breaking 80 – Ohio Golf Blog – Golf Course Reviews

From 79 tips to break 80 – soon to be released golfing publication. I was going to save this but thought others would find it enjoyable and helpful.

Finding The Zone

I know that I’ve been in The Zone at least once on the golf course. It was the Spring of 1989, and it was my first time playing golf for the year. I was out playing with two good friends of mine that I hadn’t seen for several months. We were playing Tanglewood Golf Course (affectionately known as Tangleweed).

I was playing with my Delta Golden Crown golf clubs. I tell you that as further proof that I was in The Zone, as you will soon see. The golf ball would dwarf the face of these clubs when you addressed it. Oversized clubs hadn’t made their splash in the golf world yet, or maybe I was stubbornly holding onto those Golden Crowns. My equipment was far from ideal. In fact, when I later bought new oversized clubs, I was amazed at the difference in club head size and in the overall length difference between new and old.

I headed out to the driving range today in search of new ideas for how to break 80 and whenever I go to the driving range I try to work on a specific skill. You don’t want to head out to the driving range and just start pounding balls with no purpose. There was a flag 56 yards away from me so I decided that I would find a swing that would hit the ball 56 yards on the fly. What better skill to work on at the driving range than to hit a ball an exact distance consistently!

I went back to my stiff wristed shot as described in one of my tips for breaking 100. If you need a refresher on what that is then check it out now. I came up with a swing with a 56 degree sand wedge that went back to 10 o’clock and ended at about 1 o’clock. If you’re not following – my feet are at 6 o’clock and my head is at 12 o’clock. If my backswing takes the club back to parallel with the ground then the club is at 9 o’clock. If my follow through takes the club to parallel with the ground then the club is now at 3 o’clock. This swing resulted in about a 56-58 yard shot.