Tag: instruction

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100% Mental Golf Rounds 35-47

I have played 13 rounds since the last blog on May 8.  It has been a bit of a roller coaster and I must say I don’t really know if I stayed the course of 100% Mental Golf. Maybe I should change the name to just 100% Mental.  Played a few courses for the first time this year such as Quicksilver, Hartmans, North Park and Highland Springs.  My scores ranged from 74 to 85.  During the stretch I have 4 rounds in the 80’s and 9 rounds in the 70’s. I had a run of three straight rounds in the 80’s from May 16 to 21.  This little streak caused some concerned, that a slump may be brewing and led to some of the things I did, which apparently helped as the next 5 rounds were all in the 70’s.

After the 3rd round in the 80’s, and it being the worse at 85, I decided that I had to do something a little different.   I decided to concentrate on my breathing while getting ready to hit the ball and during the swing itself.  Now this is not something that is new, but I did put a little different twist on it.   When reading about breathing and the golf swing the advice is to inhale on the backswing and exhale on the downswing.  I did not follow this rule.   I did not try to time my breathing with the golf swing  at all.  I just tried to follow my routine and swing.   My swing may have started when I was beginning my exhale or when I was in the middle of inhale.   I did this for all phases of the game, long game, short game and putting.  The results were quite good, with the very first round  coming in at 74.  The next 3 rounds were good also, 75, 76, and 77.    Then on Memorial Day at Highland Springs I got away from it and had a bad front nine of 5 over par and made another philosophical change that seemed to right the ship and shot 2 over on the back, to end with 79.  The front nine was a major putting problem with 21 putts contributing to the bad score. For now I am not going say what that philosophical change was.  What does this all mean?  I am not too sure.    Thinking of breathing during the golf swing may not be  better than any other swing thought that we usually do.   I am not quite  sure why I stopped the process on Monday.    Have not been able to play the rest of this week because of very unstable weather and I think I needed a little break anyway to mull all this over.  In the coming 2 weeks there is not going be a lot of golf played because next week I am  heading to San Diego to see the grandkids.  Maybe I will ask them, especially the 4 year old.

So where do I go from here and how does this affect 100% Mental Golf.  I will probably play 3 more rounds of golf before a I leave for San Diego and hopefully will learn more. I will go back to the breathing and on the next blog I will talk about the philosophy change whether it works or not. Feel like I am coming down the home stretch here.  Rounding 3rd and heading for home.  Just don’t know if I will be safe or out.

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100% Mental Golf: Rounds 27-34

I have played 7 rounds since the last blog and not much progress has been made.  I did have 2 good rounds, a 76 at Fort Cherry and a 76 at Rolling Acre which has a par of 73.  The other 5 rounds were all in the 80’s at the familiar places, Scenic Valley and Fort Cherry, with one round at Pheasant Ridge.  The weather has not been too bad but we are getting rain at least every 2 to 3 days and I must admit I feel that I  have been playing soggy courses forever. This really isn’t an excuse for the bad rounds but it does get old having to clean your ball almost after every shot. I had the 76 at Rolling Acre this past Sunday and it was by far the best ball striking day of the year.  I hit 14 greens in regulation and made 3 horrible iron shots, that led to the 3 bogies.  My putting was not bad but obviously my ball did not find the hole on all those birdie putts. I thought this was going give me some momentum for the week, but both on Monday and Tuesday my game was off and it was hard to tell why. It is still very hard not to think the old fashion way of looking at your swing, when things go wrong even when you know that this is not the answer.    Let’s go back to the Sunday round which was a great ball striking day, and look at those three bad shots.  This may show what 100% Mental golf really means.

I had parred the first 4 holes and came to the 180 yard par 3 fifth hole.  The conditions were chilly and damp.  The hole is slightly uphill.   Even though the pin was cut on the left I chose to cut a 5 iron because I wanted to get the ball in the middle of the green. I was not flag hunting here and this was good thinking.  What was bad thinking, was that the 5 iron was not enough club in those conditions.  I closed the club down at impact and hit a dead straight pull about 35 yards left of the green .  Even with the over the top swing, I was not green high and the pin was in the back.  If I  would have hit a draw 5 iron or  cut the 4 iron, I am sure the results would have been better. From that point my play was stellar but missed about a 4 foot birdie on 8 and a twisting downhill left to right 12 putt on 9 to shoot one over on the front.   The 10th hole is a par 4 and I hit a nice drive down the right side of the fairway.  The pin was cut on the right front of the green and I had about 150 yards to the pin. I took dead aim at the pin which was a mistake.  I did not have a good picture of the shot and hit it way right almost 30 yards off line.   I parred the next 4 holes.   They moved up the tees on the 15th hole a par 5 and after two good shots I was about 40 yards short of the green on the right and the pin was cut on the mid right of the green.   The problem was my ball was on a pretty good down slope.  I tried to hit a high shot and wound up chunking it about 20 of the 40 yards.  Even though I was close to the green and should have played a more conservative shot which would have gone lower and slightly left of the pin and would have wound up around 8 to 20 feet from the pin depending on how far the ball had gone.  Then I went on to par the final 3 holes.

The mystery to me was my bad play on Monday and Tuesday.   But then, when I think about it, I went back to some physical remedies that I did not really need to do.  I am not going into what they were.  It does go to show you just how brainwashed I am when it comes to trying to “fix” your golf game when it does not need really fixing.  Bad decision making leads to bad swings.  Once that gets better then the scores will come.  See you next week.

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100% Mental Golf: Rounds 20-26

Played seven rounds of golf since the last blog, and I am floundering a bit, and it may have been because of the last blog.  Lets get to the numbers: Fort Cherry 85   Scenic Valley 78   Ponderosa 77     Fort Cherry 79    Scenic Valley 77    Ponderosa  78    Scenic Valley  78.  Other than the horrendous day at Fort Cherry  the rounds were obviously consistent. If I wanted to be hard on myself, I could say, consistently lousy.  The weather was not great, mostly dark and dreary with some rain here and there, cool temperatures but with little to no wind.  The weather was not the issue.  The Fort Cherry round was a total disaster but I managed to right the ship to the point of making 5 pars and 2 bogeys on the last 7 holes.  Fort Cherry’s par is 70 so I was 13 over after 11 holes and everything was bad.    The rest of rounds were ok  with the normal things from keeping me scoring better.  We all know them.  Putting and short game, with some bad decisions mixed in.

What does the last blog have to do with all this?   I wrote, does 100% Mental Golf mean you totally ignore the physical side of the game.  My answer was no and I explained that I was making sure I was turning my body on my swing and gave this credit for my really good round of 75 at Scenic Valley.  Four days later I follow this round up with one of the worst of the year.  I repeat the question.  Does 100% Mental Golf mean you totally ignore the physical side of the game?  Now my answer is yes.  Now again this is for just us poor pathetic single digit handicappers who are stuck on the number.  How to get to a single digit handicap and be miserable, is another blog altogether.   I am not going to defend this position today, because maybe it will change again, but after the last 7 rounds, I don’t think so.  Obviously turning my body did not help me at Fort Cherry.  In the last blog I made the comment that there is a difference between thoughts and feelings.  Who cares.  Neither one is worth a good crap for very long on the golf course.  It boils down to the body and mind and how they function together.  I think now that some of our preconceived ideas about the golf swing, short game and putting are not right for our own particular golf game.   I am not going to get into specific examples, because this could change  by next week.

We will see what happens over the next few rounds.   I feel there should be 3 golf books that need to be written.

  1.  How to Become a Single Digit Handicap Golfer (At Least a 12)
  2.  How to Become a Scratch Golfer or Die Trying
  3.  Putting:  Get the Damn Ball in the Hole Any Way You Can

See you next week.

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100% Mental Golf: Rounds 12 thru 15

Four more rounds are in the book since March 28th.  Played at Fort Cherry 76, Indian Run 80, Scenic Valley 80, and Beaver Valley 76.  The 80 at Indian Run was a pretty good score with winds at about 25 to 30 miles per hour all of the round.  I did play 9 holes at Mt. Lebanon yesterday, where I hoped I learned some things about playing 100% Mental Golf.

