A very frustrating slump that began with the shanks nearly 3 weeks ago may have finally ended. Although I've had a few rounds now where I've avoided hitting the ball with the hosel, my scoring has continued to suffer. After 6 straight rounds over 80, with more double and triple bogies than I care to remember, I finally made a breakthrough yesterday.


Sun setting on my slump, by Claudio Marcon at flickr

But my poor play continued as the windy round began.

After an excellent drive and approach, I 3-putted the 1st for bogie. I came up short on the 2nd and 3rd with wedges and failed to get up and down, adding 2 more bogies, then 3-putted again on the 4th to go 4-over.

My gap wedge from 125 yards on the short par 3 5th drifted left with the strong cross wind and my subsequent chip ran past the hole by 10 feet. I settled down and carefully read the putt, slightly downhill with a small right to left break. I relaxed and made a confident stroke, holing the putt for my first par.

Then I managed another bogie on the following par 5 6th. I pushed my 2nd shot a little right, into a fairway bunker, leaving me with a difficult uphill shot from 110 yards. A poor shot from there was at least followed up by a good lob shot from the rough, ending 15 feet from the pin, barely staying on the top tier of the green. A nice putt nearly saved par, but I tapped for bogie to go 5-over after 6.

An impressive birdie on the difficult par 4 7th followed by a par on the 177 yard par 3 8th got me back to a respectable 4-over.

After playing through a threesome on the 3rd hole (which contributed to that bogie), my friend and I caught up to a twosome waiting for the fairway to clear on the 9th tee. We joined them and played as a foursome for the remainder of the round. Apparently, some friendly chatting with our new playing partners helped me get my mind off my scoring and the success on the past 2 holes continued. I shot a ho-hum par on the par 4 9th, hitting the fairway, landing the green, and making the expected 2 putts. I managed to finish the par 35 front nine with a 4-over 39.

An impressive drive down the left side of the split fairway on the dogleg left par 4 10th left me with 160 yards uphill to this well guarded green. I hit such a good 7-iron into the wind that I landed past the pin and rolled over the green. A very poor chip preceded a 2-putt bogie. Still, as anyone who has played this 2-handicap hole will tell you, walking away with a bogie is nothing to complain about.

I pulled out my 7-iron again for my tee shot into the strong headwind on the 180 yard downhill par 3 11th, overlooking the Guadalupe Dunes and Pacific Ocean. Again, I hit my 7-iron so well, it landed the front of the green and rolled all the way off the back. My return chip to the upper tier of the green ran 10 feet past the pin and I missed the comeback putt for another bogie, putting me 2-over on the back and 6-over for the round.

But a rare birdie on the par 5 12th got me back to 5-over. Then after making a nice par on 13, another 3-putt on 14 put me back to 6-over. I walked up to 18 still 6-over after hitting each fairway and green and 2-putting for pars on 15, 16, and 17.

With a 240 yard carry or so, you can get some impressive distance off the tee on the 387 yard 18th. I ended up about 30-40 yards out. I used a big backstop behind the hole to funnel my chip back to the pin, leaving me with a 4-foot putt for birdie. Staying relaxed, I made another confident stroke, sinking the putt to finish the par 36 back nine just 1-over.

This 76 was my first sub-80 round since shooting a 76 in my first pro-am nearly 3 weeks ago. It was pretty rewarding to finish the last 12 holes in even par, especially in such windy conditions. Getting my attention away from scoring and simply enjoying the company of my friend and the twosome we joined seemed to be the key to rediscovering some artful golf.

This round marked my 40th round of the year, the most golf I've ever played in a 3-month period (averaging 3 rounds/week). I finished with 28 rounds under 80 and 12 at or above 80, with half of those high rounds coming in the past 3 weeks.

Labels: Rounds

While I continue to pursue golf as art, the true artful golfer paints a masterpiece.



The Artful Tiger paints a masterpiece with golf balls.

