Stroke of misfortune

Again, 3-putts on the last green. Maybe it's pressure, maybe it's tiredness, maybe it's just incompetence. Anyway, it's quite annoying.

But that's not all that's annoying. With my new one-plane swing, I seem now to have re-developed a fade, having for weeks been drawing the ball. It's not a major problem, or a major fade, but it has complicated things, especially as my distances are still all different.

The last round was, however, characterised by inconsistency in all aspects of the game, long and short, including putting. The only thing that helped me with my full swings was the Adam Scott key thought about starting the downswing with everything moving together. Somehow, it helps smooth the swing, takes away some of the technical thoughts, and for me that's important.

Having shanked a couple of chips early in the last round, I had that to contend with as well as the other long game inconsistencies that seemed to emerge. To make matters even worse, I seemed to find a lot of bunkers, maybe as many as seven, which is unusual for me.

So, all of that added up to a very ordinary score, including 36 putts, which is definitely too many at my level. Playing a couple of different courses in the next few weeks, so that is going to be interesting - maybe disastrous - maybe fortunate, we'll see.

Leaving a bad taste

When you three-putt the last green it always leaves a bad taste in the mouth, especially when the round consisted of half a dozen such wasted shots, for a variety of reasons.

But I'm not panicking; I'll stick to my new grips and routines and try to stay patient. A colleague said allowing myself two short putt misses per round was a good idea, but suggested that one per round might be enough. I think that's probably correct. We'll see.

One thing I am doing is getting a new grip on my putter. I'm going for a fairly fat grip, which some people say helps with feeling where the clubface is, and this does make some sense to me. The grip on my putter was actually wearing out, so the new grip was necessary anyway.

Otherwise, I'm hitting the odd bad iron shot, but trying to let the club do the work, successfully most of the time. I am hitting the ball further than usual at times with the irons, necessitating some readjustment to my club selection. When it's windy or wet, this has caused some problems.

Last round, my putting was very ordinary. I had 36 putts, and although I made a couple of tricky 5 footers, I missed my current quota of short ones and holed nothing else. As I said, I probably threw away at least half a dozen shots in various ways. That's golf.

Putting update

Nothing special going on, but good results with short putts lately as I've employed the 'allow two missed short putts per round' strategy. In fact, I've only missed one short putt in the past two rounds.

One other short putt strategy that is probably helping is the short backswing and keep the club face square strategy. There really is no need for a long or even medium length backswing for short putts - two inches is plenty for a normal three footer. This maximises the chances of keeping the club face square to the chosen line.

Recently heard a tip about putting a good roll on the ball, mainly by keeping the grip end of the club ahead of the club face, i.e. de-lofting slightly and hitting the ball a little on the up and slightly above the equator, rather than below it. It makes sense to me, but there could be a danger of mis-hits if this is taken to extremes.

Longer putting has been fairly good also since I've gone back to a more natural ten finger grip - natural for me anyway. Touch and distance control are the keys here and having as much on the grip as possible seems to me to make sense in terms of maximum touch and feel. Anyway, it seems to me to feel good and I've actually made a few medium and longer putts lately.

Putting update, in summary, 33 putts last round (again).

My chipping improved in the last round, I think because I've realised the importance of acceleration, and also using my lower body to generate some of the hit. This is a work in progress.

Otherwise, I'm persisting with my one plane swing - and notice that when I don't (or can't) turn aggressively enough - the ball will go left and/or hook. I'm driving the ball better and hitting some good fairway woods. Almost hitting them well enough to consider getting a 3-wood and putting a 5-wood back in the bag. That's to be determined.