Again putting was a big issue, although there were some good moments with the book end 76’s, especially the round at Beaver Valley.  One of the things I did which seemed to help, I changed my routine. Most of the bad putts were me reverting back to my old routine, and then not starting over and being frustrated rather than thinking about making the putt.  Every thing else with my game has been A-Ok.   The hardest thing about this whole process is still looking at my swing when a shot goes wrong.  I feel like I am getting there, however.   Let me give you some examples of where poor thinking or a lack of thinking is what really affected the shot not some obscure swing flaw.   Let’s start from the tee box and move through the rest of the hole.    The biggest mistake is hitting driver when less club would do.  Number 2 is hitting the wrong type of shot.   Remember there is nothing wrong on a particular hole of trying to hit the ball straight rather than a fade or a draw.  For the rest of the hole whether a par 5 or a par 4  it is under estimating the effects of the lay of the land.   You would think playing in Western Pennsylvania my entire life, that I would get this.   First of all, I am not sure that the current thinking on how to play uneven lies is even correct.  I have written about this in the past, particularly the ball below your feet shot.    Other issues during the course of the hole is choosing the right club and how the ball is sitting in the grass.  All I can say is, when you figure things correctly, 99% of the time you will hit a good shot.    If you have figured it wrong, or are not aware of something, then the shot will go awry.  This is particularly true of the short game.  If you plan the shot correctly then you will most likely hit a good shot.    If you are hitting it high when you should hit it low or vice versa then the shot will be less than average.

Then there is putting.   The ultimate mental madness, which can freeze your brain and make you dysfunctional.   Here is what I did different, which got me putting a little better, especially on the medium to long putts.  I always looked at the hole when I made my practice stroke.  But my real stroke never seemed to be like my practice stroke.  I have tried putting when looking at the hole and this does not work for me.  Believe me I have tried everything when it comes to putting.  Now I look at the ball and then look up on the practice stroke, just like the actual putt.    Now the strokes feel exactly alike and this started to give me a little more confidence when putting. Plus I seemed to be able to see the line better.  This week looks like another 4 round week.   Remember it’s not your swing.  Remember it’s not your swing. Remember it’s not your swing.

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100% Mental Golf: Rounds 7 through 11

Have been able to play everyday since Sunday.    On Sunday played Ponderosa and shot 77.  Played Scenic Valley two days in a row and shot 81 and 78.   The conditions on Monday were worst than anticipated as a light rain started on the 5th hole and really never let up the entire round.   The condition were chilly and damp to say the least, especially since the rain wasn’t expected for another 3 to 4 hours. Wednesday went back to Ponderosa and shot 80.  Today played Fort Cherry with a score of 81.  Even though the scores were not that good, I felt I played 100 % mental golf for the first time this year.  With 5 rounds played I am just going to go through the highlights or lowlights which ever you prefer.

The scores were high because putting is still a big problem,  with not even some consistency in what the problem is.   Sometimes it has been very bad lag putting or distance control with the putts.  Other times it is just missing short putts.   When you are going through a stretch like this on the greens, it seems like luck is not on your side either.   Lots of lip outs, and hitting the pin and bouncing out, and burning lots of edges.  I would grade my putting a D minus.    If I had been only putting at C level then I would have easily had 2 to 4 shots less per round.  There were at least a half a dozen times this week that I would hit a very good putt from 15 to 25 feet, that would just miss the hole and go buy about 3 to 4 feet, and I would miss the putt coming back.   The frustration can  affect other parts of your game as well, which can contribute to poor scoring.    The short game is ok, but when you are not making putts, then any mistakes in other parts of your game is magnified.  My ball striking is good,  but even that looks or feels worse when you are not scoring.

I do want to discuss what I mean when I wrote that I felt I played 100% mental golf for the first time all year.    We have all been told that in order to play well, you have to trust your swing.  I think it goes a little further than that.   Once you have decided on the shot, then you have to trust that your body will perform the task that your brain has visualized for the shot.  We all talk about the repeatable swing.  Depending on shot, many times you have to swing differently to produce that shot.  What’s interesting is your body will perform the task correctly, if your brain has chosen the right type of shot to play. This is how you play with no swing thoughts.   However, if the brain has chosen a faulty shot, then the body will not make a good swing at the ball.   I believe this is the essence of 100% mental golf.  It becomes more clear every time you play.   I will give examples of this as the year goes by.

The top priority now is too find a solution to the putting problem.     May not be able to play until Monday for various reasons.   Hoping to start scoring better soon.

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100% Mental Golf: Rounds 5 and 6

I was able to play on Wednesday and Thursday of this week with both rounds at Scenic Valley.  The scores were 78 on Wednesday and oops 84 on Thursday.    Not very inspiring rounds, and they were  different types of rounds even though the conditions were about the same, with it being just a bit cooler on Thursday, but there was a little more wind on Wednesday.  Scenic Valley for this time of year is in great shape and the greens had been cut and were very smooth to putt.

The Good:   Again, the ball striking was good on both days.  I could nit pick on some things but my driving was good and my iron play was very good on Wednesday.  My short game was not spectacular but was not at the root of the bad scoring.