Labels: Art, Tiger Woods

I thought I'd share an update to yesterday's post about my recent bout with the shanks. I decided to head out to the range after lunch today to hit a large bucket of balls using only my lob wedge to see if I could just make them go away. My full swings, pitches, and chips we're working fine. The only shot that resulted in shanks was when I opened up the club face to get more loft.


Celebrating no more shanks by 70sgolf7 at flickr

After getting through about half the bucket, a friend walked up who've I've played with quite a bit in the past month who played professionally at one time and currently plays to a 2 handicap. He immediately spotted my problem.

It turns out that the technique I developed on my own to hit a lob shot, thanks to not taking any lessons, required too much precision and increased the odds I'd hit the ball with the hosel instead of the clubface.

When I opened up my clubface to hit a lob shot, instead of opening my stance and aligning the clubface with the target, then swinging the club along the line of my stance, I opened my stance, but aligned my clubface well right of the target, then tried to strike the ball with the open toe of the club while swinging on line with the target. This essentially gave me a clubface that was about 1/2 the width of a full clubface and increased the chance that I'd hit the ball with the leading hosel.

After a few swings along the path of my open stance with the clubface pointing towards the target, the shanks were gone and I was hitting amazing lob shots! I quickly figured out this "intuitively obvious" discovery will help my sand game too. I won't even go into all the trouble I get into in bunkers.

Anyway, my friend was headed out to play nine holes, so I joined him. I shot 3 birdies and 1 bogie to come in 2-under par! You have no idea how relieved I am! Following up 7 straight nines in the mid to high 40's with a 34 made my day. It's actually pretty amazing that I made this dangerous lob technique work for as long as I did.

I guess this is a good example of where I could have pursued lessons and learned how to hit lob and bunker shots much earlier, and avoided this issue altogether. But honestly, I like figuring it out myself and then trusting that the right person will show up at the right time to point me in the right direction when I do need help.

Labels: Rounds

I've apparently hit a wall in my efforts to improve. For the third time now, I've flurted with my goal to break through a 3 index. This time I've been holding steady, breaking 80 in 3 out of 4 rounds, but in my last four rounds I've bounced seriously backwards, shooting anywhere from 41 to 47 for nine holes in each round. I've developed the shanks!


A Wall at St. Andrews by WjButt at flickr

Just a week ago, I played in my first Pro-Am, an annual scratch 2-man best-ball tournament at a local private course I'd never played before. I was invited by a local pro who I've done some volunteer website work for. I was told we had a shotgun start at 10:00 am, so I arrived an hour early to get in a little warm-up. I was the only golfer there when I showed up. Turns out tee times were scheduled for 11:00 am.

I headed over to the range where I found a dozen nicely stacked pyramids of balls. As the first golfer to hit the range, it was my job to begin dismantling the first pyramid. I hit a few pitching wedges, then my 7 iron, then my hybrid. I was hitting the ball okay, but didn't feel comfortable and my swing felt tense. I then picked up my 60-degree lob wedge. After hitting a couple mediocre shots, I began shanking everything to the right! I'd had this happen on the range several other times in the past and learned that when I kept hitting more balls, it just got worse. Instead of giving up immediately, I tried hitting my 7-iron again and even shanked a couple of those shots. I decided to stop hitting balls and just go get some chipping and putting practice in. Later, after everyone else showed up, I went back to the range and hit a few more balls, but avoided my wedges to prevent starting the round with images of shanks in my head.

Amazingly, I got through the entire round without shanking a single shot! My driver was long and straight with the exception of one tee shot. My irons were solid, giving me some great opportunities for birdie. Unfortunately, my putter wasn't as hot. They'd just punched and sanded the greens, so that added to the challenge, but my stroke was timid and I nearly missed every putt for birdie. I missed a 3-foot birdie putt on our very first hole after nailing my gap wedge from 115 yards out, but sank a 40-footer on the following long 215 yard par 3 to record my first and only birdie. My pro partner struggled all day off the tee, but put on a display of recovery shots and managed three birdies. He pulled off some incredible shots from behind trees that I'd never even attempt. I fought for some impressive pars on the holes he didn't recover from and we came in without any bogies, finishing 7th in a field of over 20 teams.

