I haven’t had time to write about my first few outings, but I’ve gone the past 3 weekends. I’ve been going to the range and working on rebuilding my swing, but I haven’t actually played on a course since December. I had to many swing flaws that I was trying to work on some basic swing mechanics first as part of my off-season swing rebuild. I don’t think I was 100% yet, but I went a few weekends ago to try out my new swing . . . will it ever be 100%? Is there such a thing? Tiger’s swing is a “work in progress“. So I can’t feel bad. I saw that interview after the WGC match play victory and I thought Johnny Miller was asking him about his swing changes, but I could have mis-remembered.

So anyway, the biggest thing I was trying to fix in the past few weeks was to stay stacked at impact. I tend to stand up out of my swing and slice the ball. I swing with my body instead of with my arms. A major off-season fix I had was to shorten my swing so I don’t have force my backswing past parallel and bob my head. Two weeks ago, I surprisingly drove the ball really well with this fix, but was unable to get my irons working for me. I scored a 106 which was extremely disappointing. I did not do myself any favors with my short game either.

Two weekends ago, I actually did incredibly well when I tried my best to keep my shoulders as square to the ball as I can at impact and loosening my arms during the downswing to allow maximum lag and staying down kept my contact square. I scored 47 on 9 holes so I was ready for last weekend.

Last weekend, I played at Chardonnay in Napa Valley and luckily the short practice has paid off, but the old habits I thought I kicked had surfaced again!! ARGGGH!! I guess old habits are hard to break. I scored 99 on a very very tough course I saw for the first time, but it’s back to the drawing board for me.