The Problem:  Putting was an issue, especially on Wednesday with  4 putts under 5 feet missed, and although I did make two nice birdie putts,  missed another 2, between 6 and 10 feet.   I admit the short putt misses started to get to me and did affect my concentration as the round wore on.  My putting was again the problem the next day, but of a different type.   I had terrible distance control with the putts on Thursday, which led to a number of three putts.  This coupled with a slight decline in ball striking, that  easily led to the 6 shot increase the next day.  The biggest problem especially on Thursday, was my visualization process  was not working.  I just couldn’t get a good feel for shots I was trying to play.  I did not have any zone outs but I almost fell back into the trap of looking at my swing as the problem.  It was just one of those days where the picture would not happen.  It did a few times and when it did the shots were very good if not great. There were some other problems that were related to what I call cart golf syndrome.  You can’t go off the path and you think you have taken enough clubs over for the shot, but when you get there, you don’t really have the club you need and go ahead and hit it anyway.  Yes, I know, but it’s March and it is chilly and my happiness did not depend on me hitting a good shot and of course I didn’t. The solution to that problem is easy.  Hopefully, the other problems of the round will be that easy to solve.

Should be able to play about 4 to 5 times beginning this Sunday to the following Sunday, so will have many opportunities to find the solutions.

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100% Mental Golf: Rounds 3 and 4

This week I was able to play golf on Thursday and Friday after about a one month break, due to something called winter.   Thursday played Scenic Valley and shot 77, and Friday went to Ponderosa and shot 80 where the weather and golf course conditions were a little tougher. At Ponderosa, we had a lot more wind and the golf course condition was very wet with the greens being very soft and slow.

The Good:  My ball striking was very good, considering the layoff.  I drove the ball well and my iron play was good.   I struck the ball solidly from all positions and was able to play the desired shot most of the time.   My short game continued to be more than adequate, as the early changes I made have helped.  For the most part my mental process worked fairly well and I made good decisions most of the time.

Problems: Putting was the biggest issue.  I did not putt horribly, but the best way to sum up my putting, was that I had no birdies for 2 days of golf.  I missed a couple of short putts at Scenic for pars, and some makeable birdie putts which kept that round from being a really good round for early in the season.  At Ponderosa the greens were really slow but I was ready for that, and my speed on greens was not bad but I could not get the ball in the hole.  I got off to another bad start at Ponderosa but only lasted 2 holes and some par saves on 3 and 4 helped get the round rolling a bit.   The other issue was that 2 to 3 times in both rounds I completely zoned out while hitting a shot.  My mind went completely off on other thoughts  that had nothing to do with the shot I was planning to play.  This happened completely out of the blue and at different parts of the round. Needless to say the results of the shot were horrible.   Considering  I am not thinking about my swing at all and just thinking of ball fight and shot planning it is surprising.  The definition of a loss of concentration.

Overall I was happy with the way I played during the two day.  Here is one principle, that forms one of the basic fundamentals of 100% Mental Golf.  Every golf shot is totally 100% unique.  I have stated that I do not have swing thoughts any more, which is true.  However,  I certainly have awareness as to how a certain swing feels in a particular situation.   When a shot really turns out well, that swing has a certain feeling to it.  This can be particular true on a tee shot.  The trap comes when you try to repeat that feeling on the next tee shot.   In fact this is often recommended in golf instruction to have a repeatable swing.  Believe me the shot will not be as good as the one on the last tee shot, because the next tee shot is unique from the previous tee shot.  The mind was not built to repeat, anyway.  Here is nice little test.  Get a piece of paper and make sure it is wide enough to sign your name about 5 times across.    Sign your name 5 times across the paper as naturally and with as little thought as possible.  Maybe your signature will even look exactly the same each time or there may be some slight differences.   Now drop below about one inch  each signature and try to copy that signature.  Take one look at signature for as long as you want and then right underneath the signature write it again and see how you do.  First it will take you longer to write the signature and you most likely will fail.  Part of the reason you fail is your trying to copy the exact signature.  This happens with the golf swing for even more reasons, but mostly because no two golf shots are ever exactly alike so why should you try to swing the same way a previous golf shot felt. More on that later in the year.   Hopefully a little more golf this week as the weather looks better in the middle to the end of the week.   See you then.

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Golf is 100% Mental

If you have a single digit handicap and you want to bring that handicap down significantly, then this is the mantra that you have to live by.  If you have a handicap in the single digits, you have a basic and functional  method on how to swing a golf club.  What is keeping you from getting down to the ultimate goal of scratch is your mental process on the golf course and looking in the wrong places to improve your game.  I made a commitment, to Golf is 100% mental, around May of 2018, and did my handicap go down. It did not.  So what happened.

