The Fitting

Yesterday I went to Golf Galaxy for a free 30-minute Ping fitting. I thought there would be a representative from Ping there, so I was surprised to find that it was just the usual sales guy conducting the fittings. I brought my old Ping G2 clubs to compare to the new Ping Faith clubs. The sales guy directed me to the first hitting bay and asked me to hit balls with my 7-iron. 

“How far do you usually hit with a 7-iron? 130, 140?” he said.

“Uh, isn’t that how far men hit? I’m more like 105, 110,” I said. According to a chart on amateur golf club distances, the women’s average is 90 yards.
“We’ve had some women come in here and hit that far,” he said.
“Well, I’m working on it,” I said.

The sales guy lined up some balls for me, and I started to whack at them. As I practiced, a few more people arrived for their fittings. There they stood, outside the bay, gathered like carnival goers who’d come to see the freak show. I felt so exposed, performing for their amusement like an animal in a cage, a monkey who learned to swing a golf club. “I am not an animal!” I felt like roaring. It didn’t help that my golf teacher Mike was there in the background, pretending not to look, his mere presence making me feel very self-conscious.

I felt the glare of the overhead lights and a dozen pairs of eyes watching me, as my hits registered on the computer monitor mounted high on the wall. I glanced up at the screen to find a bunch of colored dots had all landed around 105-110, just like I said they would.

The sales guy put some impact tape on the face of the club. I hit one in the center and two slightly off-center but still mostly inside the red circle on the tape. He said that means the shaft length of my club is okay for me. Then he put some impact tape on the sole of the club and had me hit balls off of a plastic board. He looked at the markings which all showed a mark toward the toe of the club. He asked if my iron shots tended to go a little to the right.

“I guess so,” I said. Of course, sometimes they go left or straight, I thought to myself.
“I think you need to go to the black dot,” he said.

In the Ping fitting system, clubs have different colored dots to indicate the lie angle of the club. When I got my G2s, I picked the orange dot based on my height and a wrist-to-floor measurement. But according to the impact tape test, that was wrong. I needed a more standard lie angle, not the flatter orange-dot one.

The sales guy then got a Ping 7-iron with a black dot on it and put some impact tape on the sole. I hit a ball off the plastic board. The tape showed a solid mark dead in the center.  

“So does this mean I could buy a standard set of Ping irons off the shelf and play better with them?” I asked.

“Yup,” he said. “You’re one of the lucky ones.”

But he went on to explain that while I would hit straighter, I wouldn’t get more distance with them, according to the computer data. I tried out the Ping Faith driver, too, and even that didn’t generate more distance for me than my old G2. He suggested that rather than buy a new set of Pings, I should get my old ones sent back to the factory where they could adjust the lie angle. This would cost far less than a new set.

But I do want a new set someday. I’m just waiting for Ping to come out with a color combination for women’s clubs that I actually like. The G2’s are blue, which has never been my favorite color. The Faith series is maroon and white. I’m thinking more like green or gold. Or green and gold. At least I know I’m a black dot now, which is good because black matches everything. 

In the meantime, if my shots go to the right, I can blame it on the orange dot.

Spring Flowers

Got these cool new crystal-encrusted ball markers the other day. My golf glove has a snap-on ball marker, but I found out I can replace it with these cute, colorful snap-on flowers made by a company called Bonjoc. They have lots of color combinations, with glitter and without. I bought them for $4.95 each from a retailer called Ready Golf, which sells every kind of ball marker imaginable. They even have ball marker bracelets. Seri gave me the butterfly-shaped ball marker shown below. It's magnetic and affixes to a hat clip and she got it in Korea. Now I want a Hello Kitty one too.

Just a little bling for the putting green that's totally cheerful for spring, whether I make my putts or not!  

18 + 18 = 36

I played 36 holes yesterday. It was Bea’s idea. I’ve never played a back-to-back round. Bea said she used to do it often, during a seven-year stretch when she was “crazy” about golf and played almost every day. That was before she had to stay home with a kid. Now that her daughter’s graduated college and flown the nest, it’s back to golf like crazy. Like me, she’s recovering from a back injury, but last week she said she’s ready for 36.

We had a 10:04am tee time. It’s mostly older, retired people at the golf course in the morning, so we were paired with two men who looked like they had fought in WWI. The kind who wear saggy white undershirts and knee socks with sandals and just don’t give a darn anymore. After Bea and I teed off and they saw our drives roll down the fairway, one of them chortled, “Looks like we got ourselves a couple of ringers!”

The weather was supposed to be sunny with highs in the mid-70s. Instead it was overcast and in the high 60s and stayed that way all day. Plus, the greens were being aerated. For a $3 discount, we were treated to perforated greens sprinkled with sand. One benefit of the dot matrix was that occasionally it provided a putting line:

As for how I played, well, I rode the first round and shot a 98. I walked the second round and shot a 101. But I had more fun during the second 18 holes, when it was just me and Bea playing and we didn’t have to worry about the politeness and protocol of playing with strangers. If only I hadn’t shot that snowman on a par 3 and that bacon and egg on a par 5, I would have scored better too. It also would have helped if the greens weren’t riddled with holes.

The good news is Mike’s pitching and chipping lesson has already started to pay off, as evidenced by some of my 40-50 yard pitches that landed close to the pin:

After 36 holes and 8 hours at the golf course, I was pretty exhausted. The day went by so fast. Almost too fast. Golf is like that. When you're focused on chasing around a little ball, it's easy to lose track of time. And when you're not focused on your own ball, you're looking out for where your playing partners have hit, making sure you're not in their way, tending the flagstick, keeping a fast pace, and performing all the other niceties that make a round of golf civilized fun.

I do remember pausing at one point, when I was waiting for Bea to take a shot, and looking around to just breathe the fresh air and enjoy the scenery, at the center of which was a beckoning green.

 

At the end of the day, I was blissfully happy, but tired to the bone. I’m not sure I’d do it again, but I’d never say never!

The Golf Lesson: 3

I had my third lesson with Mike at Golf Galaxy today. I told him I shot a 94 last week and my drives were around 170-185 these days. He didn’t seem all that surprised, but when I told him I wanted to focus on short game stuff for this lesson, he raised his eyebrows. I suppose I’ve been so focused on getting longer that chipping and pitching seem like an afterthought. But I know my short game needs work.

Mike said, “Okay, let’s start with your sand wedge.”

I went into my bag and got out the club marked U, which is my shortest iron and the one I use to hit out of bunkers.
“That’s not a sand wedge, “ Mike said.
“It’s not?” I said, genuinely shocked.
“Don’t you have a club with an S on it?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “I use the U club for sand and the W for 75 yards and in. I thought the U was the sand wedge in my set of clubs.”

Mike then reached for an actual sand wedge among his clubs. He showed me how a real sand wedge has a different edge at the bottom. It’s not flat to the ground like my U club.

“That gives it bounce, right?” I said. “ I have heard of that.”

“Right,” Mike said. “You need to get yourself a sand wedge.”

Since I didn’t have a sand wedge, we used my U club for the lesson. I showed him the two techniques I typically used for pitching and chipping. One is like a regular iron stroke, where I vary how far I take the club back to control the distance. In the second technique, I stand facing the target at a 45 degree angle, with my heels together and toes pointing out slightly from each other like a duck. My husband taught me the second method. It seems to work well for him.

Mike showed me another way. He could see that my duck feet were an attempt at an open stance. But he said that wasn’t really an open stance.

“Imagine a door,” he explained. “Closed would be your hips and feet parallel to the target line. Open would be your hips and feet swinging open toward the target like a door.”

He showed me how opening my stance limits how far I can take my arms back. This will give me better control on short shots. For the longer pitch shots, I don’t need to open my stance as much, since I need to take my arms back more to hit farther.

The other main point is to keep all my weight on the left throughout the shot. Also, on shorter shots, arms stay straight, and there is no wrist hinge. On longer shots, I can let my wrists hinge for more power.

Using this new technique, Mike had me practice short, medium, and long pitches. The toughest thing was resisting the urge to shift my weight from right to left. On one of the medium shots, Mike held up a plastic tube about waist high and said, “Okay, now try and hit the ball over the tube.”

I tried, but the ball veered to the right and hit Mike right in the crotch. He put his hand up to block the shot, but not quite fast enough. He flinched, then laughed. I laughed too, in embarrassment.

