I returned to Portland on New Years eve day and despite the freezing temperatures and frozen greens I got out there and played a round a day since being back.  Riverside has been closed (18 temporary greens) so I found myself at some of the other courses around town trying to learn how to stick greens hard as ice cubes.  It’s actually a ton of fun to play in these conditions as you literally have no clue how or where the ball will bounce coming into the greens.  You can try to leave it short but it might either plug in the fringe or if it lands in the shade can take a crazy left or right bounce.  Puts a new twist on the game of golf, as if it wasn’t hard enough already

The weather is warming up, though, and by tomorrow the rains will have thawed out the sod and the courses shall return to more normal conditions.   Today I am resting as my entire family shared a rather nasty chest cold over the holidays, brought by my brother and his wonderful daughter all the way from Switzerland as an unexpected present to us all.  I thought I was in the clear, but the flight back to Portland proved to be just enough time spent in airports to let it set in.  So, one day off and then back at it tomorrow.

I still haven’t figured out my driver situation.  I got a demo one built for my by Jari down at Birdie Finnish golf but it had an Accra extra stiff cut down shaft and I think it was too much club for my current swing, so am going to try the same one but with a stiff shaft to see how that feels.  One thing I definitely know, though, is that a shorter shaft both allows me to swing more freely as well as does not slow my swing speed, which I thought it would.  It’s good to know and I think a 43″ shaft will be a great fit once I find the right combo of shaft/club head.  In the meantime I have been sticking with my gamer Titleist 913 and working on getting my swing a bit steeper with the driver, which helps control/minimize the left and right miss.

I actually had this realization while playing with a plus-3 golfer down in Hilton Head who is heading to Portugal to try and qualify at the European Tour Q-School.  I noticed his pre -shot routine and swing were all about keeping the club a bit more upright through the swing and I realized that I had been reverting to a flatter driver swing again which for me creates a bad two-way miss.  It’s amazing how in this game you can essentially “forget” to do something for a long time and then all of a sudden have an “a-ha!” moment getting you back on track.  That is why taking notes is so important, and my Vision54 notebook is pretty much packed with these types of swing thoughts.  Perhaps it’s time to go through that notebook and combine the useful thoughts into something I can keep with me during each round.

It’s the beginning of the year and a natural time to reflect on the past year as well as set up goals for the one to come.  I typically set process goals as they are good for keeping things on track and when hit generally allow for the outcomes that may be hoped for.  One outcome that I would like to hit this year is to place top 5 in a tournament.  Instead of focussing on that outcome, I will choose to work on improving my driving and putting as if I can transition from 30 percent of fairways hit to at least 50 percent by improving my driving accuracy that will translate to more fairways and more greens and if I work on getting the ball started on my line and improving my 7-15 foot putts it will lead to less putts per round and lower scores.  those are my main goals right now.  My irons are pretty solid and not a weakness, but tee shots have continued to lag behind the rest of my game.  My putting is solid, but can always get better.  I plan on attending an AimPoint seminar this year to help me improve my green reading skills.

For the tee shot I think having a shorter club that I trust will help, as well as improving my swing technique vie video and FlightScope.

All good things and I am excited for the new year and new possibilities.  2015 is going to be the best golfing year yet, I know it!

If I was to honestly reflect on 2014 for a moment I would have to say that as a whole it was slightly disappointing golf-wise.  I do believe that I improved in a lot of ways, but the outcomes were not what I had hoped for over the past 12 months.  I did shoot under par for the first time and got my handicap down to under a 3 at one point, but my tournament golf was not where I had hoped it would be.  It’s a completely different beast and the only way to really improve in pressure situations is to compete in those as much as possible.  I have started to play in a regular Saturday money game and this is helping that learning curve.  This year I will join a couple of different men’s clubs around town to have regular games on a few different days of the week at different courses.  Also, I’ll play in more tournaments, as many as I can afford to sign up for.

In 2016 I want to play in a series of mini-tours and this year is all about amping up for that time.

Sorry again about the long delay in blog posts.  This time of year, I have noticed from blogging for the past 4 years, is very slow for both posts and audience.  The week around Christmas and New Years typically sees about 30 percent of the traffic as the rest of the year does.  Not that that is a good excuse, but it makes for a natural short break time.   Much more to come soon!

