Big dog at the range

I was passing a large driving range and 9 hole course yesterday so I stopped with a view to working on driving. The range was nicely laid out and pretty new with targets in front of me at 110, 150, 200 & 250 yards. As I warmed up I started to suspect the yardages, and true enough when I hit driver everyone of them sailed past the 250 yard marker.

I hate it when ranges put false markers up, measuring the range later on Google maps the back fence is only 215 yards away, they may be using range balls that go less distance, but even so, the markers compared to actual ball distance are still way, way off. I'm not a short hitter, then again I'm not pro long either, but according to that range I 'carry' driver 275 and an 8 iron 165 yards. I wish!

Anyway, rant over, the practice was actually very good, I tried hovering the driver at address and it certainly seamed to help me get going with a smooth takeaway. Turning back into the ball it seams that for me it is all about the hip turn. If I get a really good left hip first turn then I get a gentle draw, or a straight, or at worst a slight push. If I quit on the hip turn even a little bit then my upper body and hands take over and the ball goes left.

Also I can't hit a good fade with the driver (or any club above a wedge!), I can hit a fade by standing closer to the ball and turning hard through it, but it's a push fade, not the gentle coming slightly back from the left fade that I crave. Whenever I aim left I either push fade it or double cross myself and shoot it straight left. Either way it's not a pretty result, maybe I need to have a lesson on fading the ball.

My last observation about driving range practice, is it's too easy to align correctly on a mat in a bay, even when you step off between every shot, you still get a feel for correct alignment and almost every shot goes where you expect, not at all like on a tee box while playing.

After the range I went to the club and played 12 holes, not scoring just playing. On the first driving hole I found the left hazard with my first and teed up again turned hard and got my best ever drive away. No idea how long it was, I just know it was very long, it's the first time ever I took a 7 iron for the second shot into our par 5 second, usually I'm taking at least a 21 degree hybrid and even then expect to play a third shot with a half wedge.

Even so it was a disappointing practice round, I used a mixture of driver & 3 wood and hit only one of the fairways with my first ball, 4 out of the 10 tee shots had me in some kind of trouble with three of those out of bounds or in a hazard, 5 tee shots leaked left but only two you would called hooked, one pushed right. Not a great performance!

I have to cut out the penalties off the tee!

Wednesday is the midweek medal, I was going to do short game practice tonight & putting, but so far it's raining and cold so I will see how it looks later before deciding what to do, if it's still raining I may hit more balls at the range.