I played well, coming in with an individual score of 76, playing from the tips on a new course without recording anything worse than bogie. but I was especially happy that those early morning shanks were behind me.

The next day was the opening day of our Tuesday night 9-hole men's league. I joined a teammate before our match to play a practice round of 9-holes on the front nine to check out pin positions and get some warm-up. My good play continued. I came in 1-over, shooting all pars and one bogie. Again, no shanks!

My match was against one of the course employees who had a matching index. We started on the par 4 dogleg right 9th. The tee box is located about 100 feet above the fairway which dead ends about 230 yards out into a lake. I hit my 3-hybrid solid, landing the fairway, but rolled into the lake. I dropped and then hit a poor 9-iron short of the green. My opponent landed well over the green on his approach, but pitched to 5 feet and made his putt for par. Down 1.

I hit a good drive on the difficult par 4 1st, but pushed a 5-iron well right of the green on my approach and hit the cart path and nearly bounced to the 2nd tee. My lob shot landed on a downslope and ran across the green, just short of rolling into a greenside bunker. My opponent's par put me down 2. We both hit perfect drives on the par 4 2nd, but my approach barely reached the green, while he had a 6 foot birdie putt. He missed his putt, but I 3-putted! Down 3.

Things went downhill from there when the shanks reappeared on the 120 yard par 3 3rd. My gap wedge tee shot went 45 degrees right, ending up short and right of the green. My opponent came up short of the green so I still had a chance to push the hole. I then shanked my lob wedge directly right, leaving me in the rough, still right, but behind the green. I chipped up well beyond the hole and went down 4 after 4!

I finally parred the par 5 4th hoping to keep the match going, but my opponent got in close and made birdie! He closed me out 5 and 4! I may be the first player in our league to ever to loose a 9-hole match with 4 to go! Our match consists of points for match play and stroke play, so we were still playing for strokes. I was already down considerably, but fought on. Unfortunately, I hit 5 shanks by the time we finished and lost all 9 holes! My opponent came in with a 1-over 36. I shot a 12-over 47! I was numb from the experience, but figured these shanks would quickly pass.

But later in the week, I joined some friends at another local course and the shanks continued. I came in with an incredibly ugly 90! By this time, I was really frustrated. The shots I didn't shank seemed to hook wildly left. One of my playing partners told me he thought my weight was on my toes, so later in the round I focused on weighting my heels. The shanks seemed to pass, but I'd totally lost all confidence and touch by then and barely recorded a single par.

I then played a round over the weekend at San Juan Oaks, a difficult course near San Jose, another course I'd never played before. Not only is this course rated very difficult (7100 yards, 74.6/140), but the winds that day were gusting to at least 40 mph! On one hole, I hit a solid 5-iron into the wind from 155 yards out and came up short. I'd normally have hit 8-iron. I needed 4 more clubs to reach the flag! I had a great day off the tee and again struck my irons well. I made some stupid decisions, getting overly aggresive on a couple holes, and recorded some big numbers, but came in with only a single shank!

The highlight of the day though was that my 22 year old son joined me! He had only played 5 rounds of golf prior to this, his last being over a year ago. I was a little worried that such a difficult course might spoil things for him and prevent him from ever taking up the game, but he wanted to try it. I took him out to the range the day before and was simply amazed by his ball striking ability! He was hitting incredible shots with his 7-iron, 5-iron and 3-hybrid. He even came up with some great shots with his fairway woods and driver. However, we both agreed it might be best to increase his chances of keeping the ball in play on the course by avoiding these clubs. He played the entire round with his hybrid and irons.

On the front nine, I shot a 45 thanks to a quadruple and triple bogie. My son managed bogies on almost every hole and shot a 46! After duffing a few tee shots and recording a few penalty strokes from hazards on the back, he limped in with a 51 on the back nine, but did record a couple pars and came in with an impressive 97 overall! My 41 on the back at least kept me from shooting another 90. We had a fun day and plan to play more this summer after he graduates from college. I have no doubt that he'll be shooting in the 80's within weeks, just swinging naturally, staying relaxed, and focusing on the target.

