Prayer answered....

For the last few rounds(6 to be precise) after I first broke 80, I was praying my first 79 would not be a fluke....prayer answered. Shot 79 this weekend!!!.

I cheated a little bit. I had been slicing bananas with my driver, so let it rest this weekend and did not use anything longer than a 4 iron of the tee. Inspite of playing from the tips(thanks to the long hitter/partner) salvaged my best ever !!!

The longest par 4s were 454 and 476. These were testers. But I was prepared for bogeys and gladly accepted them.

Hoping to get friendly with the driver someday, soon. Any thoughts on what are differences between the iron and driver - in terms of swing dynamics? In my bag are Ping I3+Blade (stiff) Irons and Tommy Armour Driver.

Ranga

That's great! I certainly don't think it's cheating to keep the driver in the bag. Isn't the basis of good golf judgment not attempting shots that you know you probably can't make? If you know that your driver is very likely going to leave you in a bad spot, it makes sense to leave it alone until you can pick it up with confidence.

I'm really talking more to myself than to you, because I'm likely to ignore what I just said and pick up the driver, just to see what happens. And what happens, far more often than not, is I hit a banana shot...

In my case, I think this is what explains this perverse tendency: If I go to the driving range to practice with the driver, I'll start out hitting wicked slices every time. I adjust this and that, or maybe just relax into my swing a bit (Who cares? It's just a practice ball!), and after 20 or so balls they start going pretty straight. And a few of them go *dead* straight and *far*. And that's when I get the deadly thought, "Aha, I'm getting the hang of this!" I forget about the 20 or so mega-slices that went before, and I imagine that when I'n the course I'll just resume hitting nice straight ones.

But it doesn't work that way. If it takes me 20 or more balls to "find" my driver swing at the practice range, that really means I'm not yet ready to use the driver on the golf course. If and when I can go to the practice range, do some stretches, and then hit 10 nice straight shots in a row, THEN I'm ready to take the driver out of the bag on the golf course.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

I wish I had your willpower!! I cannot resist hitting my driver, even when i'm not hitting it good that day. Nice round!

if you can break 80 with no driver, once you have it working for you, you will be hitting wedges to it instead of mid irons. even lower scores

Won't that be something....that is my dream! I am working towards it though.