Point of Relief

Now that I had my clubs and courses planned out, I was ready to take the first swing.

Let me clarify and point out that although I decided against taking lessons (likely a bad decision down the road after I develop horrible habits), I read every free instruction source that I could get my hands on. My 3 favorites were abcofgolf, about.com, and Golf for Dummies (which I found as an e-book).

From my reading, I realized that going straight out for 18 holes would be a bad idea. So instead, I chose to go to the driving range. Good idea right? Too bad I messed it up in practice. Not wanting to "waste" my time, I decided to get the large bucket. This ended up being about 150 balls which resulted in me just swinging carelessly to get through what I paid for and not taking the time to truly practice my swing. Not to mention I was incredibly sore the next day.

This would have all been worth it if I could have perfected my swing, but of course that didn't happen. I did discover that I have a strong consistent hook which gave me something to work on. After a couple of swings, I also discovered my "natural swing". A passage in the book The Legend of Bagger Vance makes the premise that the first time you pick up a club, you discover your "authentic swing," the one you'll have for the rest of your life. You can refine it, improve it, and do things with your equipment, physical conditioning, etc but that swing is stamped into your DNA. My swing involves a far-reaching back swing that likely stems from my days playing baseball in high school. Regardless of where it came from, it just felt right and I started to finally make a connection with the ball and hit consistently.

After a day at the range, I was too exhausted to work on chipping or putting so I decided to head back home. I figured my short game was good enough from what I could remember and what I really needed help on was my driving. Little did I know how wrong I was...