The end of an era; a slump has officially ended

The title of this blog may be a little over the top, but whenever a prolonged dry spell ends it feels like an entirely new chapter in the project.

This morning I declared that a 6-week-long slump was officially over.  Not knowing what the day held, I had dreamt that good golf was on the horizon and each bone in my body felt that the tides were turning.  It’s often not a good thing to head into a round/practice session with lofty expectations, but something clicked Sunday evening while out on the range and it carried over all day Monday and I know it’s here to stay for at least a while.

Slumps happen to everyone.  Take a peak at Rory or Tiger, the best in the world have not just bad days but they can have bad months and even years.  I’ve no clue why these things happen, but from what I have seen over the past three years life comes in cycles.  You have to work through the bad knowing that things can click at any moment and then really appreciate the good times because the same is true for the highs: they can leave as quickly as they arrived.

Since mid-January my game has been fickle at best.  I’ve been scrambling my butt off to try and score and the driver, hybrids and irons have all been too timing based.  If things were on one day I could play okay, but a lot of the time the club face wasn’t finding square and I was hitting it all over the course.  I had to scramble like a champ to score an 81-81 at Rose City for the tournament and I was making golf way harder than it needs to be on a daily basis.

Over the past few days, though, I had a couple “a-ha” moments where I felt like a deeper understanding of swing mechanics was creeping into my thick skull.  “that’s what it feels like,” I was internally shouting joyfully.  I finally found it, and to my surprise it was right where I had left it: that space between the ears.  This time, too, I’m not going to let it go.  Dr. Bob Bjork told me that every time we re-learn something it ingrains itself deeper into our permanent knowledge.  This realization that I had a couple days ago is something that I have had in the past but for some reason had moved away from it over time.  I wasn’t going to let it slip this time, though.  I went out yesterday and had one swing thought.  Played an entire round with just that thought and shot a fairly easy 77 out at Heron Lakes on the Great Blue course.  I say fairly easy because the greens were punched and not a whole lot of anything actually dropped for bird, just hit a lot of fairways and greens and two-putted most holes.  Standard fare.

I was playing with a Swedish golfer who was visiting Portland on his way down south to play in some web.com events.  He could really move the ball and it was a pleasure to watch him play.  Unfortunately, he was struggling a bit with timing and working through a tee-shot issue with that, but for me it was uplifting to see that golfers of all skill level are in a constant flux state with their swing.  You never completely get it, rather you have certain aspects on short term leases where the repo guys are just around the corner and more than happy to collect if you give them the chance.  You have to appreciate what you have at every moment and never take it for granted.

With that in mind, I knew I had something that was going to work today and was so sure that I declared my self-appointed slump over on the way to the course this morning.  I didn’t set any personal records in my round today, but I was hitting the ball with a whole new degree of consistency and accuracy and really enjoyed the ride.  I shot a 79 from the blues at CECC.  Not great, but two rounds in the 70s in a row was a welcome change from March’s norm.  And, my biggest issue of the day was that I was hitting the ball into the greens with winter conditions in mind, meaning that I was going after the pins but the greens were firm as rocks and the ball was releasing, leaving me with a lot of chips back to the greens.  And, the weather is starting to turn so all the clubs are going about 10 yards further than they were just a week ago.  All good signs for an amazing summer season approaching.

All this added to the fact that I am going to get fit for new sticks on April 25th at Titleist and we have some good things happening.

I’m not going to get too excited as you never know what to expect in this game, but I will enjoy it as it lasts because nothing is permanent in this life.  There is nothing quite like hitting a golf ball pure, especially enough times to build back that lingering confidence.