An old fashioned Hilton Head redemption round

Yesterday I played 36 holes at Hilton Head Island’s Palmetto Dunes. It had been about 16 months since my only other round there and this time I brought my own sticks. I was pretty excited to see the Robert Trent Jones course again and get a glimpse of how I would play with golf clubs that I knew and trusted.

For some background on this course and what I am talking about, check out this post from November, 2012: http://thedanplan.com/trip-away-and-a-60th/

The gist is that I rented clubs to play this track and really struggled with lighter-weight regular flex shafts and hybrids up through the 7-iron. Back then I shot around a 93 on the track from the white tees with a handful of balls hit OB.

Yesterday I was determined to improve upon that mark and despite arriving literally a minute before my tee time (got stuck in a long line buying some food for the day and seemed to hit every traffic light; even though I left 30 minutes early, by the time I checked in the two guys I was being paired with had already teed off and I had to scramble to catch them by the second hole.) I parred the first two holes and was off to a nice start on a beautiful day:

For the four three holes I used a 3-wood off the tee instead of pulling the driver. The courses down here have fairways about as tight as back in Portland, but the difference is that on a lot of holes you have water or houses on both sides and in many cases it’s white stakes so a miss is very penalizing. With the 3-wood I could get enough distance to have a mid or short iron in and without having hit any balls on the range before the round it was the safe bet. I parred each of the first 4 in this manner including the 556 yard par 5 fourth hole.

After a silly 3-putt bogey on the par 3 5th I decided to pull driver on the 410 yard par 4 6th and pushed it OB into a white hazard and had to re tee. Three holes later I pulled the driver again on a reachable-in-two par 5 and proceeded to pull it short into a bunker. I managed to birdie that hole despite the efforts of my driver to get in the way.

At the turn I was remembering some thoughts I had over the past few days about making driver swings. For some reason my confidence with the stick has never been good and when I stand over my tee shot I can’t see a clear picture of what I want to do with it. Rather, I tend to hold on and just hope it doesn’t really screw up. That’s no way to approach a golf shot and obviously I need to rethink my mental approach to that stick. This is especially prevalent when I am playing a new course for the first time or there is a tight hole with OB on both sides, which just adds to the difficulty of the situation.

I tried to just relax and make easier swings through the round and ended up hitting some good drives, but there seemed to be two results from hitting the driver: straight down the middle or OB either left or right. With any other club my miss tends to self correct somewhat and worst case scenario I am a little short and in the rough. That’s where I want to get with the driver.

The funny thing is that I can hit that club over and over on the range (not too uncommon to hit it well on the range and then struggle on the course) so to me it definitely means it’s a confidence and relaxation issue.

My goal now is to find a pre-shot routine and mental queue to keep me relaxed and swinging smoothly.

Back to the rounds:

I finished the Trent Jones course with a 78 on the day. On the back I had two birdies including a two putt from this par 5 that I hit in two. Wasn’t exactly the shortest eagle putt possible…

I also had a decent birdie look on the signature hole:

All in all it felt good to shoot a better score. The driver cost me two direct strokes on the front and at least one on the back, but I tried to make up for it by hitting some greens and making a couple birds. I suppose I will have to come back this Fall and best this round.

Afterwords I was feeling like continuing and it was only noon so I headed over to the Fazio course and got a replay rate round in. The guy in the shop said they didn’t over-seed this year so it was a little brown in spots, but that seems natural to me.

The course was a completely different type of challenge. Whereas the Jones course was tough to drive, the Fazio was harder to stick the greens. It is a par 70 that had a lot of long par 4s and when they were playing into the wind it was quite the challenge. The wind had picked up a lot from the morning and was steady at 15-20mph with heavier gusts. This added to the list of difficulties of a course designed to protect the greens.

There was a lot less water and the fairways were more open, but the greens seemed smaller, firmer and had more bunker play around them. All in all it was a blast of a course and I would love to go back and play it again now that I have a feel for where to hit the ball on most of the holes. I didn’t shoot very well and carded an 80 for the round, but some of that was due to fading at the end of the round and some to playing a course without any knowledge of the layout.

It was a great day all around. At times I got a little “concerned” with my driver play, but that just means it is something I need to continue to focus on. Good news is that I finally got to play some firm fairways and when I hit the ball well I was getting around 300 yard drives. That’s nice to know as in Portland everything is still plugging and it’s hard to judge driving distances when the ball either sticks in the soggy fairway or actually rolls backwards upon impact.

I have a few more days to explore Hilton Head golf and then am heading back to Portland this coming Tuesday. It’s been a great trip so far and I am excited to continue to push forward. The half way mark is just around the corner, too..

4 Responses to "An old fashioned Hilton Head redemption round"

Richard Chen says:

March 29, 2014 at 9:30 am

Mentally, the driver can in some ways be likened to using the violin bow to play the violin strings. The bridge of the violin is curved to arrange the four strings of a violin in a curved arc, so that an individual string can be selected for playing by tilting the bow up or down with the bow hand. Similarly, the surface of the ball is curved, so that the driver when used like a violin bow can “select” the contact point on the back of the teed up ball during impact. In stead of having the up and down positioning of the bow hand to select the strings arranged in a curved arc, the forward or rearward positioning of the hands at impact with the driver can select horizontally the impact point along the curved surface at the back of the golf ball. Additionally, since the driver is not straight like a violin bow, as the driver has a bend between the clubhead and the bottom end of the club shaft, the amount of rotation of the clubshaft during the final release phase adds to altering the horizontal contact point on the curved surface of the back of the ball. This rotation of the driver shaft during the final release just before impact is also directly coupled to the loft of the driver face, so that decreasing the clubface loft tends to close the driver face, and increasing the clubface loft tends to open the driver face. The geometry of the driver is more complex than that of the violin bow, but overall they can be likened to be similar enough for the purpose of this visualization of playing the driver with the fine skill of using the violin bow.