I was going to make it a pdf download and ask people to contribute what they thought it was worth, but I thought if I put the book up on Amazon’s website it would be better formatted for all types of digital readers.  If this doesn’t work after a couple of months I may put a link to the pdf up as well, but for the time being please think about supporting The Dan Plan by purchasing the book here:

Amazon Unites States:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTC0NJA

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And most any other country, email me if you want a specific link or search for “The Dan Plan”.

I wish to apologize in advance as a few external links did not translate to this format.  One of the most blaring absences are videos.  On a few occasions I talk about watching a video and it’s just a blank on the page.  Outside of that the content is whole.  I edited out about one third of the posts but there is still quite a bit of content, too much in a lot of ways.  Down the road at some point I will have a professional editor (or a well versed friend, or myself when the amount of time in a day magically doubles) take a gander at the content and polish it up.  For now, this is the story, more or less, word for word from the beginning.  I hope you enjoy and get some value out of the content.

For every book purchased from Amazon almost $5 goes to The Dan Plan.  Thank you for reading and please help spread the word to anyone potentially interested in seeing what it takes to make such a drastic change in one’s life.

Cheers!

It has been a pretty consistent and decently solid spell that all began when I had that 76 in the tourney about 6 weeks ago.  I’m still not hitting enough fairways and greens, but my misses are getting a little tighter and instead of having to punch out on half of the holes I am only punching out 3-4 times a round.  When you are not playing from the trees is makes scoring a ton easier.  Also, my Greens in Regulation are low, but my misses are around the fringe either left or right and every time I have one of these short chips I feel like I’m going to make it.  Only one chip in these three rounds actually dropped for a bird, but I’m leaving them at tap-in range which makes scrambling much less stressful.

I’m not really sure what changed and I know that I have a ton of work to do with tee shots to transform from hitting about 30% to greater than 50% where I would like to be, but I’m shooting much better scores and these rounds are pretty much without any long putt bombs or by any means am I capitalizing on the majority of chances I have throughout the 18.  The rounds have just been more consistent all around.

It has me super excited. Morale wise, this entire summer was pretty hard as I couldn’t seem to do what I thought I should be able to both on the range and course.  Now, I am working on different types of punch shots and have a deeper comprehension immediately after a good and bad shot as to why the ball did what it did.  That said, I still am mystified by at least one drive per round, but I think the majority of my misses with that club are missing the sweet spot, as well as face angle at impact.  And, if we’re going to get into the nitty gritty, my swing plane needs to be more on plane through the ball.  This is what I’m working on, though, and tiny improvements over time will pay off as they have over the past 4,600+ hours.

I still have not figured out a winter plan for this year, but it is definitely a priority as the rains have set in up here in the PacNW and with the sun setting at 5pm now it makes it hard to practice optimally when I have the occasional meeting or errand to run in the morning.  My eye is on Palm Springs..  I don’t know much about that part of the country, but will be excited to explore it when the time comes.  In the meantime, it’s about time to head back to Trails End driving range and take advantage of the covered, lit and heated bays.  That’s a good place to bring TrackMan out to and start working on those combines again.  It’s been too long..  Perhaps that’s the first chapter of Dan Plan Oregon winter training.  Although right now it is amazingly beautiful out:

Finally, for those handicap counter out there, mine has finally dropped a bit to a personal best.  This last refresh it landed at 5.2.  Not sure where it will go on November 15, but my money is on sub-5 for the first time ever.

I met a buddy, Deryk, out at Heron Lakes and on the range while warming up I jammed my right thumb trying to hit a 4-hybrid off of the frozen ground.  Before we even started I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hit my driver.  But, there was nobody out there and the course opened so we went for it and decided to play match play against each other thinking there might be some large scores due to the conditions.

And…  Only in golf can a day like today produce a career low round.  It’s the paradox that is golf; when you think you’re going to play well you often do not and when there are no expectations success springs into action.

It was the first realistic chance of shooting par or better that I have had.  The previous best was being 1-under after 10 holes but during that round I bogeyed the 11th and ended up shooting about 4 over on the day. Today I kept it under par through 14 and had a birdie putt chance to take it back to par on the 18th.  And, it was one of those rounds full of lipped out putts and missed chances, not a round where everything just happened to fall my way.

