Shorts for the course

(A forewarning: talking about the weather is what happens when you blog before coffee on your day off):

I am heading to Atlanta on Tuesday to watch some of the PGA Championship.   A little known fact about me:  I rarely, at most, wear shorts.  Not sure why this is, but I’m just not a big shorts wearer unless I’m exercising or swimming.  In Portland, this is typically not a problem as it never get much hotter than mid-80s here.  Also, you can’t wear shorts on the PGA Tour, so I figure you might as well train in pants.

Atlanta is a different story.   I grew up there and know what August can be like.  Looking at the forecast, this week should be in the low 90s with high humidity, which is pretty typical for that area and this time of year.  It’s almost insultingly hot and definitely offensive.  Perhaps people who are acclimated to this style of living would disagree, but I’m quite happy with mid 70s and some clouds.

Long story short, I had to go and buy a pair of shorts for this trip.  The cat is out of the bag.

This is perhaps the least interesting blog topic on the entire web, and for that I apologize.

The truth is, everything has been going pretty smoothly over the past month and instead of chit-chatting about clothing choices, I should be heading to the course.  I’ve started working hard on bunker shots and think that I (with the help of CS) figured out a thing or two.  Mainly: never forget the importance of standing tall.  If I keep my base solid and then don’t dip my follow-through shoulder my success rate is much higher.  When I get lazy and my left shoulder dips during the swing, the club head bottoms out way before the ball.  For me, this translates in a lot of ways to chips and pitches.  “Stay strong” is my current swing thought on those shots.

I had another realization yesterday that could help every aspect of my game.  Practice swinging blindfolded.  I realized that if you envision your shot, line up over the ball and then close your eyes and swing you can get a better understanding of the bio-mechanics involved with your swing.  Vision is such a dominant sense and by shutting this off you can heighten your proprioception of physical movement.  You are forced to feel your swing and can start sensing how your weight is shifting during it without being distracted by visual cues.  I took my neighbor to the driving range late last night and had him try this for a few swings.  At first he was a bit hesitant, but gave it a shot and all three balls he hit (they were the last three we had in the bucket) went straight and almost to the exact same place.  He had not been to a range in years and his consistency is not exactly perfect, so it was interesting to see how he hit better blindfolded.  It’s something to add to the practice routine.

Time to head to the course.  Here’s a pic of Glacier National Park: