from the pin, only stopping because the ball hit the fringe. I composed myself and shook it off, speaking inside my head — “I will make this putt, and it all goes away. Par.” I find my line, step up committed and strike the ball. It followed my line perfectly, again stopping about three or so inches from the pin. My stomach sank when the ball began rolling again, returning almost my feet where it had after the last putt. I couldn’t believe it. I felt defeated at this point, and I was only on hole five. I needed an additional two putts to conclude my time on this green and move on.
To recap, five holes and 12 putts. A disaster.
As you can imagine, this began to interfere with the rest of my play, a well-struck ball, followed by something thin or fat. The back and worth cadence continued until about hole nine. At hole nine, I began to refocus and hit the ball more consistently; however, my putting still plagued me.
By hole twelve, my better half convinced me to stop shots and play some stress-free golf. She turned on some music in the cart to listen as we were playing and took some videos of my swing to help me see where I was going wrong. Following that, I was hitting the ball straight, sticking my approach shots and two putting greens. What a difference maker this made for the remainder of the round.
You hear players all the time that say you have to shake off the foul shots and not get upset with your swing, but the relief it gave me in the moment of not keeping score or tracking my clubs was tremendous. I was surprised by how much this impacted my play. I had written in the past how tracking shots with an app helped improve my game, which it did substantially, but I sit now writing about the power of balance.
As much as it helped me previously, I hurt myself by repeatedly seeing the numbers I was entering in the app. I believe that I will be playing more rounds with just my Garmin G10 and a manual scorecard. I think a balance of having days where I record everything and day where I go out and play without any shot tracking will give a better experience. Not knowing my score until the end of the round may help me focus on the next shot with less stress and more clarity.
Sometimes tough lessons are learned, giving the best results and paths to improvement. Also, I would like to give a huge thank you to my lovely lady, who joins me on the course, often taking videos and photos to help build out my game.