I haven’t done a hole by hole recap in a while and figured this one would be fun to write up.  To get started, my scorecard for the day:

1st:  500+ yard par five dogleg right with two sets of fairway bunkers.  When we teed off the temperature must have been 30 degrees.  I hit a short plugged fade drive and had about 300 yards remaining so knocked a 4-hybrid to 130.  I wasn’t swinging very hard and with the thick, cold air and plugging fairways nothing was traveling very far all day.  From 130 I hit a 9-iron that landed a bit short of the pin and bounced about 8 yards.  I made the 15 foot putt for birdie.

2nd:  390 par 4 slight dogleg right.  Hit a drive down the middle and had 150 left.  As has happened often early in rounds I didn’t square the club face and pulled the 7-iron right into a bunker.  The bunkers were like hitting out of frozen mud and I caught it a bit thin leaving me with a 25 foot putt which I sank in two for a bogey.

3rd: 160 yard par 3 with water almost the entire way.  Tried to hit a faded 7-iron but left the face a bit too open (attempting to correct the pull I hit on the previous hole) and it landed just short of the green.  Chipped to one foot and tapped in the par.

4th: 350 yard par 4 dogleg left with an elevated green that has almost complete bunker coverage in front.  Hit a solid drive down the middle and had 117 yards in.  A wedge into the wind landed about 15 feet short of the pin.  Hit what I thought was a perfect putt but it bumped off line a couple feet before the hole so tapped in for a par.

5th: 500+ yard par 5 with a sharp dogleg left and a bunker in the driver landing zone (in the winter months) Drove it right down the middle and the ball plugged so deep that it took us a couple of minutes to find even though the ball was literally in the middle of the fairway.  From there pushed a 3-wood short and left of the green with a bunker and just a few feet of green between me and the pin.  Tried to land it just on the edge of the green 20 yards away to get it to roll to the pin, but it landed a hair short and stuck on the fringe.  Took two putts to get it in from 15 feet out.

6th: 370 yard par 4. Pulled my drive into the trees and again it was about 5 minutes before we finally found it.  I had a line on the green but had to hit a 115 yard fade around a tree in front of me.  Hit a wedge and it faded nicely landing about 10 feet short of the hole.  Hit a solid putt that bumped along and managed to fall in for the birdie.

7th:  190 yard par 3.  Faded a 4-hybrid into the green and it landed pin high but bounced to the back fringe.  Hit a 15 foot putt from just on the fringe that died a hair short of the hole.  Tapped in for a par.

8th:  380 yard par four dogleg right with water down the left side.  My drive went exactly where I aimed:  tried to cut a dogleg right corner by hitting over some trees.  But, the ball caught the last tree and bounced back about 30 yards leaving me with 143 to the hole.  Hit an 8-iron up the little hill that landed about 12 feet from the pin and sank the putt for a birdie.  Was 2 under going into the ninth hole.

9th: 390 yard par 4 dogleg right with OB down the left.  3-wood off the tee left me with 150 yards to the hole.  Hit a 7 that landed pin high but pulled it some so had about 25 feet of putt left.  I’ve never shot my age on a 9 (33) and really wanted to drop the birdie putt to do just that.  But, it wasn’t my time and I pulled the putt a bit to leave it a foot out right.  Sank the par putt to shoot 34 on the front.

I was pretty happy with this.  Deryk is about a 2 handicap and I was up 3 holes on him as he shot a 38 on the front, which was a good score that could have been better but his putting was a bit off on the funky frozen greens.  Still, there were 9 holes left and a lot of golf that could go either way.  We let a single pass through at the turn and then teed it up in hopes of going low on the back.  The last time we played a match against each other was back in October during the Columbia Edgewater Fall match play tournament and because of handicaps Deryk gave me five strokes back then.  He’s a 2 handicap and I was about a 7 at the time.  He won that match by rolling in a 12 foot putt on the 18th hole.  Today was going to be a bit of payback.  And, we were playing straight up, without any strokes given either way.

10th: 500 yard par 5 dogleg right.  Hit the worst drive of the day on one of the best scoring holes.  Pushed it towards a left fairway bunker on this par 5 hole and the ball landed about 260 from the green just short of a bunker.  I played it safe and hit a 4-hybrid to about 60 yards out then pulled my pitch shot a bit leaving me with a 20 foot putt.  Left that about 2 inches on the left side of the hole and tapped in for the par.

11th:  400 yard par 4.  Drove it down the middle and had 115 directly into the wind remaining.  The wind took my wedge shot a mile high and it landed 4 feet short of the hole on a funky downhill breaking lie.  I barely tapped the ball and it was heading straight for the hole but hit a bump and turned 90 degrees left about 2 inches before dropping in.  Had to settle for a par on the hole, but was 2 under after 11 holes which was the deepest I had ever gone in a round on the south side of par.

12th:  397 yard par 4.  Pushed a drive to the left side of the fairway that landed about two feet past a fairway bunker with a tree in between me and the green.  Had to fade an 8-iron around the tree to hit the green and did it but the shot landed about 45 feet short of the hole.  Hit a decent lag putt to about a foot and got that in for the par.

13th:  500 yard par five with water carry on approach shot.  Drove it down the left side and was 250 into the wind short of the pin with a forced water carry so hit a 6-iron to lay up just short of the water.  Pitched on to 12 feet from the pin and hit what I felt like was a perfect putt but it again bumped all the way to the hole and ended up lipping out.  Tapped it in for par and to stay at 2 under after 13.  At this point I was 4 up on Deryk with 5 holes remaining.  He had played the back well, though, and was still at 2 over for the day.

14th:  175 yard par 3, water all down the left side and bunkers covering the green.  I hit a 5-iron wanting to land the ball a bit short of the hole, but pulled it a bit and the ball didn’t check up, rather rolled to the back of the green.  The green felt really firm and I thought it was going to roll well.  Standing over the ball on the green I actually got nervous for the first time thinking that I was on the 14th hole and on the green and still 2 under for the day.  I thought that if I sank this 45 foot putt I would be at 3 under with just 4 left to play.  I had the wrong thoughts going on in my head.  But, I tried to clear the mind and hit a good putt and I thought I did, but it just absolutely died on the green and ended up 10 feet short.  My second putt was solid and straight but it veered off line and I had to tap in for my first bogey on the back side and second bogey on the day.  I was still one under.

15th: 315 yard par 4 with water down the entire left side that pokes in to the fairway more and more the further you hit the ball and trees all down the right.  You can’t really hit a driver on this hole because the landing zone gets too tight so I hit a 3-hybrid to about 115 yards out.  I made a silly mistake here.  There was a little bit of wind behind me and I thought it was enough to add about 10 yards to my shot.  So, instead of hitting a soft wedge to the green I went for a stiff 52-degree gap wedge and tried to hit it hard.  The ball was just frozen and I had to carry water for the entire shot to the green.  Luckily, it made it over the water, but landed on the front of the green with about 50 feet of uphill putt between me and the hole.  This wasn’t a day where long putts were easy and I hit a hard putt up the hill but it came up about 10 feet short once again.  And, just like on the last hole I made a good stroke on the second putt but it just missed and I three-putted for the second time in a row and another bogey to bring me to even par after 15 holes.

I was dormy on the match with Deryk, though and just needed to tie him on the next hole in order to win on the day. But, I wasn’t thinking about that at all, I was thinking that with one more birdie I could get it back to under and get close to shooting my first even or better round of The Dan Plan.

16th: 160 yard par 3 with total water carry.  I hit a thin 7 iron that was an ugly shot but landed pin high and rolled about 10 feet past the hole before checking up.  This was a good chance to sink a birdie and I had pretty much sealed up the match between Deryk and I.  Standing over the putt I cleared my mind and forced myself to not think about the last two holes.  I executed a solid stroke that was headed straight for the hole but bumped along and ended up lipping out just to the left side.  Tapped it in for par and to stay even.  The match was over, I got a bit of redemption from the October loss and it felt good to do it without any strokes going either direction.

17th:  350 sharp dogleg right with trees along the right side and bunkers in the middle of the fairway.  This is a good scoring hole and if you drive it past the bunker you get a kick off the back side that usually leaves you with about 60 yards in.  But, I hit a mile-high fade into the wind that pushed the ball way left almost OB into the water.  With 170 yards remaining I hit a 5-iron but left the club face open and it landed in a green side bunker.  The bunkers aren’t exactly in the best shape this time of year, but I got good club on the ball and outed it to about 10 feet from the hole.  Yet another missed opportunity, though, and one more bogey to put me at 1 over for the day.

