High Summer

This week was pretty fun, I won’t lie.  My game was back on as my head cleared out from allergy medicine and another writer, Joel Stein, came for a visit.

I was surprised by how much a bit of pseudoephedrine and Claritin can affect your game, but difference between my performance last week and this week was astounding.  The allergies started to ease Monday so I stopped taking any type of medicine and was almost instantly back to my normal golfing self.  The past week was a good experience, though, because as Allison Hanna (former LPGA player) pointed out, you have to be able to play in ANY condition.  You travel from city to city with different pollens and altitudes and weather patterns and greens conditions, etc and if a bit of allergy medicine throws off your game you are going to be in dire straights at some point or another while playing competitive golf.  In this sense, I’m glad that I had the experience and do honestly know more about how my body reacts while in the condition it was in last week.  It’s one for the log books that I can look back on years from now and know more about what is happening with me bio-mechanically.

This week, though, it was back on.  Beginning Monday my game was going much better; I was sticking more greens and making the putts that I knew I could make.  I felt better about life in general and was enjoying practice more.  I also got to spend some time with Joel who was in town writing a piece for Business Week (no clue when it will run).  He had NEVER golfed before, so I had the honor of trying to teach a complete newbie the game.  Here’s a shot of him hitting a driver later in the day on the driving range out at Heron.  I was a bit jealous that he got to hit a driver, but then again, he was just out there to have fun and that day will come for me too:

Not too bad of form for someone on their first attempt.

This week also brought a couple nine-hole rounds to the table.  On one day I went out with Country Club and a mutual friend James.  We played the Great Blue course and outside of two horrible triple bogies (from the red tees with the 8-iron) I felt I played much better than of late.  Here’s James teeing off on the par-3 fourth hole:

It was a mixed day where almost every other shot was, in my mind, great.  Off and on, off and on.  But, I’ll take that over an off and off style day.  I’m slowly figuring out consistent mechanics and hope to have this 8-iron swing in the arsenal soon.

That about sums up the week.  Much better than the past couple and now am excited about the next few coming up.  Time to get those 140 yard scores down below par so I can pick up a 6-iron!  For now, off on a hike in the Columbia river gorge on this beautiful Saturday.