Great Round and Then The Turkeys
It was a great round at the Grand Reserve Golf Club in Palm Coast, Florida. I had just finished my round and when I went to drive the cart to my Jeep, these turkeys ran on to the path.
I had only played this course once before. I wanted to test how well I was reading greens so a course where I don’t know the greens well was in order. My putting was tremendous. I didn’t have a bad putt all round and had only 23 putts for the round. Now, I had a lot of one putts. Many of these resulted from good chipping and pitching. It was one of those days where I had confidence that I would get up and down from 30 yards in. I had four chips that were just a few feet off the green and several more that were less than 30 feet. I stayed out of traps and was in the fairway on 11 of 13 drives. I hit a 12 foot putt on the last hole for birdie and a round of 70, 1-under. This is my best round in a long time.
The only part of the game that wasn’t right was my short irons. I was striking the 4-5-6 irons better than the 8-9 irons and the pitching wedge. If my short irons were working, it would have been one of those killer rounds. Unfortunately, it’s rare for all parts of my game to be working well - very rare. Most rounds, my driving is about 50% in the fairway and my iron play will get me 9-10 greens in regulation. My pitching and chipping will be about 70% up and down effective and I’ll have 29-30 putts.
Since I been writing tips on putting, my putting has been much better. The biggest change I’ve made is in achieving a more relaxed grips. I am holding the putter just firm enough to keep control, but my putting grip is much, much more relaxed; much lighter.
My lastest post on my blog is Putting Tips – The Line and The Square Head. I was working on square contact with the ball. My experience yesterday proves to me that keeping a light relaxed grip helf square the ball as well. I won’t be playing again until next week because I’m off to Tampa on an assignment. I taking my clubs along in case my client wants to play a round. Let’s hope so.
