I played Waverly Woods Golf Course with my friend last week. It’s an open course with long rolling fairways that tend to slope in either direction. This provides an interesting challenge because a player wants to be technical with their shots, hitting to sections to provide the ride bounce and roll to carry long distances. This proved and interesting challenge to me because it tried my patience. Also note, we started on the back nine first, so we played holes ten through eighteen and then came back around for one to nine.
The day was a windy day, not that I think it hurt or helped my game in any way. Often times the wind was either at my back or in my face. The true issue of the day was that I was not confident in my routine that I was using. The first nine holes I stepped up to the tee box and I topped every single shot. It was extremely frustrating which drove me to continue being frustrated. Instead of stepping back and thinking about what was different here than the driving range, I continued to play the same style. My friend was kind enough to eventually point out the mistakes I was making when we hit the back 9. After he pointed out what he thought was what I normally don’t do, I was able to realize my mistakes, correct, and play a decent game.
The simple, yet crucial, mistakes I was making were that I was pulling back too fast and I was bending my left arm. Both were intertwined with each other. Because I was pulling back too fast, my body was not comfortable with the turn, and I was bending my left arm in my swing to correct my body’s position. This was causing me to come down on top of the the ball, sending it forward ten to twenty yards. The simple mistake of pulling my club back too fast caused such a simple mistake in my swing and ruined nine holes of golf. I shot a 56 on the first 9 holes. The quality of the drives caused me to attempt to make up for my short comings with longer shots. This did not work out in my favor because I was still making the same mistake in the back swing for my long fairway shots.
Two suggestions I can make for this is to try to get to the golf course with at least ten minutes to warm up. This is ten minutes on top of a small stretch. Between a small stretching and a decent warm up this should help work out any bad habits that might try to present themselves. The problems I was having are from bad habits. These habits will eventually fall away as my swing becomes more ingrained in my mind and my muscles. Until then, its necessary to do everything you can to get this routine down and keep it consistent.
