Hairyducked Idiot

I do have a 4-iron that I didn’t hate hitting in the past, I might give it another shot at the range, but the 6-iron was already feeling a little wobbly so I’m not optimistic. I really need to get the hybrids working again. They were my best clubs a few weeks ago. I just need something I can hit 180 in the fairway. Re shafts: I have no idea. They’re all cheap stuff I got off of amazon except for a couple randoms I picked up used. I can look it up later. Driver is pinemeadow, hybrids and irons are Ram. I also added a 60 degree. I wanted a 58 but they didn’t have those in stock and I didn’t want to wait. I don’t see a big difference chipping with it over my 52, but I don’t mind it for a little 50 yard full swing

Scheffler shot a 59 and won’t have the best round of the day

Kid’s mom is in town next week so I get a few days of free time, have my first tee times booked. Had my best range session to date. A friend told me that his secret for getting weight forward and clearing hips is imagine he’s trying to horsefeathers the target in the followthrough, and I’m so mad at how well that worked. 7 iron through wedges feel amazing. I can hit them a consistent distance and confidently aim at fairly small targets, enough that I could go for specific parts of the green up to 150 yards. My problem now is I just don’t have a tee shot I can trust. It was a little better than last week, but not consistent at all. 4 and 5 hybrids feel like i am hitting them with a wet noodle if I use my normal swing. I had a little better luck using an exaggerated rock back in the takeaway, which is death for me in the iron shots and not recommended, but it works. 3-wood I can’t make consistent contact with Driver was a little better this week but nowhere near good enough to try on a course. I was missing regular out of bounds instead of further sideways than forwards. I usually slice, but still hit straight or even hook about 1/3rd of the time, so just aiming left doesn’t help

This entire corona-cursed season is worth it if Thom Brennamen is fired forever and the last thing he’s remembered for is having to call a home run in the middle of his good bye apology.

There is no way the Cubs have a real player named Phegley. That’s Bobson Dognutt territory

I’m pretty sure my swing was terrible when I was hitting the hybrid well, it was just in a delicate balance of awful where it was all working out. I’m trying to hit down on the ball more and I think it’s happening. That’s what I mean by it being similar to the chip in my mind. That and keeping chest and butt of club moving through in parallel. I’m still not getting the right follow-through and I’m coming in from too high, but the ball-striking was smooth today. I also feel really, really good about my chipping and putting. All I need is to get some sort of tee shot back.

Should have seen this coming. Finally got to the range for the first time this week. After a month of being able to hit driver and hybrid but having no clue how to hit an iron, I finally fixed my iron swing and they felt great today. And it ruined my hybrid and driver swing. All that work on chipping gave me a way better feel for how to strike the ball with the irons. I could hit wedge through 7 iron pretty close to straight and consistent distance 4 out of every 5 swings. The 6-iron was a little squirrel but still usable. I’ve been spending a ton of time working on my chipping, and I think that gave me a way better feel for how an iron ball strike is supposed to feel. The full swing is almost just an extended version of the chip

I’m aware that barstool sports is a stain on society and I’m losing millions of good place points for this, but i like some of their golf content and specifically this video singlehandedly taught me to chip:

I always forget how much I hate Steve Stone’s voice between listens

I haven’t had a chance to go to the range this week, but consistent striking of my irons has been the last thing on my checklist and it’s feeling really good in the backyard with a foam ball. I can spend about an hour out there each morning before my kid wakes up, and the last few mornings I was thwipping solid strikes into the blanket every time without a single whiff, shank or top. A week ago they were 80% mishits. It’s hard to say what I’m working on because it’s such a moving target. Golf swings are complicated and everything is so interconnected. Three big things that have helped me the most: 1) fixing my takeaway. I’ve slowed it way down to a degree that would have felt comical before. And shortened it. I’m only going as far back as my body rotation allows me while keeping my left arm straight, rather than getting out of stance trying to twist for a little more. 2) Dropping the hands and opening the hips to keep from coming in too high (the “chopping wood” motion). I think this is what fixed my nasty iron pulling problem. 3) feeling more athletic in my stance. This should have been number one since it comes first in the setup, but I’m on my phone and don’t want to rearrange it. I use the “club behind ball, hitting above the knee” thing to gauge the proper distance, then before I take my grip, I set my feet and get into a balanced stance. It feels a lot like a hockey stance for playing defense except a bit less knee bend. I want to feel my weight resting happily in the middle of my feet. It fascinates me how much of the work is done before you start swinging the club toward the ball. I remember one video I watched before I started recommended spending 30 minutes a day for your first week just practicing your grip. I spend a lot of time in the house just practicing address and takeaway, and it helps. The next thing I want to get going in my swing is forward weight shift. I just don’t think I’m getting enough of it. When I watch the golf swings I want to emulate, the slide forward is almost a whole intermediate step between takeaway and swing, and they end up with basically all their weight on the forward foot. I’m still not quite getting that right and struggling to get rotated all the way through in the follow through because my weight is still too middled. I also suspect I’m still opening up my hips a little too early, which is pulling my hands forward. I would have to take video of myself to be sure, but it feels like my hands are about even with the ball at contact instead of in front of it.

