Coming along

My game is starting to come along - had so much fun playing with my dad and two friends on Friday - shot an 85, my dad shot an 82 - his best that I've ever seen.

I will admit that at the start of the day, at the range, I was applying Slicefixer's method - however I was thinning the ball all over the place - so I figured I would go back to IGS and I'm glad I did for that day. I did apply SF's method when driving the ball and missed about two fairways all day - really solid driving day.

My putting was on key as well - using the 'topspin' blade method (where you try to put topspin on the ball), this keeps the ball on line much longer than the regular way and I feel very controlled when doing this.

Had my first birdie of the year on a Par 5 that always seems to get me. 517-yard Par 5, drive down the middle, second shot 3-wood baby slice to the right rough. Branch hanging over my aim, only 120 yards away - easy pitching wedge to 5 feet; right to lefter - dunked it.

I also had a great birdie chance on the hardest Par 3 I have always played. It is a 175-yard par 3, that has water on the right in front of the green - with bunker on the left - basically my bailout is to the left. Yesterday I hit a pure 5-iron and the ball drew to the edge of the green (I thought water for a second) and the ball landed about 8 feet from the pin. I misread the putt though - but a par on that hole is like a birdie.

My misses were mainly blow up holes. Had one on #5 in which my drive went way left - behind a tree, tried a nice and easy punch hook-out with the 5-iron, shanked it off the toe and skipped into the woods. The next shot was an attempt for another punch hook-out with the 7-iron this time, but I pulled it at impact and the ball slammed dead into a tree and came back at me with force. 4th shot was from the woods - bout 125-yards out, high pitching wedge came up 10-feet short of the pin, edged the hole lipped-out, chalked up a 7.

So it's safe to say I need to work on punch outs.

I'm starting to feel very good about this IGS swing - might need to re-watch some of the videos, all i know is that it is full of great information and my handicap is going to plummet very soon.

By the way - my handicap is now an 11.3 - at the end of last year it was a 14. I'm hoping to play a couple different courses than just 4 or 5, hopefully money won't be a problem.