It feels a little strange to have actual progress to report, but I do.  Yesterday, after nearly two months, I was able to hit some balls at the driving range. It was better than I thought it would be.  The knee held up OK.  On the other hand, I hadn’t hit a ball in two months, so I wasn’t expecting anything but a pile of rust laying at my feet as my body creaked and cracked. I’m happy that I was able to recall most of the points I had been working on in my lessons.  I found that I have pretty much lapsed back into hitting pull-draws.  As you may recall, I was making great progress in that area.  In fact, I was injured as I just barely started to conquer the problem. As I hit more shots, I was able to apply the same fixes I was working on before.  By the end of a small basket of balls, I was back to hitting some solid shots. I figured the best way to

Sad to say, but not much has changed since my knee started acting up. I had an MRI and X-rays taken.  My doctor confirmed that there is some cartilage damage in there, as well as some arthritis.  I was surprised when he didn’t immediately suggest surgery.  The first thing he wanted to try was a cortizone shot in the joint.  However, since my normal level of pain isn’t too bad, I declined. The second step is a two-pronged approach.  I’ll begin by doing a few weeks of physical therapy to strengthen the area in question.  Second, he wants to give me a series of injections of a substance that’s supposed to aid in lubing up the joint.  The name escapes me right now, but it’s a series of 3 injections in the joint, one a week for three weeks. He told me that if that approach isn’t getting me where I need to be, then the final approach will the arthroscopic surgery. It’s amazing the questions that I forget to ask while I’m sitting in

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally saw an orthopedic specialist about my knee. Unfortunately, there’s still a little mystery, but some things were eliminated and we have an idea of the problem.  He checked the stability in my knee and was satisfied that the ligaments are all in tact.  None of the pretzel-twisting tests he did caused me any discomfort, so that’s a good thing. Because of my description of the symptoms and because of the localized pain on the left side of my knee, he believes there may be a tear in the medial meniscus (at least I think it’s medial, from the diagrams I’m looking at – medical terminology is confusing to me). As a result, my doctor ordered an MRI.  Yes, I get to endure yet another trip into the magnetic tube of hell.  That should answer the question definitively. He also ordered an X-Ray to check for any kind of degenerative problem.  That possibility scares me.  I’m a big guy, so I’m guessing he thinks there’s a chance that

Progress?  What progress? Last Saturday I went to the driving range for a morning practice session.  I was feeling pretty good and was hitting the ball as well as any time in the last year. For 15 shots anyway. After a routine 7-iron, I suddenly couldn’t put any weight on my right leg because of pain in the knee.  It was awful.  There was no pop or snap or anything that would have signaled me that something went wrong during the swing.  It was just intense pain as I tried to put weight on it. I hobbled over to a bench and sat down for a few minutes.  It felt fine while I was sitting, but any weight on it and the pain was probably a seven on a scale from zero to ten. I limped about 300 yards to my car and drove home.  I took some Aleve and iced the knee.  As long as I didn’t put any weight on it, the pain was very low but walking was an adventure. After a

Yesterday’s lesson was a welcomed relief.  When things aren’t going as well as I like, a lesson and the improvement that immediately follows really gives me a shot of confidence. I’m working hard to undo some bad habits that have been there for a long time. The biggest problem is my takeaway.  I have a serious tendency to take the club directly inside almost immediately and to get it way too far inside.  I’ve been working hard on keeping the club more out in front of me and taking it back on more of an upright plane. Even when I do that correctly, there’s still the problem of getting to the top in a position that feels strange and then re-routing it back under to that position too far to the inside.  I think that subconsciously, I feel like if I don’t do that then I’m going to come over the top.  Ironically, that actually causes me to come over the top.  For me, that means a pull hook because I still manage to shut