Practice, Practice, Practice....

I've just started playing golf again after about a 6 year break. By just started, I mean that I started playing again back in April. I'm playing about twice a week with at least one trip to the range thrown in there. My girlfriend, Beth, has dubbed this "The Summer of Serious Golf". She's been great and very supportive. She doesn't even get too mad at me for stopping at the Golf Channel on occassion.

I'm working with a local golf pro on getting my swing figured out. His name is Robert Foxworth and he has been on the list of Golf Digest's top 100 teaching professionals. I got lucky on that part because he works at Eagle Ridge, my home course.

It seems that my biggest swing problem is my first motion to start my downswing. I tend to cast the club out and over the top a bit. This creates some crazy misshits on occassion. I've been working with him for a couple of months now, and things have progressed pretty well. I'm just having trouble getting the club on an inside-out swing plane. I'm going to post a clip from one of our sessions, so everyone can see what I'm talking about. Luckily, my short game is pretty good and I can still break 90 most of the time.

It seems like when I get one aspect of my game working pretty well, my drive for instance, I have problems with my approach shots. I'll get there I guess. My goal is to have a handicap around 12-14 by the Christmas. My current handicap is holding around 19. Living here in North Carolina, I can basically play all year with a few exceptions...I won't play when the temperature drops too low.

I know that some folks might think that putting a "due date" on a handicap is inviting failure, but I think that if you don't have a goal, you don't have anything to shoot for. I don't want to say, "I'd like to be a better golfer". I want to say, "I'm shooting for a 6 handicap", or whatever. Anyway, we'll see where this all leads.

Dale