Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

Pali Golf Course, Oahu, Hawaii - Rating 70.4, Slope 126 - November 11, 2005 - Conditions: Wet and Rainy

How to Read the scorecard:
Everything is pretty much self explanatory except the score. What I do is keep track of a few different things on my card so I know what I have to improve on and where I am doing things right. The first number in the upper left is fairways hit. This is any par 4 or 5 and gets a 1 if I hit the

fairway and a 0 if I don’t. On par 3’s this would be left blank. Next in the upper right is shots to get on. Then in the middle is the score. Finally in the lower right is the number of putts. (Note: If you add the two right scores you should end up with the middle score)

Well, what a nice round number to start with 100. Conditions at the Pali Golf Course were as usual, wet and raining or just rained. The Golf Course is located just over the Pali Hwy in the mountains on the Island of Oahu. The course was soaked but that is no excuse for a 100, although I am not too disappointed. I only hit 6 fairways, 2 greens in regulation, and had 2 pars. I also 3 putted 7 times and hit the ball out of bounds once. The course is fairly forgiving and I was able to find all but one of the errant balls.

The course layout is fairly hilly, however the hills are more gradual than choppy. I consider a “choppy hill” course to be one that you have to play a lot of lay-ups and hit over raveens. I would call this is a decent challange to work on your golf game. If you recall I am trying to become a scratch golfer and using Paul Wilson’s Swing Machine Golf. I will be explicity using the methods in this book for my swing mechanics and therefor will be providing tips and swing corrections (like a slice) based on this book.

Things to work on:

Takeaway - need to make sure I don’t move my lower body until the club is pointed straight back parallel to my shot line. Until this point only my shoulders must be taking the club back. If I don’t I find this causes me to reverse pivot which is using my left leg as the rotation axis where on the takeaway it should be my right. I should also be taking the club back with only my left arm, the right is just along for the ride.

Loose Grip - my grip tends to tighten down just before I reach the top of my back swing. This can cause all types of problems but for me on this day it was causing me to hit left a lot and pull the ball. In the book Swing Machine Golf Pual Wilson says to keep your grip a 2 out of 10 where 10 is the tightest. I must remember to stay loose.

There were of course other things but these were the most important. Stay loose and no reverse pivot. The picture on my first post shows a really bad reverse pivot. Check it out, it shows what not to do.

Until next time, work on your takeaway and be loose.