What a different a round makes! From my devastatingly bad 79 on August 7th to my basically gorgeous 74 on the 21st, the rounds could not have been more dramatically different. Starting out with the round ratings, my round from the 7th came in at a very lowly 28 out of 70. My driving was sloppy, only hitting 6 of 14 fairways. My approach shots were lackluster only finding 1 of 5 greens, and I missed four additional greens when I only had wedges into them. My putting was right on pace with 33 putts, which was right on my average. Overall, the round was just blah for how well it scored, but that’s not saying much. Fast forwarding to my round on Sunday, while the score was only 5 shots better, the rounds was every bit as good as I could have played it, with the exception of a few small shots. I managed to 8 of 14 fairways, bringing that up to 57%. I only hit one solid green on approach, but managed to be in the fringe on all but one. I ended up hitting 15 greens for a whopping 83%. I still putted a few more times that my goal, but it was far from a poor performance.
My driving was very solid throughout the round, with the exception of a stretch on the back side that seems to be giving me some grief lately. The mix of 10, 11, 14 and 15 has left me searching the back nine for many fairways. Honestly, though, in the last round, my drive found the fairway on 10 and 12, but missed on 11, 14 and 15. That was three straight rounds at Riverbend that left me searching for the fairway on those three holes. That’s 17% of the fairways on the course that have just been missing from my game lately.
My irons haven’t looked as good as they did on Sunday in 20 years. Green after green fell to my approach shots. 15 Greens in regulation is an unheard of number for me. Normally my game is a bit more of a scramble, but today was different. I had complete control of my irons with the ability to fade or draw them on demand. As the round went on, I only missed two iron shots the entire round – a bladed 3 iron on the third hole, which still left me an easy par and then a 9 iron that didn’t fade back to the green on the par 3 13th – those were the only two shots that I really felt went a bit awry from a swing stand point. Oh, and then there was that 161 yard pitching wedge on 14 that didn’t quite fit the plan either.
Moving on to wedges, the new WIlson PMP wedges that were added into my bag for this round performed astoundingly. Not only were they dead accurate with the yardages I needed, they also spun my Wilson Zips to a perfect stop every time. It was basically an on call ball that hit and spun back 12-18 inches on every shot in. Keep in mind that the Zip isn’t a high spin ball, but more of a medium hard ball with a very low compression rating. Still the wedges got me out of both traps I got into and just knocked it near the pin all day long.
Putting was a bit rougher, but not in a bad way. Once again, my round was littered with just about’s and not quite’s. Putts missing the hole by an inch and rolling a foot past. Others that just stopped a few rotations short. A few more that just broke a bit more or less than I read. I should have had 5-6 more putts made, but the two birdies and the few one putt pars that I had were quite excellent. I even putted out of the fringe about 90% of the time and ended up counting those towards a two putt rating. That said, putting can get better, but it’s more about just hoping the ball finds the bottom of the cup a bit more often.
This round my driving rated a 8/14. My approaches were 2/4. My wedges moved up to a 13/14. I didn’t actually have a real chip, but my 10 putts from the fringe all turned out to be good shots or better. Putting was still a bit off since not as many dropped, but the 35 putts wasn’t bad, all things considered. Mentally, it was the finest game I’ve had all year, and I rank it as a 6/10. Fitness, I was stronger and more able to really work my swing this round, so I increased my level to a 2/10 even though I haven’t dropped much weight yet. This brings my round total from a 28/70 on the 7th up to a 47/70 on this one. There’s still a ton of room for improvement before I go jumping for joy, but what a positive move. For the next round, my goals are to hit 2 additional fairways, bringing me over 70% in that category, while keeping my GIRs over 80% as well. I’d also like to bring my total putts down to 30.
I also want to make sure that I give credit where credit is due. This was my first round tracking stats with Golf Pad GPS and their Golf Tag system. I’ll do up a full video review once I understand the entire system, but wow. What an eye opener! With just one round down with the tags, I was able to get most of my yardages dialed in and grooved perfectly. Many of them were right on, but for the most part, I was about 1/2 a club off of where I thought I was, well, more like 3-5 yards, but darn close to being off the front edge when I thought I should have made it. So, more on those to come, but for now, another few rounds with them and I will be dialed in completely.
No comments:
Post a Comment