Ouch. Today I played 18 in four hours and 24 minutes, thanks to a backup in front of us. Starting on 7 my left elbow started hurting, and it only got worse. I finished the front in 48 strokes, but the easier back nine took 50.
Most of my struggles derived from my tee shots. I hit 4 fairways, missing right and left evenly. My tee shots on 3 and 13 (par threes) ended up on entirely different holes. I also hit a few god-awful pitches.
I did hit some delightful shots though.
The round started brilliantly with a 247-yard draw that left me a rare angle around the dogleg to reach the par-5 1st’s green in two. My second shot, a 221-yard low three wood came up about a yard short of the greenside bunker.
My drive on two split the fairway, and I hit a solid iron approach, but 20 yards left of my target. My drives on 4 and 5 were also very solid.
On the par-5 7th, I hit a good fade, but an unfortunate break left me behind a tree.
I pitched out to the fairway, hit a fading driver off the deck, and hit a beautiful gap wedge to set up a makeable par putt. Unfortunately, the putt didn’t drop.
I hit good 3-woods on 8, 9, and 18. None were good enough to salvage a round.
In other news, I finally got to try out my Flightscope mevo on the range prior to the round. Perhaps this contributed to some of my fatigue on the course. I hit some 90 shots on it. Still, it was very cool to get data on every shot as I warmed up, and the carry distances it provided for some of my irons proved useful on the course.
I also got some good benchmark data for my drives as I look to hit it farther (I hit it fairly well on the range). In eight swings, my average swing speed was 103.5 MPH and my average carry was 215.3 yards, with a standard deviation of 28.5. Tour pros average around 113 MPH, so I have a ways to go in catching them on swing speed, but I think my first focus should be on that standard deviation. Consistently hitting the ball a minimum of 215 is more valuable than occasionally hitting it 280.
I look forward to actually putting the Mevo to work in a practice session. For now though, I need some ice.
Michael Golfs 