I’ve talked about the greens a lot so I figure I should show a pic of them.  As you can see there was a good bit of goose poop that was easy to move and they were punched with tines which actually wasn’t bad to putt on, but all in all it was a type of day where you really had to cram it in the middle of the hole to have a chance.  I putted well on the front but just couldn’t get anything to drop on the back side.  I had 34 putts on the day with 20 of those coming on the back.  A couple bumps in the right direction or a bit more steam on those back 9 rolls and a good round would have been a great round.  That’s golf, though, and you can’t count the balls that almost go in.  Regardless, this was going to be my best round to date as long as I could get a double bogey or better on the final hole.

18th:  380 yard par 4 straight away.  I had to get a birdie to shoot par.  I had my second worse drive of the day, pushing the ball well left into the trees.  When I walked up I was 150 yards out but there was a branch five yards in front of me that was about 5 feet off of the ground and then trees lining the entire way up to the green.  I took out a 5-iron and hit a low flying punch shot which flew about 5 feet high the whole way landing on the green pin high about 15 feet from the hole.  I actually had a chance of shooting par!  Instead of describing the putt, I’ll provide some video commentary:

I straight up missed the read.  After I missed so many chances to make birdies on the back, this time it was a missed read that left the putt out wide.  I thought it was going to break left to right but didn’t spend enough time reading it and it caught me off guard.  O well, still the best round to date and a solid chance to shoot par or better.  It will happen in time and perhaps today was just not meant to be the day.  Next go around I’ll sink a couple of those birdie chances on the back and not 3-putt two holes in a row and I’ll have the number.  All good things come with time and hard work.

The thumb was stiff afterwards, but in a retrospect it forced me to make sure my grip was perfect before every swing because if my hands were out of place it put too much pressure on that right thumb.  Jamming the thumb was kind of a good thing today, you never know why things happen and sometimes something that appears like an immediate negative can prove a positive after enough time.

Another ball for the collection:

Perhaps it’s time to invest in a ball rack.

16.24% of all golfers in the US are a 7.9 handicap or lower.  That means that with a 7.4 index, 15% are at my level or better and with 26 million golfers registering a handicap in the US there are about 3.9 million male golfers at my index or lower.

This is a good news/bad news scenario.  On the positive side, half way through my first year of actually playing full rounds with a full set of clubs I have gotten down to a level that 1 out of 6 golfers reaches.  I know I had practiced the short game for more than a year before really starting rounds and that helped a ton, but the full-set rounds have only been since December 29.  On the negative side, there are still 3.9 million men who are between me and the goal of earning a PGA Tour card.  I’m not daunted by this, just looking forward to future improvements and whittling that number down to a more manageable chunk.  The day that I break through the 4 handicap level there will be approximately 5 percent of golfers on my plain.  Getting down to a 1 handicap will put me along the side of 1.25 percent of golfers.  These are exciting numbers to shoot for and look forward too.  For the time being, I’m happy to have equaled the level of the better 3.9 million golfers in the US.

This number-thinking has me wondering how someone like me would stand up in a competition like the US Open going on right now.  I’ve always thought it would make professional sports more interesting if you had an average person out there competing with the pros.  Put your typical “swimmer for exercise on the weekends” guy in the lane next to Michael Phelps in the Olympics or my (or anyone’s) brother versus Lebron in a one-on-one basketball match.  These kinds of additions to competition would make it clearer how amazing the pros really are.  In the same way, having someone like me play Olympic during the actual US Open with a huge crowd and all of the distractions the players have to deal with would highlight just how tough these courses are.  Take a 7.4 handicapper who shoots around 80 on local courses and drop him into this.  Would he/I be able to shoot mid-80s?  Or better?  Perhaps the pressure would cause a 100+ meltdown.  Hard to say, but it would be entertaining and paint a clearer picture of just how difficult these courses are and how good these guys are.

It’s probably not going to happen, but if there is a US Open contingent reading this blog, I officially volunteer to be the “average Dan” volunteer to play in next year’s Open.  :)

But, don’t get me wrong, I have played a lot of rounds for score over the past 3 months, just in different ways.  About half of the rounds that were played in that time were matches against much more experienced golfers than I and there have been things riding on the round from a couple bucks to lunches or sleeves of balls.  Playing with consequences is extremely important for learning how to focus and to get over bad shots.  Any time I am playing these rounds I will also determine beforehand if it’s an on-course practice round (important to have rounds where you drop multiple balls from different locations and to learn shots) or a scoring round.