I don’t know when my next lesson will be since that was the last of a three-lesson deal. It probably won’t be anytime soon, since I have a lot of pitching and chipping to practice. But if I do take another lesson, I’ll have to remind Mike to wear a jock strap next time.

 

Good Thing a Cup Is There

I made a major change to my putting technique recently. This has really helped me hole out in two or one putts more often than three or more.

Before, I held the putter at the end of the grip, which forced me to bend my arms so I could still get my eyes on top of the ball as much as possible.

Now, I choke down on the putter grip, which allows my arms to hang straight down, and I can still get my eyes over the ball. The extra length past my grip allows a nice counter-weighting feel which gives me a sense of more stability as I swing my arms like a pendulum during the putting stroke.

 

I made this change after observing Seri's putting posture. She is one of the best putters I have ever seen in person and has a greens-reading technique which I still don't understand. It involves estimating yardages and doing mental mathematical calculations for each 4 inches of grade change or something. These correspond to the number of inches she takes back the putter on the backswing. It figures she'd have a complex formula for reading greens, since her husband is a nuclear physicist. Then again, hubby and I just played golf with them over the weekend, and Seri's husband seems to be more of a "feel" putter, like me. That is, if I'm not feelin' it, I don't putt well.

Anyway, Seri putts by choking down almost to the metal shaft, with straight arms and eyes over the ball. She also anchors her putter on her belly. Not that she uses a belly putter, but she has a rubber suction cup at the end of her grip that she uses to retrieve balls from the cup. This attachment is a couple inches long, and Seri is petite enough that it effectively turns her regular length putter into a belly putter if she bends over just a bit.

When it comes to belly putting, though, I side with the traditionalists who feel that anchoring the club on the body somehow violates the spirit of fair play. Whether or not a ruling against belly putters ever becomes official, I will probably stay away from them. I mean, the size of my belly varies from week to week, so developing a consistent putting technique based on something that varies with the amount of potato chips I have eaten on any given day seems rather imprudent, dontcha think?

     

Two Words: Ninety Four

I shot a 94 today!!! Woohoo!!! That is a personal best. I didn’t think this would happen today but it did. It was a perfect spring day, a sunny blue-sky day, with highs in the mid 70s and winds in the 5-10 mph range. I had a 12:04pm tee time at the same course I played last week. There were four of us this time – me, Seri, Bea, and a woman I’ll call Debbie Harry because she’s an older blonde with wavy, sun-bleached hair.

I shared a cart with Debbie Harry, and since she’s a native English speaker like me, I felt free to be chatty. I think I was a little too chatty, though. Debbie is a beginner, and when I saw her struggling on the first hole, I felt compelled to let unsolicited advice bubble forth from my mouth, like magma oozing from a volcano.

I told her to keep her feet closer together and let her arms hand straight down. After she took a practice swing, I said she should try and keep her left arm straight. When I heard her audibly sigh, I caught myself, and said “Okay, enough. I won’t say another word.” Suddenly, I realized why my husband always tried to give me advice when I was first learning golf. I think he really was just trying to help. But golf is an agony that must be suffered alone, so I zipped my lips.

Debbie Harry confessed she’d never heard the left arm straight thing and she’d work on that. For the rest of the round, we chitchatted about other things. And I focused on my own game.

On the front nine, my longer drives allowed me to make greens in regulation. I only three-putted twice and scored a 43, an all-time low for me. I told Seri and Bea that maybe I should ride a cart more often because it seems to conserve energy that I can use for playing.

On the back nine, things were going along in a similar fashion, but on the 14^th hole, I suddenly had this feeling that I was missing a club. Although it turned out that I had just returned a club to a different slot in my bag, this wondering about missing clubs prompted Debbie Harry to count her clubs and she realized that she was, in fact, missing a club. Somewhere after the turn, she had forgotten her wedge.

After we teed off on 14, she decided to take the cart and go look for her club. Uncertain which club to use for my second shot, I took my 7-wood, 7-utility, and putter out of my golf bag. I also grabbed my purse, not because I didn’t trust Debbie Harry with it, but because I lived in New York for 10 years and always needing to have my purse within eyeshot is a habit I’m simply unable to quit. (In church, I even take my purse with me to the communion line.)