An odd numbered set of violin strings can be imagined to be drawn vertically on the back of the teed up golf ball using visualization. For example, five vertical and parallel lines can be imagined to be drawn on the back of the teed up ball. The are some range golf balls that have three parallel lines actually imprinted on the ball. The idea is to “select” the middle vertical “string” to hit with the driver, that is to contact the middle vertical line with the driver clubface. Thus, the hands at driver impact should not be too far ahead of the ball, nor too behind the ball at impact to “select” the middle “string” like in violin, the bow hand is neither too high nor too low to select the middle strings. In addition, because, the amount of rotation of the clubshaft and club handle during the release affects clubface angle as there is a bend where the shaft connects to the clubhead, this can also effect which “string” will be selected. A squared clubface at impact will select the middle string. An opened clubface will select an inner string closer to the player instead of the middle string. A closed clubface will select an outer string farther from the player rather than the middle string. In addition, reducing the loft of the clubface (from turning the club handle forward more like rolling the hands over more during release) will tend to close the clubface to select an outer string, while increasing the loft of the clubface will tend to open the clubface to select an inner string instead of the middle string. In addition, severely out-to-in, or severely in-to-out clubhead swing paths will also tend to result in the selection of the wrong strings that are not the middle string.

The virtuosity of using the violin bow contributes to playing fine music. Similar virtuosity of using the driver in the manner of using the bow of a violin contributes to playing fine golf.
Benny says:

March 29, 2014 at 11:24 am

Great recap. Nice to see the project is still happening! GL the rest of the way/hours.
Richard Chen says:

March 30, 2014 at 10:27 am

Many power drivers use relatively “strong” grips like Snead and Nicklaus. A strong grip means the “v’s” formed by the thumbs and index fingers of both hands points up toward the rear shoulder, or somewhere between the rear shoulder and the chin for a medium-strong grip.

On the contrary, a “weak” grip has the v’s of the hands pointing straight up toward the chin of the head. The “weak” grip hand position is also called the “neutral” grip.

There are advantages and disadvantages of using either the strong-grip or the weak-grip. The choice between the grips can be influenced by the natural physique of the individual. Nicklaus wrote that the grip position should match the orientation of the hands when standing naturally without holding any clubs. When standing naturally with the hands and arms hanging freely down along the sides of the body, some people’s hands naturally turn inward, while others not. According to this approach, those with hands naturally turning inward while just standing should adopt stronger grips. Another consideration is that tall players have naturally more upright swing arcs, so that the clubface naturally tends to be more squared during the back and down swings, and they may favor weaker grips. Handsy players may adopt a weak grip so as to allow more rolling of the hands and arms during the release like Hogan. With a strong grip more rolling of the hands and arms will over close the clubface by impact.

The advantage of a “strong” grip is that there is less need to rotate the hands, and the leading arm back to the setup position during the release. This less need for hands and arm rotation results in more control of the club, specially during the release. Parts rotating less means more control. This less need for hand and arm rotation during the release just before impact tends to avoid leaving the clubface still somewhat opened by ball impact, which opened clubface coupled with an inside-to-out clubhead swing path will produce straight-pushes. Since in a very powerful driver swing, when the clubhead is swung to high speeds, there is less time to square the clubface during the release, and a stronger grip is advantageous, as there is less need to rotate the hands and arms during the release with a stronger grip position.

Thus, the advantage of the strong grip position is that for power driving, there is less need to rotate and roll the hands and leading arms to square the clubface by impact to reduce leaving the clubface still open by impact resulting in straight pushes. Some golfers are very good iron and fairway woods players as they have large delay-hit (delay release to hit down,) type of release, and they tend to carry these delayed-release iron and fairway swings to the driver swing. They may adopt a stronger grip to compensate for the opened driver clubface caused by the hands being a little in front of the ball at impact. The disadvantage of the strong grip position is the increased risk of over closing of the clubface at impact, specially for tall players, and for players with specially strong and fast hands.

The advantage of the weak grip position is that for tall players with more upright swing arcs, there is less risk of over closing the clubface during the release. Another advantage of the weak grip is that for handsy players, a weak grip provides more room for rolling of the hands and arms during the release to generate more power. For players with very powerful or fast hands, a weak grip allow these players to use their hands and arms to the fullest to take advantage of their specially strong or fast hands. The weak grip is also adopted when the fade is adopted as the standard driver shot pattern, although a medium strong grip can still be used for the fade shot. The disadvantage of the weak grip is that for players who are not especially tall, and whose hands are not specially powerful nor fast, a weak grip tends to leave the clubface still opened by impact, promoting pushes, specially for the driver, which can result in a vicious cycle of pushing and pulling, where pulling is used to compensate for the pushing, and blocked push is used to compensate for the pulling and so on.

In general, the true neutral (weak) grip with the v’s pointing up at the chin, and the very strong grip positions with the v’s pointing to the rear shoulder and beyond are at the extreme ends, and they should be adopted with caution.
Luke says:

March 31, 2014 at 3:06 pm

Dan, We started golf around the same time. I have my own Mini-Dan Plan going (started last month). I quit working in the banking industry a month ago and enrolled in a golf college (not naming it, but its the best one.) I was a 5 handicap upon enrollment. We get lots of PGA Master Pro instruction and I am going through some major swing changes, i’m sure you can relate to that. I did this because i love teaching and needed a career change. Good luck, its been fun watching your progress! You want to be a PGAtour pro, I want to be a PGA teaching Pro. Lets do this!

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