biggerboat's building boondoggle blog

can only imagine how outboard engines syncopate with sounds of waves slapping in your wake while escaping that sam fire hell and brimstone of a mourning

Wow, that is nice.

Does that mean you had the boat out, and landed some monsters?

Well, yes and no.

Got the boat out. Didn't catch any monsters. Pretty slow day but it was great to get out on the water.

I mentioned earlier that I shot a 35 on my 9 hole par 3 course. I really don't think I did now. Not sure where I got that.

Im hitting it much better now and am averaging a little over 40.

Played the course twice today and shot 83 total. That was with hitting 3 tee shots in the water. Ugh.

biggerboat i've always imagined you as resourseful chap
patching things together from driftwood and sea shells

exactly the sort of mindset a round of golf often requires
please let me know where to find it when you due

Played my first regulation 18 holes since taking lessons. My tee shots are killing me. Shot 126 but lost 8 balls from the tee.

do you hit your woods as bad as your driver off a tee?
(a question from someone who has been a ton better with a 3w lately)

Yes. And I'm not really off horribly. Another 10' of fairway on each side and I probably keep 3/4 of those shots in.

Glad you got back out on the water.

As long as everyone else is chiming in, this is a flaw I see in your backswing. You are keeping the club face square during takeaway and all the way to the top of your backswing.

You're not rotating your wrists at all, so the toe of your club is pointing directly in front of you. While this may help hitting the ball straight it robs you of distance and power.

Scotty used here but Google any pros club face at the top and the face of the club is pointing in front of them and the toe although pointing at the ground is still pointing towards the target.

Your wrists and club face need to roll through the swing. Maybe something you can ask the pro about in your next lesson.

A drill that I do is take your normal stance and grip over the ball and then stick your arms straight out in front of you with the club pointing straight up into the sky. Then with your normal hip turn pull the club behind you which will look like a baseball batter at the plate waiting for a pitch. Take a peek and the toe should be pointing at your target. Then start your swing with your hips and let your arms fall to the ground. With supple wrists, your club face should naturally return to square at impact.

BTW your setup and grip look fantastic and your ball position is not too forward in your stance which can lead to topped and skulled balls.

I'll see myself out now, good luck in your new pursuit.

Thanks. I've read that summary a few times now and I think I've somewhat improved that by the way I've changed a lot of my swing. But as my accuracy improves I'll work more on that.

I probably need to film my new and improved swing for more feedback.

I had a much better day today. I still lost 4 balls off the tee but I'm seeing an improvement overall. Only topped the ball once. Shot 110 even with those penalties so I feel like 100 is achievable.

Also, I seemed to have injured myself. The muscle around my left elbow has swollen. It's a little tender but not acute pain. Looks worse than it feels.

just do it like this guy, how hard could it be?
all seriousness, its a beautiful example of how great swings unwind in a sequence from the ground up with the hands and clubhead waiting till the end of the kinetic chain

above or below, inside or out? is it the muscle you feel when you pull your hand back?

I'm not a golfer, but I think the best possible advice for you right now is to stop getting advice from a bunch of random people. Pick one person to teach you and do what he says, not your scrub buddy on the course or some scrubs on the internet.

😡

nah, you're right, which is why i tried to make my last post very general.

My wife is an OT and initially explained it as bigword, bigword of the bigword,bigword. I asked her to dumb it down and she told me it was tennis elbow.

It's really weird because the muscle there was really swollen but the pain was only about a 1, if that. Well, until she pressed down on the insertion point. The swelling has gone down but I'm still aware that something isn't 100% there.

It's even more annoying because I've had golfer elbow in the same elbow for a while now, so there's pain on both sides. Not really that bad but annoying.

I've sort of dived head first into this golf and have been hitting almost every day so I'll back off a little. I'm old so it's probably not ideal to do this.

I just ordered a theraband bar so I'll work on it.

I actually appreciate any input. But I sort of filter out stuff that I'm not quite ready to work on yet. But that doesn't mean I won't at some point in time.

I have about 5 things that I'm working on. The main one is not moving my head. I'm getting better at this. The second main one is not bringing my club back behind me on the backswing. I'm not sure I'm saying that correctly but when I sort of make myself keep the club forward I hit it sooooo much better ( and a lot farther). It isn't natural to me and my theory is all the softball I played all my life.

My percentage of good shots is going up and when I hit a bad one it's generally one of those two things.

I probably won't take another lesson for a while. I'm hitting it well more often and as long as that continues I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

In other news, our application for the government program to help with expenses of raising our house was denied. We sort of figured this would happen. There were a lot more applications than money to fulfill them and they were taking the most at-risk properties first.

This is sort of a relief because we decided we didn't want to do it anyway.

My swing felt much better today. Played the 9 hole twice. 38,35. Got 3 pars in a row. Only lost 1 ball. Elbow held up but still tender.

happy to see the progress bb (on the golf, not house raising)

it sounds like you have other professional resources, but i found this helpful a few years ago while going through a similar thing, especially the last move at the shoulder

Spoiler

Show

it's funny how the body's all connected

Spoiler

Show

Great progress BB

Well, I thought.

Couldn't hit a damn thing today. Shot 61 on the front nine and went downhill from there.

I really thought I was getting the hang of this. Oh well.

Well darn. Nowhere to go but up... or I guess down when talking golf. Hang in there, we're rooting for you.

Crazy game this is.

I took a lesson from a different teaching pro. He didn't hate my swing but he told me I wasn't "hinging" my wrists. I was basically keeping them stiff. I hit a handful of balls with him giving me some other tips but only a few were decent hits. Very frustrating.

But the 9 hole course next door was empty so I thought I would try to put the lesson to use. Although I didn't lose any balls, I just didn't hit very well.......until the last three holes. Hit my last few shots about as perfect as I ever have.

I dunno. I guess I just have to keep plugging away.

and what you just described is one of the classic ways golf keeps sucking you in.