Even with these important objects in hand, I instantly regretted not bringing along my scorecard too. Because I had shot a record-low 43 on the front half, that scorecard had already become a sentimental treasure to me. Something I would put in a scrapbook (if I had time to scrapbook). I pictured my scorecard clipped precariously to the steering wheel of the cart as Debbie Harry drove away with it. One stiff breeze and that scorecard would be gone with the wind.

Anyway, there I was dragging 3 golf clubs and my Lesportsac handbag along the fairway, hoping that Debbie Harry would find her club pronto and be back in a jif. I took my second shot, which landed in a bunker near the green. Once there, I realized I did not have a sand wedge. Luckily, Bea offered to lend me hers. I noticed that she had a label on her grip, saying “Thumb to the right.” That is so cute, I thought, picturing her typing out little reminders with her P-touch like a Martha Stewart of golf.

After I got out of the sand and landed on the green, I two-putted and scored a bogey on that hole. Debbie Harry finally returned by then, but she still hadn’t found her club. I suggested calling the pro shop since whoever found it would probably send it over to the lost-and-found. She called them, and sure enough, they had her wedge.

And I had my scorecard back in sight. On the 15^th hole, I was feeling the pressure to perform, and an off-center drive resulted in my ball landing in some scraggly dirt patch under some trees. It was a terrible, uneven lie, but I gave it a quick punch. The ball moved a few feet to another scraggly dirt patch, and I pounded it out into the fairway. From there, I took a hard whack with my 7-utility, hoping to make it onto the green. Instead, it missed left and landed in some mulchy groundcover on a hill. It took another two shots to get out of there. Then I three-putted. Total for that hole was 9.

Things were not looking great, but I held it together and shot bogey and par on the next two holes. On the 18^th hole, I teed off and hit a tree. I thought the ball shot through the branches and would be findable among the dried winter leaves littering the fairway. Once I got there, I could not locate my ball. Seri said she thought it went out of bounds, through the chain-link fence. I saw the group behind us was waiting at the tee ground, so I gave up the search and took a drop below the tree my ball had hit. It took me 8 strokes to hole out, including two self-imposed penalty strokes for losing my ball.

Later, I found out that two strokes was an appropriate penalty, since I should have actually gone back and teed off again, according to Rule 27-1 of the Rules of Golf. If I had followed the rule, the penalty would have been one stroke. Since I breached this rule, the penalty is two strokes. I think this will teach me to always hit a provisional ball if I’m ever in doubt about finding my tee shot.

In the end, I shot a hard-won 94. It could have been worse. But it turned out to be a personal best. Definitely one for the scrapbook.

Playing Through

Once upon a time, spring marked the beginning of my golf season. It used to be that, sometime in March, I’d drag out the golf clubs, which had been dormant since November, take them out to the range and hit some balls. My first swings held a prediction, like the groundhog. If I sliced or hooked, it meant I had some work to do. If I hit the ball straight, it meant 8 months of good golfing ahead. Usually I’d hit it straight and say to myself, “Yup, I still got it.”

But, since I played through the winter this past year, there are some things I missed, such as when golf season ended in the fall, that sudden excess of time on my hands, which had enabled me to cross off neglected chores from my to-do list. And this spring, I won’t have a first round of the year where I am grinning ear-to-ear with delight at the novel sensation of fresh air on my face, and I am happy as a puppy to be playing outdoors in the grass.

But if I hadn’t played through, I wouldn’t have made progress with my swing. I wouldn’t have come to the realization that I am tough enough to play when it’s cold enough for snow.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the warm weather and sunshine. But spring means only one thing to me now: Time to break out the bug spray.

Sub 100

I shot a 99 today. That’s a good score for me. Not a personal best but I consider anything under 100 as nothing short of miraculous. It makes me feel like celebrating, like going straight over to Golf Galaxy and buying myself a brand new set of Ping golf clubs. But of course I won’t. I’m too sensible for that. Whenever I shoot below 100, which has happened only a few times in my life, I say to myself, “See? You can shoot in the high 90s. That means you’re just a few strokes away from shooting in the low 90s.” I am constantly raising the bar for myself. I am my own Tiger mom.

