Well, believe it or not there seems to still be a little something left in the tank despite my infrequent play as of late.

Five bogeys, one birdie, nice round of 76 today.

Hit all of 15 balls at the warmup range, rushed to the putting green and rolled about 10 putts, then off to the first tee. It was an absolute sauna out there today, was completely drenched an hour into play. Shot +1 going out, then lost my energy midway through the back-nine and carded a few careless bogeys. But... found a little something and hit every green the last five holes, somewhat salvaging a pretty decent round for me.

Lost about 4 pounds of water weight, then as soon as I got back into the clubhouse I replenished with a couple or three Moscow Mules. And if you don't know what a Mule from Moscow tastes like - shame on you! Best part of the day! 🙂

    sdandrea1

    Moscow mules rock. Absolutely love them. Three shots of Titos, about 4 ounces of Stoli's ginger beer, a splash of lime juice and garnished with a lime splice in a frozen copper mug with ice.... man - hard to beat that on a hot summer day. 🙂

      sdandrea1

      PS - we gotta hook up this fall. If you're willing to travel about 3.5 hours north, I'll treat you to a great round at Woodstone. I think you'd like it. Come up on a Friday or Saturday, spend the night in my guest bedroom, have a BBQ out on the deck that evening, play golf with a few of my buds on Sunday... it'd be nice.

      If you don't have my email address, let me know. Early Octoberish. I think you'd enjoy the scenery. (We aerate the first or second week in September). Greens should be great the second week of October. Would be great to finally meet you!

          PA-PLAYA PS - we gotta hook up this fall. If you're willing to travel about 3.5 hours north, I'll treat you to a great round at Woodstone. I think you'd like it. Come up on a Friday or Saturday, spend the night in my guest bedroom, have a BBQ out on the deck that evening, play golf with a few of my buds on Sunday... it'd be nice.

          If you don't have my email address, let me know. Early Octoberish. I think you'd enjoy the scenery. (We aerate the first or second week in September). Greens should be great the second week of October. Would be great to finally meet you!

          You're on! We leave for FL for the season about the 3rd week of Oct. I'm retired, so you suggest some weekends and I'll block it out. My band has a gig on Oct 7th so that weekend is out. I need your email address. The weekends of the 14th or 21st would work.

              sdandrea1

              I'll find out the exact aeration schedule and plan accordingly. Hoping we can work it out. Probably looking at the 14th or 15th, or (if weekdays are clear) we can play just about anytime.

                  PA-PLAYA I'll find out the exact aeration schedule and plan accordingly. Hoping we can work it out. Probably looking at the 14th or 15th, or (if weekdays are clear) we can play just about anytime.

                  My weekdays are pretty much always clear!

                      sdandrea1

                      Weekdays are pretty easy to come by for me as well. And... the course is fairly quiet during the week. We're closed on Monday's, but can look at a Tuesday or Wednesday arrangement. The tee time will obviously depend on your intentions as far as whether you'd like to come up the evening prior or want to do a marathon 1-day drive the day of. Or, perhaps, you come up early on like a Tuesday, we get out Tuesday afternoon, then get an early-morning tee time for Wednesday so you can get back home at a reasonable hour and get two rounds in.

                      Let me know what you'd prefer and what your schedule might allow. The membership calendar says greens aerification is scheduled the first week of September. They should be fully recovered by the last week of September, so perhaps 9/27 - 9/28. I'm heading to Florida the first week of October, so getting out the week prior would work best for me.

                          I clanged it around for an 85 yesterday. Had an epiphany that seems to have come to an end. Was concentrating on turning my right hip back behind me and have had excellent ball striking and accuracy for several rounds. As with most epiphanies they don't last forever and the search begins anew.

                          Weirfan
                          For a 71 (almost 72) year old, I guess I'm still playing OK. I average right around 80, playing a blended set of tees on most courses. We don't play par 4's over 380, nor par 5's over 500, nor par 3's over 180. My low score is 77 so far this year, and my high score somewhere in the mid-80's. Fortunately, those high scores have been the exception. I hit lots of fairways, average about 7-8 greens per round, and 33 putts. My putting has ALWAYS been my weakness....I've recently gone "Left hand Low" for under 10 feet, and that seems to have helped a little, but really fast greens scare the shit out of me! My goal is to shoot my age before I hit 80 years old....based on this year, I have a few years to wait!

                            Age 60, handicap has dropped this year to 10-11 based on improved play around and on greens. Still struggle with driver accuracy hence me getting fitted or tweaked swing session this week. Tired of the inconsistency and trying to figure it out myself. If I can make a change equipment or swing wise that a professional fitter/instructor advocates and it works , I can possibly lower my handicap a touch more.

                            My game sucks bananas. Used to be a good iron player while the remainder of my game was not good from lack of practice. Due to kid's activities and the accompanying lack of funds I've only played about 5 rounds in the past six years. Got invited to play nine a couple of weeks ago with friends I used to work with and shot a 47 without being able to get a metal wood off the ground (swaying into them for some reason). All in all, not bad for me given the complete inactivity. Went with them again last week and didn't even bother to total it up. Had a 9 on the par 4 1st and an 8 on the par 5 3rd. Followed that up with a 7 seven on a very short par 3! Got a lot of work to do as I look to ease back into the game at age 54. Good to have actually played twice in a three week period though.

                              johnnydoom My game sucks bananas. Used to be a good iron player while the remainder of my game was not good from lack of practice. Due to kid's activities and the accompanying lack of funds I've only played about 5 rounds in the past six years. Got invited to play nine a couple of weeks ago with friends I used to work with and shot a 47 without being able to get a metal wood off the ground (swayin........

                              This game can be taken up or restarted at any age. One day you'll have more time and if the desire is still there, you can jump back in. Keep your clubs. 😉

                                I had awful day with state of the game . It felt like swinging driver was 12 lb sledgehammer . Pi$ poor contact and late. Everything went way right. Two or three decent shots in whole round . I had a steroid injection on day before in my bad ankle which totally screwed me up . Had shakes , flushed hot sweats, heart rate 115 at rest. Still feeling effects four days out. Ankle didn't hurt much though ? NEVER AGAIN!

                                image http://www.golfbuzz.com/assets/images/150-TkNreGVN1C4rBu39.jpeg

                                Right now it is in so-so shape; a bit of disarray. I made a swing change at the beginning of the year in an attempt to get more consistency with the irons, particularly with direction. Swing changes take time. I was just beginning to see the desired results, or was getting close to when I expected to see the desired results when I screwed up my right knee.

                                The injury led to a lay-off of more than a month. Saturday's round with Jeremy was my first round since July 5th. Iron play was not too bad, though.

                                My real problem this season has been consistency off the tee. Occasionally I have had a good round where I was putting the drives in play and getting decent distance, but I've hit some real stinkers, too. On Saturday I only pulled driver out of the bag once, going with 3-wood the rest of the way except for short par 4s that required shorter shots. Even the 3-wood was not very consistent. A few good shots and then about an even split of weak sliding fades and strong pulls.

                                So, I have some work to do. Last year I was consistently in the low 80s with one round in the high 70s. Right now I'm probably at least 5 shots worse. I didn't keep score on Saturday (just happy to make it around without hurting my knee), but I suspect I was in the very high 80s to low 90s. I had a run of about 3 or 4 pars in a row in the middle of the round. In the past I've avoided "blow-up" holes almost completely, with double bogey being my worst score, and then usually only one per round or so. Saturday I had a couple or maybe 3 doubles and one short par 3 that I completely messed up. (I hope this is attributable to my lay-off and my concern about my knee. I expect to get back to mostly pars and bogeys with a rare double bogey soon.)

                                I also went with a putter I hadn't used in years; putting is usually my strong suit. I feel like I left at least 3 or 4 strokes out on the course because of the putter change (although I was also trying to read greens I'd never played before).

                                I keep a positive attitude, though. I'm sure that my next round will be better than my last one, and I'm definitely not going to wait another month before I play again!

                                This seems to be the year my age finally caught up to me (59). Got down to an 8 a few years ago but inconsistency due to lack of practice time had it climb to a 12. This year I'm noticeably shorter off the tee than years before and no longer hitting last. That hurts a bit. Added another 3 strokes this year and up to a 15 now.

                                Poor iron play and a slight case of the yips (boy I wish I could use my belly putter again).

                                Time to ditch my beloved blades for GI irons and hybrids maybe a higher lofted driver and (horrors) regular flex shafts.

                                Good thing is a still have a head for the game that keeps me coming back. Hopefully some equipment changes might make it fun again.

                                  newrider I putt a lot in the den at my home. The carpet there stimps about the same as the greens at the munis I play, lol. Still, I think putting every day for a few minutes really helps.

                                  For short putt practice, try this: Start with three balls. Place one of them 3 or 4 feet away. Putt a ball and try to hit the ball you placed. Then putt the next one and try to hit it again.

                                  Retrieve two of the balls, leaving one out there and continue. See how many times in a row you can hit the target ball. Since the ball is a much smaller target than a hole, it really helps for concentration. Also, if you hit the target ball straight on over and over again, over time the putt gets slightly shorter or stays about the same, but if you glance the ball the putt gets progressively longer. It's actually kind of fun. Try it at 3 feet and see how you do, then try it at 4 feet and see. I've gotten to 25 in a row at 3 feet. At 4 feet I think my best is about 16.