yea but my right hand gets really sweaty, not so much my left. I'll guess I'll get a LH glove and see if it changes anything. Probably my grip will be improved nevertheless.

Your right hand gets sweaty, that means your left also prob. will to b/c right hand goes over left.

Belive me LH glove will be the key..

will buy one this week...any recommendations?

Go to the shop and try em on as each is cut differently. EG, FootJoy gloves fit my hand very well. Nike and Srixon do not.

48-52-100 on Snow Mountain. Really played well except for a 3-hole stretch on the front where I forgot how to swing, and the 17th, where I took a freaking 10. Ugh. Playing much better in general though. I think I can be shooting between 93-100 consistently by the end of the year.

Wow, heh, that is remarkable.

Played Whirlwind - Devil's Claw yesterday, a Troon Golf managed property that is part of a casino/resort on the Indian rez south of town. Shot just a really terrible 81 from the back tees, I was intoxicated enough but couldn't make decent swings to save my ass. Also struck out with both cart girls, the first one was too young for me, but the second one was 28 and hot and wanted no part of my sweat-dripping ass.

So one of the opponents had a putt of about three feet on 18, he is a 2 HDCP like me and ended up shooting a 74. His teammate said to him "you make this, we win". Because we were playing second ball breaks ties I decided to pull out the Caddyshack line "don't worry, if you miss it, you lose". He completely whiffed the putt and what would have been about a $30 loss ended up being a push. I don't feel bad.

I played the other course at Whirlwind a couple times when I was living in Chandler. Had just opened the new one when I left. The old one is where the Nationwide tour guys would shoot 30 under every year so they moved to the newer and tougher course. Now they only shoot like 25 under right? Lol. Have you played both tuq? How much tougher is the newer course?

westy,

Man it's really a coinflip for me. I noticed the rating and slope are slightly higher for Cattail, but I tend to play better on that course. I'd say I've probably played each 1/2 dozen times and tend to fare well on both. This is probably my highest score to date, just couldn't get it going.

Layout-wise I definitely prefer the newer one (Cattail). But it's like choosing Pacific Dunes over Bandon Dunes because both courses are excellent. But Cattail has more unique holes and risk/reward opportunities. Devil's Claw is a lot of back-forth in the way it's laid out. Thinking about it, really only 1, 5, 10, 17 and 18 play north-south so it can get kind of redundant.

I went to the inaugural Nationwide event there in 2001. Some guy above the cut line fanned his drive on 18. My father and I saw it go into the crap and went out there to help him. He just gave us a muted "thanks" and punched it out into the fairway. He didn't care nearly as much as we did, he just wanted to get the round over so he could go home.

Clark,

Your last two rounds seem to reveal a great deal of improvement. What's the secret?

-McGee

Thanks!

I think a few things

1. I've been playing a lot. This helps. Prior to this year the most I'd played in the previous 10 years was 4x, and I avereged like 2x. Part of this is just to get me out of the house more and just be a little more active. Pure repetition is helping me gain consistency.

2. My chipping touch from 40 yards and in has finally come back and I'm leaving much more managable putting situations, which is big because I suxor at putting.

3. I'm thinking my way around the course better. Making sure to miss in good spots and take risks out of play when there's marginal/negiligible upside on the more difficult "better" shot. Playing long par 4's like par 5's for example. Fat side of greens with collection areas instead of at pins with traps.

My biggest problem is that I'm tinkering with different swing things and it messes me up sometimes. I need to pick a thing or two and stick with it. I'm guessing I'll be pretty inconsistent for a bit yet, but it's coming around the last 3 rounds.

Nice observations.

I think the second one is especially important.My low rounds this year are split among days when I'm hitting the ball well and days when I'm not. On those latter days, I still score well (for me) because I leave myself with makeable putts. The problem is that it can take me three or four shots to get to the green on those days. And, of course, I can't seem to combine a good ball-striking day with a good chipping day.

Your third point is also interesting. I played one course this year with really small greens, and it took me most of the round I to realize that I was killing myself by leaving my ball off the green to the short side. The next time I played that course, I took a more conservative approach and improved my score by four shots despite not hitting the ball markedly better. I saved at least that many shots around the green by giving myself easier chips.