My actual mom was not a Tiger mom at all. She never pressured me. If anything, she left me alone most of the time. She had already had two daughters ahead of me, so by the time I came around, the excitement had worn off.

Today I played with Seri, and another Korean woman whom I’ll call Bea. Seri has become my unofficial coach (aside from hubby). Bea was the woman I had met on the range awhile back, the one who could drive the ball 235 yards. She’d been having back problems, so she hadn’t played for a few months. She’s well enough now to get back in the game.

Seri and Bea rode together. As I walked behind, dragging my pull-cart, I watched them chattering away in Korean to each other, completely ignoring me, but not out of rudeness. They reminded me of my two older sisters who, when we were younger, spoke in their own language of clothes and makeup. I was the third wheel, the geeky younger sister who wore eyeglasses and preferred books to lipstick.

Because I’m so used to it from childhood, I actually don’t mind being ignored. It’s a familiar feeling, so I think it puts me in the zone. After all, golf is a game of keeping yourself together. It’s about keeping your wits about you and trying to maintain an even keel. Playing with Seri and Bea there -- looking out for me and cheering for me like sisters, but not distracting me -- was the next best thing to playing alone.

It helped that my longish drives were holding up and that my putting strokes hovered around 2. I also shunned my beloved 7-wood in favor of my 7 utility hybrid, which worked out well for keeping second shots in the fairway. But I missed the green on every par 3 today, which is what hurt my score a bit. As Gilda Radner’s Saturday Night Live character Roseanne Roseannadanna once said, “It’s always something.”

Some highlights of the day: I hit one freakishly long drive 195 yards on a flat fairway and had another roll 222 yards down a gentle slope. It was warm today, in the mid-60s, so that probably helped too. My current goal is to drive 200 yards on a regular basis. And score in the 90s all the time. Then maybe I’ll start shopping for some shiny new golf clubs. And maybe a crystal-studded ball marker too. As I slowly become fluent in golf, I am finally learning to appreciate cute accessories. Golf, like growing up, can be a tough game for girls, and as my sisters knew, having pretty little things somehow does make you feel better. 

Monster Drives and Pitiful Putting

174, 183, 177, 186, 189. No, these are not Pick-3 lottery numbers. These are some of my typical driving distances lately. In the past few weeks since returning from my Florida trip, I’ve gotten into a bonafide, crackalackin’ swing groove. Some of my longest drives include a 185-yard climber uphill and a 256-yard roller downhill. I even hit 190 on a hole where I never used to hit past 150. My husband calls me Big Bopper now.

And it’s all because of my epiphany at TPC Sawgrass, courtesy of dear hubby who reminded me about a Greg Norman driving tip while we were practicing on the range. The Greg Norman tip involved taking the club back by imagining you’re going to shake hands with someone on your right. You’re still looking down at the ball as you do this, so it’s just a “feel” thing. Hubby and I first saw this tip in late January on a Golf Channel Academy special featuring “the Shark,” and I think Norman actually suggested imagining shaking hands with the right hand, but for some reason I thought he meant reaching out and shaking hands with the left hand, and this actually works for me. It helps me keep my left arm straight and long, and my hands relaxed. I'd already had a distance breakthrough before the Shark, but his tip is what has helped me repeat it again and again.

Even Seri has noticed. I told her I figured some stuff out on my trip to Ponte Vedra. We’ve been playing every week now, and whenever my ball lands past hers, which is more often than not these days, she says, “Wow! I really have to go to Florida!”

Now that I have a new swinger’s list for this drive, I better write it down before I forget:

Arms can reach a bit

Forward press is okay

Take club back slow

“Shake hands”
Keep eyes on ball till swing is done

Bump hips to the left to start the downswing
Keep arms long

Let forearms roll over on the release

At the tee, all of this is prefaced by a couple of violent practice swings, as if I’m doing the teddy bear drill and making loud “swoosh!” sounds as the clubhead cuts through the air. Though my actual swing is nothing like these unbridled practice swings, it helps to release nervous energy, and probably shoos away evil golf spirits too.   