I feel there was two reasons my handicap remained basically unchanged during the 2018 season.  One was a minor reason.  We had a horrible year of weather.   The golf courses were saturated and muddy almost the whole year, especially from August until the end of the year.  This led to a lot of unpredictability all how the ball would react off the clubface from the rough and even the fairway.  This made the courses play a lot  longer than usual.  There was no question this was a factor, so keeping my handicap the same, may have been a victory, instead of it going up.   The main reason I did not see a drop in my index, was that even though I was “committed” to 100% mental process, I am like everybody else, and brain washed by the “normal” way to improve, by changing something, or finding something wrong with your swing.  In other words the physical side of the game.  Let’s face it, this is way it was been for well over 150 years.  Even when I started this year I was going with a new swing.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME.  I quickly forgot about it on round 2 of 2019.    Even though this sounds so simple,  100% mental, it is difficult to do.  I hadn’t planned to do this blog this soon, and even though right now it is snowing and yesterday it was -3 degrees, there is a good possibility that I will be playing golf by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.   I wanted to write about the 100% mental concept before I played my next round of golf.   Every bad shot and I mean every bad shot is caused by some kind of dysfunction of the mind.  This dysfunction then manifests itself in some kind of bad execution of the swing.  Depending on the type of shot the possibilities can be endless.   This of course results in a bad shot.  Then the chatter starts.  I swung to hard, too fast, bad aim, did not stay down, dipped, came out of it,(my favorite)and the list could go on and on.  All of this is caused by mind dysfunction.   As I wrote in my last blog, I will be writing after ever round or two of golf I play this year to see how I progress or digress, applying this concept.  The other big factor in trying to lower your index is putting, a whole different animal  all unto itself.  That will be for a later blog.  One of keys to success in playing this game is the art of visualization.  How should you visualize and what should you visualize, which will be another blog.  One clue, you should visualize things you can not see.  Tricky, huh.

So, next week may be the next blog, if I make it to the golf course.   I will incorporate some of the above subject matter into the next blog depending on how the round goes.  Its snowing right now but by Monday its going to be in the mid 50’s and Tuesday and Wednesday in the upper 40’s.  Welcome to Pittsburgh.

 

 

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

The subject of today’s blog is the swing thought.   Why does it work, and why does it stop working.  We have all been there.  The only thing more seductive than a swing thought is a beautiful women in a low cut dress that stops at mid thigh.  It causes the golfer to think, I’ve got it.  This is the magic bullet.  Swing thoughts are many.   Slow down at the top, take it back low and slow, slide the hips,  hold the finish, and I could go on and on.  They can be pre swing thoughts like stand closer to the ball,  grip to the right, weight on the heels, and again many more.  They are brought about by desperation. The round is going horribly.  You may have even tried to use various thoughts to turn around the round with no success.  But then it happens.  You come up with a thought, and you hit a gorgeous shot and the  thought continues to work during the round.    This thought may even work when you start the next round.  It won’t be too long though, around the 4th or 5th hole, that the game will break down again and the thought will disappear into the vault of about 100 other swing thoughts that you were going to do the rest of your golfing life.

Swing thoughts are nothing new. Bobby Jones wrote about swing thoughts in the mid 1930’s.   “Sometimes by remembering to start the downstroke by shifting and turning the hips, highly satisfactory results may be obtained. While this continues, we are enjoying one of the peaks of our chart. But soon, either because we begin to exaggerate this one thing, or forget entirely about something else, the whole thing goes wrong and we have to begin over again. Again we set out to find another thought that will set things right”.   This was written in the 1930’s but if this same statement was in the latest issue of Golf Digest everyone would still be shaking their heads in agreement.    Jones even has an explanation why they stop working.     The point is this has always been accepted in golf practically forever.   You find the “magic ” swing thought, it works for awhile, and then, just as suddenly it stops working.     As much a I respect Bobby Jones as a golf writer and instructor,  I have to disagree with him on why these swing thoughts stop working.  Plus he gives no explanation why they start working.   I believe that this is what ties in to why they stop working .

