Golf Central II

Just like my last golf update, feel free to not read this if you have no desire to read it. After completing another 18 holes early this afternoon, now may be as good a time as ever to assess my game now and moving forward.

Driver/Fairway Woods: Increased repetition with these clubs is greatly helping me keep more balls on the fairway and toward my target. I am nearing closer to the day I finally buy a new driver, which I think will certainly help this area of my game as well. When I'm feeling good, I can crush my ball with the big sticks; when I'm not completely on my game, I only hope I'm not screwing up bad enough to really hurt my game.

Irons: I really can't say that my iron game has changed much since my update last week. I'm still making the occasional mishit that can really mess me up on a given hole, especially par 3s. More practice, as well as possibly some practice from some different lies as well, will certainly help take my game to another level and shave some major strokes off my score. Therefore, I'll just reiterate that my iron game today, as it was at the time of my post last month, is still "serviceable."

Short Game: My parents were gracious enough to buy me a 56* wedge for my birthday, and having it in my bag has certainly helped me make shots that I had a great deal of trouble executing without on my bag. I can't say that my short game has improved a great deal since my post last month; I'm not surprised this is the case because I haven't spent nearly as much time practicing near the greens as I had the month before. However, with my new higher-degree wedge in my bag, I can more confidently play a higher amount of different shots that I thought I could before having it. Playing out of the sand, for instance, doesn't scare me nearly as much as it used to.
Remember when I said that I was reworking my grip for my putting stroke? Yeah, I switched my grip again, this time to the putting grip I used for all but maybe two or three years of my life. As of now, it hasn't drastically cut strokes off of my score, but I feel at least a little bit more confident making putting strokes from various distances. At least during my outing today, my putter showed signs of improvement, and I hope the improvement can become routine through these next months of golf.

Overall: Three points that describe where I'm at now with my game and where I need to go:
1. Though my above comments don't exactly sound like I'm doing much improving, I'm putting up legitimate scores that I sure was not achieving either at the beginning of my golfing this year or at any year in the past. Even with the portions of my game that I know I need to improve, I'm scoring better than ever right now.
2. Outside of what I've said above about how I'm hitting each of my clubs, I need to get in better shape than I'm in right now, especially in the parts of my body that are the most vital in executing the golf swing. As of this moment, if I'm playing 18 holes (and riding on a cart, because I'm not nearly good enough to have a caddy carrying my clubs around a course), I don't feel like my body quite has the stamina to carry out a consistent full golf swing throughout the entire round without tiring and thus throwing off my timing.
3. Keep practicing, or the decrease that I've been noticing in my scoring over the past month will cease to continue into next month's Golf Central update.