However, despite all this distance, my typical score has stayed around the same, in the 101 to 107 range. Why? Well, I’ve been so focused on driving that I have been neglecting my short game. I hardly ever practice putting, and it shows. Once I get on the green, I typically take 3 putts to hole out. In the past few weeks, I’ve taken 4 and even 5 putts on occasion. So it looks like my next task is to learn some putting technique.

As they say, “Drive for show. Putt for dough.” Truer words ain’t never been spoke.
 

Day 4 at TPC Sawgrass: The Red Jacket Tour

On the last day of our trip to TPC Sawgrass, hubby and I finally took the "official" red jacket tour of the Clubhouse and Stadium Course. Volunteers wearing claret-hued blazers wait in the lobby of the Clubhouse, and you can ask one for a tour. No appointment necessary. Taking the tour really helped to extend the excitement for me, as you'll see shortly.

After we hopped into a golf cart, the first stop was the roundabout outside the Clubhouse, decorated with plaques for each winner of The Players Championship. The Korean flag currently flies in the center, in honor of the 2011 winner, K.J. Choi.

Then we circled the island green at Hole 17 again, this time with the purpose of getting some better photos.

We lingered here for awhile, taking snapshots. Our tour guide told us that black sand from the Kona coast of Hawaii was imported to serve as the underlayment for the grass. That's why when you take a divot you kick up black dust instead of mud.

What a lovely panorama!

Of course the champions' tees are covered, in preparation for the tournament in May.

That doesn't stop some tour pros from peeling back some of the netting and teeing off. Our tour guide said one of them was Steve Wheatcroft, who I had never heard of, but apparently he is ranked number 396 on the world golf rankings. More than 30 tour pros live around this area, including Vijay Singh.

All the pros made the green. Just like hubby and I did! Those copycats! As we sat in a golf cart with our tour guide, I was literally in 17th heaven. I could sit here all day watching people tee off to this green!

The rest of the tour continued indoors, minus the golf cart. Our guide showed us all around the inside of the clubhouse, pointing out the lovely architecture, paintings, and memorabilia. There's even a display of clubs used by championship winners here...

...including Jack Nicklaus's persimmon driver from 1974...

Tiger Woods's wedge from 2001...

  and K.J. Choi's white-tipped TaylorMade R11 from 2011.

Whose golf club will be the next one added to this rare collection? I guess we'll find out in May!

Day 3 at TPC Sawgrass: Monster in the Valley

The day after we played the Stadium Course, we had a 1:35pm tee time to play Dye's Valley, the "other" course at TPC Sawgrass. Although the Nationwide Tour is played here, Dye's Valley is more of a resort course and the greens fees are a lot cheaper than at the Stadium. Because it was twilight, we didn't get a forecaddie, so we bought a yardage book for $5 at the pro shop. Driving over in our golf cart to check in with the starter at the first hole, it felt like we were a world away from the excitement of the previous day. Even though it was 10 degrees warmer here than back home, the low 60s temps felt chilly because I was only wearing capri pants and a light jacket. If I'd have brought long pants and a turtleneck, I would have been just fine.

Luckily, hubby and I got to play as a twosome, and it turned out to be a calm, relaxed round, despite the constant drizzle.

 

At Dye's Valley, there is water everywhere.

And some distinctive bunkerage that reminds me of a volcano.

The course is adorned with trees draped in Spanish moss, dewy from the rain.

The best part was that hubby got to see my Loch Ness monster drive. Maybe it was the long fairways that beckoned. Maybe it was the lack of sun to distract me. Or, maybe I had finally gotten my muscles to memorize some decent technique. Whatever the reason, I was easily driving 170 to 180 yards on each hole. Although I scored a 103 here and caught a cold in the rain, I considered the round a success.

On each drive, I had that simple swing thought about shaking hands. On the backswing, I imagined I was reaching out with my left hand to shake the hand of an imaginary person standing to the right. Hubby and I had seen Greg Norman give a tip about shaking hands on the Golf Channel, although we still weren't sure if he had meant the right hand or the left hand. I thought it was the left hand, and that's what worked for me.

But, swing thoughts can be fleeting, and I wondered whether my longer drives would hold up back home. But we still had another day left in Ponte Vedra, and another few days before I would find out.