So why does a certain swing thought seems to work?    It is a distraction as to what is going on, on the course.  This could also explain why you don’t find THE swing thought on the first try.  It is not enough of a distraction.  Do you ever noticed that the “right” swing thought is often easier to find on the practice tee.  The success of the swing thought has nothing to do with what the swing thought is but when you are thinking of the swing thought.  Let’s move back out to the course.   You start your round out and the ball striking is lousy and the score is going up and up and  by the 4th hole, you are in desperation mode.    The 5th hole is a difficult driving hole and you come up with your first new swing thought of the day.  But pow, off the ball goes into the woods.    Your second and third shots are not much better, and another bad score results.  But now you come to the 6th hole and easy par 3 with little trouble and a big green and today the pin is in an easy spot.   Now you go to a new thought, and you hit a very nice onto the green. The shot makes you feel good and the next hole the same thought gets you a drive right down the middle and you’ve got this game solved.  The first swing thought would have been just as good, if you had decided to use it on the 6th hole for the first time.  When you used it on the more difficult driving hole,  the trouble and the type of shot still had your mind occupied.  The sixth hole being much easier, your full attention was on the new swing thought and the result was great.  Maybe the results were  good to excellent even for the rest of the round, made a few birdies and salvaged the round with a mid 70 score.   Through the week you made it to the driving range, a couple of times, and this thought continued to work great through both practice sessions. Next blog I will write about why practice is a waste of time but to proceed.   Now you are at the course and you are brimming with confidence and ready to shoot a great round.   By the middle of the front nine you are 4 over par and looking for it again.   So what the hell happened.   Well that thought became so ingrained in your brain that it stopped being a distraction and all those little nasty places that your ball could go came back to the fore front.   So forget about swing thoughts and play free, at least from swing thoughts, you will probably have to pay.   Next blog,  practice, save your money and your time.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answe

Well, its been four months since the last blog, which is one of the longest periods in awhile that I have not blog.   I really do not have any good reason that I have not written anything for a long time.  I have been playing golf like I usually do, as this past Monday I just completed my 112th round.  My play as been ok.  In Western Pennsylvania, the handicap season ended on November 14th and I finished the year with a 4.7 index.  Which is not bad but no major improvement.   I really did not prove some of the concepts that I wrote about on that blog 4 months ago.  So today I thought I would review the last year and the last 4 months in particular.

The one constant over these last 4 months was that the weather was lousy.  In 112 rounds of golf I would say I saw the ball roll any amount distance in only about 15 rounds.   This was by far the wettest most humid year of golf I have ever played and I have played for 50 years.  You rarely could play the ball down and course conditions suffered mightily.  If fact one course, Village Green closed down permanently and the weather contributed to it’s demise.  It was difficult to evaluate one’s game under those conditions. The weather just got worse as we headed into fall, which most of the time is fairly dry.  In mid September we got about 20 plus inches of rain over about a 7 day period. I have come to detest the word mud.

I could not quite grasp the concept of golf being 100% mental when you are a single digit handicap.   I still believe this, but it can be very difficult to put into practice, because I feel we are brainwashed into thinking that bad golf play can be fix with some physical correction.   This can be ranging from anywhere to “fixing” your grip, stance, transition, swing plane, weight distribution, and anything you can think of about the physical execution of the golf swing.    Part of the problem is that you hear every week on the PGA tour that a player is working on some part of his swing and it is helping him.  I think this is wrong.    Having  problems with your golf game at that level and I believe at the level of the single handicapper  is strictly mental and any physical correction is only temporary and in the long run no help at all.   However this is so much easier said then done.  I will elaborate more on this in future blogs, and yes, they are going to be more frequent than one every 4 months.

The albatross in May was the highlight of my season and was easily the shot of the year and probably in my life.  I did not have an even par round this year and had only 2 that were one over par.  I was consistent and had a pretty good putting year and have putted very well the last couple of times out. I am determine to prove the 100 % mental theory. One of the best things that I have done over the past year and half is that I have played golf with no swing thoughts.  It has freed up my game and has made golf so much more enjoyable.     Developing my own putting style has contributed to my overall good scoring and was the main reason that I came out of an 18 month slump from the beginning of 2016 to the end of June  2017, which saw my index climb to 6.9.  My index would have been even higher if there was not a limit on the strokes you could take on one hole for handicap purposes. I had some really high numbers during that stretch, where I proved the axiom, its not where your good shots go, but where your bad shots wind up.   So my game is where it’s mostly been over the last 30 years when I started to play a lot of golf again, between a 3 and 5 handicap.  Next blog will be about swing thoughts, why they work and why they stop working.  The amazing thing is golf instructors were writing about swing thoughts in the 1930’s.  See you then.