Eagle!!

Played a casual round with a buddy yesterday and I scored another eagle. Holed with a pw from about 90m out. I wont mention how the rest of the game went :)

I'm also about to join a private club called Hartfield (where my dad plays). There are several reasons for this decision:

• I can pick my tee off times. I currently have to turn up at 10am and don't get home until 6pm. This gives me no time to spend with the wife


• The greens at Hartfield are excellent to putt on. The putts roll true, unlike the bumpy greens I play on.


• Hartfield is long. I had to hit quite a few hybrids and long irons into the greens.


• It's a harder course... hopefully this will make me a better golfer


• I get an official handicap.


• The wife approves :)

Amazing Round

Well I played in the Monthly Medal round this week and my game was at another level. I sometimes go though 3 or 4 stretches of good holes where I can get a run of par's, but I sustained this level for most of the round. I played the front 9 in +1 with 8 pars. My only bogey came on a 180m par 3. Unfortunately I played the back 9 in +8, with seven of those shots occurring on two par 3's. Two bad swings really cost me, and I didn't recover too well from those shots. I did bounce back from the two bad holes nicely with a par and a birdie.

My 68 was good enough for a 3rd place. The first place medal was easily within reach... :(

The new driver was again brilliant, I hit plenty of fairways and I don't remember hitting so many wedges into greens. The rest of my game felt pretty solid too.

Some stats:

• Par 3's: +9 (ouch!)


• Par 4's: -1


• Par 5's: +1


• Fairways: 11 / 13 (84%)


• GIR: 9 / 18 (50%)


• Putts: 32

All in all it was a good day out. I've had a taste of what it's like to almost play par golf.... and I like it. Hopefully I can keep up the good play.

Shot selection...

Thinking about the last game I played, I've realised that I hit 9 bunkers that day. It's way too much and some of those bunkers could have been easily avoided by better club selection.

I think I need to try and maybe hit 3W off some tees and lay up on some par 5's the next time I head out.

I'm sick of raking bunkers!

FT-3 In Play

Finally got to put the FT-3 into competition play today and boy was it impressive. My first drive of the day was a 260m hit straight down the fairway. +8 on the front 9 put a lot of pressure on the back for me to shoot my hc. But I was on target by only being +10 after 16 holes .... what happened next can only be described as a "Van de Velt" like collapse. I played the final 2 holes in +6 (double bogey and quadruple bogey). Walked off the last hole feeling pretty empty and stunned at what happened. I think parring the last two would have got me 2nd place in the comp.

As for how the driver performed..... brilliant! I'm starting to get some solid shots in and they are going 250 - 260 m. I'm hitting to spots on the course where I don't normally reach and find myself hitting more wedges into greens.

Now if only I could learn to chip and putt, I might be able to get my hc heading in the right direction. :)

FT-3 Review

Well I got hold of my FT-3 earlier this week. From the time of purchase on thursday night, it only took 4 days to arrive. FedEx... you rock!

I took it down to the driving range to compare it with my Hawkeye VFT. Both clubs were 9' regular shafts.

The first thing I noticed with the FT3 was the sound .... not a 'ting' sound like other titanium drivers but more like the sound you might get if you struck a ball with a can of coke ... !? It's a little bizzare but I'm getting used to it. The look of it at address isn't too bad compared with some other 460cc drivers, the head is big but doesn't look monstrous.

I got the draw weighted driver and it did produce nice baby draws with the ball flight, but I didn't get as much roll as I expected. It is still possible to hit ugly slices and duck hooks but I feel like the club is still more forgiving than the Hawkeye. I could still hit small fades with a weaker grip, good to know that I'm not stuck with a draw.

In terms of distance... it's hard to tell but I believe on average the FT3 is probably longer than the Hawkeye. My longest drives still seem to come from my older driver and draws with the Hawkeye seem to have much more roll.

I still haven't used the FT3 on the course but hopefully I'll get a round in this coming weekend.

New Toy on it's way

My wife and I headed out to the GolfBox annual carpark sale. It's quite a hyped event and I was hoping to snag myself a cheap Callaway FT-3 or FT-5. Well there was one 10' FT-3 available at the right price, but it was a soft flex shaft... not quite suited to me. And the FT-5 drivers were all around $600... boo :(

Wifey was a little disappointed with me not getting a club and urged me to try online ...... yeah I'm one lucky guy :)

So after trawling eBay and finding nothing, I came across http://callawaygolfpreowned.com/. About 30mins later, I've got this baby coming in....

Putting Routine

I've been struggling with my medium to long putts for the last few rounds. The main problem being my length. I've been putting on a good line but I've been leaving the ball very short of the cup. But a quick 9 holes on Saturday arvo had given me renewed confidence.

I think that I got too fixated with getting the right line that I've forgotten about trying to get a feel for the length. Now I setup and get aligned first, then just focus on the cup to get a feel for the distance.... and it worked with no 3 putts for my 9 holes.

Looking forward to my next full round :)

Broken Sunglasses

I broke my sunglasses at the end of my last round while pulling them off my hat. One arm somehow got caught and was pulled apart from the frame. It was pretty distressing because they were my beloved Oakley O Frames which have served me well on the course over the last few years.

Looking for a replacement pair on the interweb yielded no love. They are no longer made by Oakley, nor is anyone selling them on eBay. :(

But now I've got this baby on order....

HALF JACKET® XLJ


No guarantees on how much it will help my golf game... but at least I'll look good hacking through the rough.

Madness

I played a round of golf in scorching 37 degrees today .... and so did a lot of other people.

We all must be completely bonkers mad!

I have a suspicion that most of us would probably do it again next week if we had the chance :)

Nothing spectacular out of me today... just shot to my 12 handicap.