Starting next week I will try and play at least two rounds a week specifically for score to see what happens with the handicap from now on.  I really appreciate all of the comments about this from back when I took a short hiatus from this.  I had wanted to only record tournament rounds to establish a tournament handicap, but they are too few at this point, so I need to record regular rounds in order to firmer establish my handicap so I can enter tourneys with a more realistic handicap.

I have been, slowly, reading through Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning still and recommend it for anyone trying to improve in any aspect of life.  It’s a great book and there are so many parallels between his pursuits and the one that I am on.  Currently, I am on the chapter talking about his move from chess to Tai Chi and his insight on the proprioception needed for building martial arts skills is so similar to those I am trying to build for the golf swing.  (He was an eight-time national chess champion as a child and then after getting overwhelmed by press after the movie of his childhood came out “Searching for Bobby Fischer” he lost focus on chess and found himself learning hand-to-hand combat in Tai Chi, which he took to the highest level, winning several World Championship titles.)  He speaks of generating power from the ground and slowly learning how to shift power through the body.   Eventually, he learns how to shorten his movements while generating the same amount of power.  The same is true in golf.  At first, I would take the largest swing possible when I wanted to hit the ball far.  Now, my swing feels like 75 percent, but I have been gaining distances with all of the clubs.  Golf is such a game of opposites.  What feels like less is often more and the secret is to generate effortless power, allowing the club face to propel through the ball without over-swinging.  It’s truly an art form and one that takes years to develop.

No matter what, hitting the ball in the center of the club face is still the most important aspect of striking the ball

The CBS story was pretty solid yesterday.  Thank you all for watching it.  I will post a link soon in case you missed it.  There is one currently posted on The Dan Plan’s Facebook account:  facebook.com/thedanplangolf.  Tomorrow I will be speaking on NPR at some point.  Not sure when, but I will try and post that as soon as possible, too.  If you enjoy the story and have been following along, please check out the donations page.  I feel bad about asking or pandering for funds, but there are no sponsors and The Dan Plan is, at it’s heart, a community supported project.  I apologize for asking, but have to mention it every once in a while.

Time to get to the course.  It has been sunny here in Portland for the past week and there’s nothing better than taking advantage of the rare sunny Spring days in the Pacific Northwest.

Have a great weekend!

I was a bit surprised that it was that low, but the more I thought about it, that number felt about right for this moment in time.  When my handicap was 11-12 I honestly felt that I was better than that and whenever I played people who gave me strokes I felt like it was unfair to get so many.  (On a side note, I cannot wait until I am the one giving out strokes, It just doesn’t ever feel right to be getting strokes on holes, no matter how good the opponent is.)  Single digits feels better and I know that when things get aligned right I can be pushing rounds lower and getting down to some really good levels.  I’m looking forward to seeing the type of golf that I’ll be playing come high summer this year.  But…  That’s not an expectation.  I’ve learned my lesson so many times.  I am going to put in the work and hope to see some good ball strikes, but I will try my best to play one shot at a time and leave the expectations at the door.  Can’t a man just hope for the best without calling it an expectation?

I have an all-afternoon lesson planned for tomorrow and then fly back to Atlanta on Saturday.  Once I get back out to Cartersville for a full day of practice on Sunday I will have hit the 2,500 hour mark on The Dan Plan.  I think being at an 8.7 seems about right for the amount of time that I have put in to date.  It will be the next 2,500 hours that really tells a story, though.  The previous one was mostly about getting myself oriented to the different clubs and learning ball striking, putting and chipping.  For the next 2,500 hours I plan on tuning in swings and learning more about how to score as well as begin the voyage of competitive golf.  That voyage will hopefully start sooner than later as I’m looking for tournaments to enter as early as this March.  If anyone knows a good place to register for amateur tournaments in Atlanta or Portland please let me know.

It’s been a great little trip to Portland.  Had Valentine’s with the lady, met with Nike, got interviewed by Golf Magazine then had a full day photo shoot with Angus from Golf Mag.  Even managed to squeeze in some practice hours and learn a thing or two about my swing and how to play in changing weather conditions.  Now it’s back to sunny Atlanta to knock it around for a bit before making the cross-country drive back to Portland in late March.