Confession.

I have to confess.  I’m not very proud of it, but I broke down yesterday and hit the driver.  I was trying to wait until Sunday for the first official driver lesson, but after having the long stick in my car for the past 3 months the temptation was just too great for me and I needed to hit the darn thing.

The good news?  I had a guy shoot a video of my first swing.  Actually, I’m not exactly sure if this counts as good news, but it’s something.  Here’s a clip of my first ever driver swing:

It felt so good that I had to hit another.  And then another.  And then I was re-addicted to golf.  Talk about ways to get the excitement back into the training routine!  This thing is awesome and from my experience so far I would say that hitting the ball down the middle of the fairway with a driver is on par with sinking a 40 foot birdie putt.

So, after 5 practice swings I decided the best way to learn was to take it to the course.  A few guys I play with on occasion were at Heron Lakes so I went over and entered a little match play competition with them.  I wasn’t too sure what would happen with the driver, but figured worst case scenario I could always revert to the 3-hybrid.  Right off the bat I sliced my first drive way left (I’m a lefty) into the trees and it took about 5 minutes to find.  But, once we found it the ball was pretty far along it’s way and I miraculously had a clear shot at the fairway for the first hole par 5.

On the second hole I caught the ball clean and carried it 240 down the center of the fairway.  At this point, I know I’m not near the distance I eventually need to be, but please remember that this was literally the 7th time I ever hit a driver and distance will come with mechanics and strength training over time.  From my drive, I was only 110 to the pin, but caught a 52 degree wedge a bit fat so had to chip up then missed the 6 foot downhill putt for a bogey.

Third was a par 3, then on the fourth I blasted a driver well out but it sliced into the water on the left.  Instead of taking a drop where it crossed the red hazard I just wanted to hit another drive.  I took the penalty stroke and hit three down the middle to the 150 marker.  From there an errant 4th shot placed me in the trees where I had to get on and two putt for a triple bogey 7.

After that I was determined to not make any more large mistakes and started honing in my drives and my irons.  The remainder of the holes on the front were:  bogey, bogey, par, par, bogey for an 8 over 44.

The back was a different story.  I was getting the hang of the long stick and even though I was still catching it with the face a hair open my balls were falling on the left side of the fairways, or a bit beyond the fairway on a few occasions.  It wasn’t always the prettiest place to end up, though, and I had to scramble to get out of some trickier situations.  Also, I didn’t drop any birdie putts, but I only had two bogeys on the side for a 2 over 38.  So, in total I shot my best round to date of an 82.  this was good enough for our team to win the four man match play.  Just glad I could contribute.

This was definitely better that I had expected and I’m very happy with the performance.  I didn’t top a single ball or hit the ground before the ball, and my errors were high slices, but when I got the club around well I hit a decent slight draw that carried 235-250.  It was 48 degrees out and my golf balls were pretty frozen, so I’m definitely not too worried about the distance, yet.  Not exactly Bubba Watson hitting the thing, though..

O what a great new world!

Here’s the new guy getting ready for work: