Frustration..

Hello again. It's been a couple of weeks since my previous blog. I was writing more or less every day so thought I should spread them a bit so I've got more to write about.
So, what's the situation?

Well, the news isn't that great to be honest. In fact, it's been very frustrating. I have been having very good sessions on the range and just not being able to take it to the golf course. For some reason, I just feel extremely uncomfortable on my backswing and this bleeds into my downswing which makes my bad shots feel horrendous. But then i'll get to the next shot make a slightly better backswing and hit an awesome shot!! I need to get to the bottom of this. If I feel good at the top, I hit good shots. That's all there is to it. I went to the range tonight to experiment and see if I could find some kind of means of making things more comfortable. More on that later...

Last week I finally got off my backside and went to do some work on my pitching. This was a lot of fun and has certainly given me a basis to work from. I really wanted to spend some time on Waterhall or Hollingbury to test this for real but the weather has been rubbish the last 2 weeks.
I worked on my half and three-quarter swings with my gap and sand wedge. Here's my yardages so far:

GAP WEDGE
1/2 swing - 50 yards
3/4 swing - 70 yards

SAND WEDGE
1/2 swing - 44 yards
3/4 swing - 56 yards

These yardages are very basic and as I say I need the opportunity to work with and adjust these on the golf course. At least I have rough ideas now. I have been pitching more with my sand wedge lately and building my confidence.

My last 2 wednesdays at Hollingbury have been inconsistent. Last week I shot 82 and 79 (+17) in some severe gales in which I made 24 pars over the day and no birdies and then yesterday I shot 76 and 75 (+7). I can't make up my mind about yesterday. The conditions were tough and I did not play well. Thinking back over the day, I hit so many poor shots and made lots of sloppy mistakes. Yet, I shot 10 shots better than last week. I guess I have to take heart from knowing I can scramble. For some reason, the more reliant and more pressure that is placed on my short game, the better it is. The figures are still poor in terms of the quantity of up and downs I am making but I am throwing in 3 putts as well!! My game feels really poor at the moment but my scores are possibly reflecting better than this. That's a good sign as it tells me that as soon as I get to grips with my swing feels so uncomfortable surely I am gonna start shooting some low numbers. I'm trying to be patient but it's so hard. My temporament has always been questionable but recently it has not been good at all. I absolutely hate this side of myself and wish I knew how to deal with things better. There is no magic formula, I guess it comes down to self control and perspective. I need to work on this.

So, the range today. How did it go?? Well it started poorly but ended quite well. I hit balls in front of a mirror but this told me nothing. It looked nothing like it felt so I decided that I would avoid looking in the mirror and concentrate on feelings.
I made some slow backswings to try and get to the bottom of things - to try and see if anything felt good, bad, uncomfortable etc. I wondered if i've actually been rotating my club face shut on my backswing. This was possible and could explain why I hit so many violent lefty shots at times and also pushes when I try to fight it.
In the JH book it talks about rotating the forearms from the halfway back position to the top of the backswing as a necessary means of completing the backswing on plane even though theoretically this gets the clubface open. As someone who is prone to pushes, any movement to get my clubface open has always scared me. Maybe this is why my fault is what it is. Anyways, I thought ok, lets give this a go. One thing, actually two things I will say about this are that one: it felt strange but far more comfortable at the top and two: my downswing felt easier to make and I actually ripped a few nice and high! It was exciting but I find it so hard to trust this move. I know that any conscious move on my part to square up on the downswing leads to disaster but it seems to happen pretty much automatically anyway. I can only assume that the backswing facilitates these good moves on the downswing. Either way, as I say it feels much more comfortable so I think I may stick with it and see how it goes. It's going to take a lot of practise for me to trust it on the course though. Let's see.......