This week I shot the most consistent 9 holes of my golfing career which consisted of a 41 on the front 9 at Lakewood. I once shot a lower score (39) on the back 9 at Wildwood but that round consisted of a hole-in-one and eagle. That round included a lost ball on hole 10 and some unmemorable shots along with the two or three memorable ones.
At Lakewood I birdied one hole and double bogeyed one. All the others were pars or bogeys. So, the round was pretty consistent. In every round I have played before I have always had at least one meltdown hole that resulted in a triple bogey or worse. There was always a hole where nothing worked; shanked drives, flubbed fairway shots, topped chips, and the inevitable botched puts. This past week I had bad shots but didn't string two or three together.
What was the secret? I got over my urge to kill the ball. For years I have tried putting everything into my drives to get an extra 10 or 20 yards. Sometimes it worked but for the most part I ended up with a wicked slice that left me with a difficult second shot at best and a lost or unplayable ball at worst. For most of this round I tried just easy 3/4 swings and surprisingly I didn't lose much distance. I did make a much higher percentage of shots. Also, for the last couple of weeks I have gone out to the driving range; not with the vain attempt to solve all my woes before I went out on the course but just to determine what was working on that day. My irons seemed good so I just tried to get my drives in play.
There's always one shot that keeps you coming back and that was my second shot on 18. I had an uphill lie at just over 100 yards. Normally I would use a 9 iron. However, with the uphill lie I used a 7. The ball arced beautifully, landed on the green, and rolled about 12 feet past the hole. I sank the put and ended the round with a birdie. I'm itching to get back out.
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