Getting it Back

I wasn’t really sure how much I would “lose”, if anything, from taking a week off.  Getting back into the groove, I realized that I didn’t exactly lose anything, but it has taken quite a few holes to find all of my swings again.

The first round back, I shot an 80 with a lack of touch around the green keeping me from scoring lower.  I thought that was a good sign and that I was going to jump right back into the saddle, but the next round produced a much higher score and it seemed that everything was just slightly off.  Towards the end I started having little realizations and began to remember my internal swing cues, but it was not until I played 45 holes one day and 27 the next that I really got my mojo back.

The 45 hole day began with a round with the nephew of Peter Jacobsen, Matt.  He’s a solid golfer who played in college and has a consistent scratch game.  We teed it in the morning and my round was not pretty.  My drives were in the trees and iron shots were consistently off the greens.  Putts were coming up short and long and chips were not hitting their marks.  But, by the end of the round I realized I had been forgetting my iron swing cues and started to bring those back in and on line.

During the second 18 that day, the irons were starting to come back alive, but everything else was rusty and off.  After about 12 holes, I had an a-ha moment with my putting stroke and chips and those began getting tighter.  Things were starting to come together, albeit slowly.  There was still the issue with the tee shots and that stuck around for both this second 18 and for the next 9 I played that day.  Still, I shot an 81 on the 18, which was much improved over the morning round.

With 45 holes in the bag, I got to the course early the next day to see if I could figure some things out with my tee shots.  I decided to work with them on the course rather than on the range, because you can adjust on the range and it’s just not the same as having to play and adjust for each shot as you get to them on the course.  So, played a game with some regular guys and had the worst driving round of my career.  I was, for the first time, hooking the ball on every tee shot no matter what club I was using.  I’ve always had an error of a push fade, so it was surprising to hook it all of a sudden.  I didn’t figure it out during the round and ended up shooting 85, but went out for another nine and remembered what I was working on before the week off.  I changed my grip slightly towards a weaker one and began hitting fairways.  The last nine was from the tips and I shot an easy two-over 38.  Much better.

It took 72 holes over two days to get close to where I was, which is not nearly as long as I thought it might take after seven days of no golf.  I have a lot of work to do today and tomorrow, but feel at ease and confident that I will be ready for the tournament starting next Tuesday.