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It is always a test to play in a heavy wind. Today it was blowing 15-25 mph, and that means that no shot can be taken for granted. Every shot has to be struck well in order to end up well, from the drive with water left and a hard left to right crosswind, to 130 yard shot into the wind that would usually be a nice pitching wedge but now turns into a knockdown 8 iron, if not a punch 7. Anything with too much side spin will float out of control, and too much backspin into the wind guarantees a pitch from short of the green or a blast out of the front bunker.
I continued to drive the ball better today, and that is great news for my chances to begin playing better golf than I have in a number of years. I have added quite a bit of distance, and I am keeping the ball in play even in the windy conditions. I took a degree of loft off of my R11 S driver (from 9 to 8) and changed the thingy on the bottom to extra closed, and those two adjustments have helped my ball flight and my directional control. Changing the plate on the bottom is supposed to be aesthetic only, as it simply changes the way the club appears to set up visually at address, but I was thinking about this and it came to me that the way the face looks when you set up has everything to do with how you grip the club, because you are always gripping the club relative to what the face looks like when you set the club down.
Anyway, I didn’t hit the irons quite as well today, and the videos I shot of my swing show why. As I mentioned in the past, if I video my swing after not playing well I almost always watch and say to myself “no wonder”. This time is no different, as I move off the ball too much and cut the club under my hands in the takeaway, then cross the line and come out of the box in the forward swing. I have to improve my backswing if I am going to swing the way I am visualizing, and I think I can do that tomorrow by concentrating on getting the clubhead up a bit faster onto the shaft plane going back and deepening my hips while getting my left heel up a bit so that I don’t transition into the front of my left foot. I’m getting closer, and I certainly know what I would like to do, I just have to concentrate harder and try to overcome the stiffness in my back.
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