Don’t be afraid to swing like 75% of your full speed. Good contact goes further than bad contact swung hard

That’s only about 25 minutes from me. A little outside our normal radius but close enough to look into.

Stand and stare off into the distance no matter what. Even if you topped it three yards. It *feels* like you striped one.

Watched the PGA with nephew yesterday, he was really excited because Murikawa is from around here. Nephew learned about how pro golf works and decided he will probably win at least one major when he grows up. We did some more work on his swing in the backyard. Just my idiot self teaching him what I’ve learned from YouTube, and good lord does he pick it up fast. He integrated half a dozen adjustments all at once and suddenly was thwipping the practice ball into the net with good contact every time. Still waiting to hear back from some options for real lessons. https://streamable.com/7vgpyd

Todd Hundley had some doozies when the Mets made him play LF but I can never find video

For sure. I’ve been leaning heavily on people who know what they’re talking about wherever I can find them

Highly recommend. Maybe it’s because I was already playing a “hit thing on ground with a stick” sport, and maybe it’s because I haven’t actually played a real round yet and my hubris will catch up with me, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s easier to be not terrible than many people have you believe. I see a lot of patterns that mirror other hobbies I’ve picked up where a vocal minority insisted it was incredibly difficult to get better but they were mostly shooting themselves in the foot. I am pretty sure a lot of struggling amateur golfers are 1) neglecting their short game. Ive got a putting mat and chipping target at home, and anytime I have some downtime to watch tv or kid wants to be left alone in the yard, I’m grinding the simple shots. 2) overhitting to chase distance.

Gonna get this kid into lessons, contacted some local coaches this week. This feels like it’s pretty good for first picking up a club three weeks ago and only having his doofus nerd uncle teaching him stuff from YouTube: https://streamable.com/cbysaz

hooray

This must be what it felt like to be some rando team like the 2007 d-backs and you get to be the beneficiary of a talented but hapless team punching themselves in the dick.

I ordered a bag and the last clubs I need, but they’re going to take 1-2 weeks, which is annoying. I should have just gone to the store, but I’m annoyed at how much golf bags cost new, and the used sports store has been pretty picked over because everyone is learning to golf during corona. I don’t mind spending on clubs, but the carrying bag by itself shouldn’t cost more than any piece of hockey equipment I own outside of my skates. I have hit my five goals I had for myself before trying a real course (can keep a tee shot in bounds, can hit an approach somewhere in the vicinity of the green, can get out of a bunker, can chip onto a green, maximum three-putt from anywhere). So now I’m just waiting for my stuff to get here and I’ll make my first tee time.

I doubt very much that the other 28 teams are 100% compliant. Fast forward two weeks: MLB and the three remaining teams are furious at the actions of the other 27 teams ruining it for everyone

Some background on one of my nephews. He’s adopted and suffers from pre-natal drug exposure. Now 8, he loves sports and has tons of natural athleticism. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of his drug exposure is that his brain is very slow to process new information. He tried to join a basketball team two years ago. His dribbling and shooting were far ahead of anyone else on the team. Unfortunately, he literally couldn’t keep up with play. When his team would switch from offense to defense, or even when the ball would be passed across the court, it would take him literally several seconds to process that he was supposed to be doing something different. So we have been on the lookout for sports where that won’t be a problem. He did track for awhile but developed some repetitive stress injuries. When I decided to try golf, I picked him up a cheap set of used kids clubs and told him if he liked it, we would make it a bigger thing for him. So it’s been a few weeks and he loves it. It helps that Tiger Woods “looks like me” (5 of my nieces and nephews are black adopted by my white family, and all of them are obsessed with representation even though we never said anything to him, in case people ever tell you it doesn’t matter) and Woods played HS golf near here. I told him when we started he would need to be able to clear 100 yards with a drive before I could consider taking him to a real course. He told me today he was doing it, and I didn’t believe him until I stopped and watched him, and sure enough his solid hits (about half of them) clear 120. He has watched a lot of Tiger videos on YouTube and emulates the swing, and he really lets it fly with the driver. But his favorite thing to practice is chipping, which is probably good. I haven’t even been to a real course yet, but there’s a little 9-hole par 29 executive course near I think we will have to try sometime next week

It’s going to be even worse knowing that baseball itself could have been done safely but these idiots are doing absolutely nothing out of camera view and barely anything on camera

Hendricks is worn out after throwing an unnecessary complete game his first time out. Fire Ross