Oh boy, I went and did it.  It’s the end of the season here and I put myself in a very bad position. The days are getting pretty short now, so most of my work is accomplished on the weekend, though I have tried to make arrangements here and there to play a round or hit the driving range during the week. As you may recall from my previous update, I was a little torn about trying to make one last surge to improve my handicap, versus doing things that might cause short-term pain for long-term gain.  I chose the latter, but, well, this isn’t what I had in mind. Let’s rewind a couple of weeks. I was preparing for a weekend driving range session and it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken video of my swing for a while, so I took my camera with me.  I had been hitting the ball fairly well, but I wanted to look for improvement as well as things still needing to be improved. I recorded a

As the season winds down, I’m faced with a painful decision: either devote myself to reaching my goal of single-digit handicap by the end of the season, or continue to make big changes that will pay long-term dividends in exchange for short-term difficulty. The golf season in this area comes to a close at the end of October.  I will continue playing throughout the fall and winter whenever possible, but scores can only be entered for handicap purposes until the end of the month.  I’m finding this goal becoming increasingly elusive at this point in time for the simple fact that daylight is becoming scarce and after-work practice and play is becoming less frequent. To make matters worse, at my most recent lesson, my pro and I decided on a couple of changes that have to happen for me to take my game where I want it to be.  The biggest change is a weakening of my right hand grip.  This means rotating it more on top of the shaft, rather than the super-strong position

I played in my club championship on Sunday. Without a doubt, it was my best learning experience with respect to playing golf (as opposed to just learning how to swing the club or to hit shots). Believe it or not, I’ve never played in a competitive tournament like that, and I’ve played a LOT of golf in my life.  I’ve played in evening men’s leagues and scramble tournaments, but nothing where it was a true competition, 100% by the book, with everyone playing their best. I intended to play competitively last year as part of my journey, but regular readers will remember my lengthy knee injury which put a hold on that.  Fortunately, this year, I was able to work much harder and only had one minor stretch where I had to play through pain and take some time off. So, I know you want me to cut to the chase and tell you how I did.  OK, I didn’t play great.  I shot a 91 for a net 76 (my handicap index is 13.9