-McGee

35 (par 35). Best nine of the year. Not the hardest setup - only a little over 3000 yards.

Only missed one fairway and that was on a short par 5 that I lay up on 95% of the time anyway. Failed to get up and down twice (should have made one of them), made two birdies (10' and 1') and missed another one from about four feet.

Some days everything just feels right. Love those days.

just bought a taylormade golf glove today for my left hand...we'll try it out this weekend

One other thing I just thought of. I'm playing courses with fast greens and I have trouble stopping the ball. I've been playing any shot longer than 130 yards to the frontish part of the green as opposed to the pin. This allows the balls to run to the pin, and I also end up clubbing down by one or even two clubs, which helps increase my accuracy and consistency, and also takes trouble out of play sometimes.

Brag 1: Played here on Sunday, for free (dad works there)

Brag 2: Shot -1 on back nine, nine-hole record for me

had a great outing at the range today...only hit about 50 balls or so. I did that drill someone was talking about, hitting 3-wood (I don't use a driver) off tee, then 6 iron, pw, etc...so it simulates an actual hole progression. also invested in an expensive new odyssey mallet putter but back to hitting, the glove actually did improve my grip a lot

some chipping practice friday and I should be good to go for this sat's round

oh yea, the range was allowing grass hits today while they sandblasted the concrete...so had some real iron practice and took some nice divots.

Shot 77 at Soule Park in Ojai, CA.

I shot a 42 last night, which is my best 9 ever - and I tied my brother for the first time. I parred the last hole, he bogeyed it. Not a win yet, but getting there. The pro was great, he knows I've been trying to beat him all year, so he bought me a Coke.

So, my last 3 rounds were my 3 best of the year, 105-100-100. Got a new driver and 3w (I hit irons off the tee) and practiced with them. 3w ok, driver no good yet, but that's ok. 1hr on the practice tee before todays round, almost no bad shots. Good first shot off the tee.

and that was it.

61-61-122 disaster.

I'm a pretty firm believer in the "good warmup session = crappy round" theory. Not that I talk myself into that, it just seems to happen. Plus most of my best rounds have been after little, no, or bad warmup for some reason. I am a headcase on the course but not in this instance.

Another terrible goddamned round today, 84 at Whirlwind Devil's Claw, following an 81 there last week. Almost no wind, I started off +5 after three, which is just atrocious for a <2 handicap, and just flailed at the ball the rest of the day. Luckily, only lost $30 and a guy bought me a couple of beers since he was the big winner of our 12-man outing.

Went out with Entity, GoT and stabn. 2nd lifetime round ever. I'd done some work at the range the day before, but was still basically topping everything and bowling around the course.

My scorecard looked something like x 10 9 7 5 7 9 8 12 10 F U C K Y O U.

I did however, sink a 45 foot putt for a 5 on a par 4.

Dids,

It's pretty sweet IMO that your scores on the last seven holes actually spelled out a cuss word. That's something you can tell your grandchildren!

GoT and stabn had action par all par 3's, two par 4's, and a long drive. I was getting my ass handed to me when the follow hole happened:

Back 9, first of back to back par 3's. GoT is obviously up first and hits to about 20' from the pin on the right side. He then turns around while we watch his ball roll to what looks like 2' from the pin but turns out to be 6' when we get up there.

Stabn answers with his only GIR of the day that hit 8' from the pin and sat. My only birdie putt of the year so far (although i've only been out three times) went about 5' but my only par of the year was good enough to take the monies over GoT's birdie because i'm such a fish i'm getting 1.5 strokes on par 3's.

The next hole won't be talked about.

Imagine how much pain and misery we could save ourselves if we just didn't make that one good shot.

Playing in an event with a partner this weekend. Yesterday was 9 holes of alternate shot (both hit drives) and 9 holes of scramble.

We're both about 12s, so +2 on the alternate shot was pretty good. I missed a 4 footer and made a terrible lag putt to cost us the two strokes.

The scramble portion was brutal. We had three holes where our best option was a shot out of the bunker. Only got up and down once, end result +3.

Today is best ball day, need to play better!