But this story ends with another disastrous round yesterday in our weekly scratch skins game. I was playing well through 5 holes, although I'd missed 4 easy putts that would have gotten me to 2-under instead of 2-over. I hit a great drive on the par 5 6th, then barely got over the lake on my 2nd shot after hitting a thin 4-wood. I was still in good position to hit a lob wedge on and go for birdie or par. But I shanked my wedge into the trees right of the green, then hit a tree on my attempt to get out. My next shot barely got out of the trees and left me with a downhill lie in the rough with a shot across a ditch to the green. I managed to get on and 2-putt for a triple bogie!

After a week of abuse from the shanks and poor play, I'd had it! Instead of keeping it together and grinding it out, I just gave up. I clobbered my drives for the rest of the round, but just couldn't score. I hobbled in with another 90, swearing I was done with golf. I asked a teammate to sub for me tonight in our Tuesday night league and plan to take at least a week off and regroup.


Handicap History - June 2006 to April 2008

I'm especially disappointed since I was getting so close to breaking through the 3-handicap barrier. But I feel like I've really hit a wall and bounced way off it. My ball striking has been strong. Only putting has held me back. Now I can't even stand over a ball within 100 yards of the green with any confidence that the ball will even go forward! I guess I realize now that I just want to get back to where I'm having fun and forget all about scores and handicaps!

Labels: Rounds

Anyone who teaches golf using a drill that involves hockey skates is certain to get my attention! The Director of the Richmond Hill Golf Learning Centre in Toronto, Shawn Clement, does just that, focusing primarily on momentum in the golf swing. Clement has been teaching and coaching golf since 1987, and is now on the top 25 list of CPGA Teachers in Canada as rated by Score Golf Magazine in September 2007.



Shawn authors an excellent website with links to insightful articles, dozens of his instruction videos on YouTube, and a "Watchdog Blog". Here you'll find great tips and instruction on all aspects of the game. His videos are very easy to follow, light-hearted, and packed with great instruction!

Interestingly, Shawn trains and plays from both the right and left side of the ball and carries a scratch handicap playing from either side. He has qualified and played events in several professional tours, such as the Canadian Tour and US Mini Tours, with a set of clubs consisting of seven right-hand and seven left-handed clubs in the same bag. This is the combination he used to qualify first in the 1999 CPGA Playing Ability Test in Montreal. This experience has been invaluable in teaching his students how to truly maximize their technique and potential on the golf course, whether they play right-handed or left-handed.

In addition to his personal coaching, Shawn also shares his expertise with a wider audience of golfers. Shawn has been a regular contributing instruction editor with Golf Tips Magazine since 2000. He has also contributed to numerous other publications, including Fairways and Score Golf Magazines, and is one of the first Canadian golf teaching professionals to appear on the Golf Channel’s "Academy Live" program.

Shawn has studied nutrition through the "Energy First" program for sustained focus during play, and fitness to make sure his students are in the right fitness program. He has worked with Sports Psychologist Bob Rotella and Peak Performance specialist Bob Palmer to help his students keep the right perspective and the right frame of mind. And of course Shawn has worked alongside some of the very best golf teachers, doctors, and neurologists, to make sure he has a full grasp of the proper fundamentals and teaching techniques available.

Plan to visit www.shawnclementgolf.com for some artful golf instruction.

As a sidenote, with a little help from the Artful Canuck and Artful Aussie (last post), my game is back down to my career low index of 3.3. I've shot rounds of 74 or below 6 times in the past 20 rounds! Yesterday, I shot 74 with 3 3-putts (missing 3 footers on the last 2 holes). The friend I played with noticed I was taking my putter back quickly and peeking after stroking the ball. After the round, I practiced slowing things down and keeping my head "Tiger-like" still. What a difference! That sub-70 round is coming!!

Labels: Golf Instruction, Links, Shawn Clement