I’ve been plagued by two types of putting errors. First, I leave a lot of putts short. If I try to hit them harder I tend to lose the line or hit them way too hard. Second, I tend to push and pull short putts. I can beat this problem for a while by reminding myself to not look up until I hear the ball drop into the cup, by working extra hard to create a repeating pendulum stroke, by trying to keep my stroke smooth, by putting with my eyes closed (on Morning Drive, Suzann Pettersen said she’d been doing this and she won today, so it may not be as crazy as it sounds), etc. but the problem always comes back.

Since I’ve gone to left-hand-low, my most common miss on longer putts is a foot or two past the hole and I miss very few short putts. When I miss them, I can feel that I haven’t let my low hand lead toward the hole, so it’s pretty easy to fix.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed about the feel of putting left-hand-low is that I now have a pronounced feel of a pendulum stroke. It’s like my leading arm easily swings toward the target. With a standard grip I was always working to find a comfortable sense of balance between the hands, but my stroke is more comfortable now.

That seems to make my stroke more confident, so I don’t leave things short so often. I’ve holed more long putts and burned more edges from long range since I’ve made the change.

I’m still working to find a really comfortable grip, and may try a larger grip on the putter. It sometimes feels like my right hand doesn’t know where to go or what to do, but the feeling of not doing much with the right hand seems to be what makes this system work for me. I’d just like my grip to feel a little more natural.

I suppose that will happen eventually. For now, I’m off the watch the RBC Heritage and study all the left hand low grips I can find.

I’ve thought a lot about why I feel this way. It’s just a golf tournament on TV. If I have something else to do, I’ll walk away from most shows on TV without a second thought. I always prefer doing to watching. But for me, The Masters is more like doing than watching. It engages me in a way no other tournament does.

I’ve come to the conclusion that The Masters is like coming home. Not just coming home after a day or two, but coming home after a long time away. The Masters is played on the same course year after year, and I think that has a lot to do with my feelings.

I come back to the same immaculate course every year at a time that nature is waking up and the season is full of promise. I come home to scenes that recall images of the beauty of past years and memories of former heroics and spectacular collapses. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never really been there but go only in my TV-fed fantasy. It’s still like I’m coming home.

My history may have something to do with how I feel about The Masters and coming home. My wife and I have lived in our current house for 10 years, and that’s longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere. By my best count I’ve had 23 addresses, not counting dorms and apartments as an undergraduate and the several years I travelled with no fixed address. I looked at Google Street View a while back and the house I was born in has been torn down and replaced with a much larger, upscale place. If I really wanted to go back home, I don’t know where I’d go.

So Augusta, Georgia in the spring is as good a place as any for me. It’s stunningly beautiful and full of tradition. It welcomes with open arms returning heroes and those looking for another chance. I can only imagine what it must feel like to drive down Magnolia Lane when you really belong.

I’ll be happy returning to my memories. That’s all any of us can really come home to.

(Image by pocketwiley, via Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0 license.)

I don’t play at the TPC San Antonio – it’s a bit too rich for my blood – but I get to play with the rocks, cactus, and ants.

Don’t hit it anywhere that looks like this. Trust me. I know.

Here’s a little tip from someone with local knowledge, guys. Stay in the fairway. There aren’t nearly as many rocks and cactus in the short grass. There may still be a few fire ants, but not nearly as many. And you get a free drop from the ants.

Lately I haven’t been managing the screw-ups very well. I keep turning mid to upper 70’s rounds into low to mid 80’s rounds by having just enough bad holes to wreck my score. I can look back at each round and say, “Here, here, and here are exactly where I messed up.”

My home course is pretty intolerant of screw-ups. It’s possible to (and I have) hit it out of bounds off of every tee. Most of the fairways are relatively narrow and this is the windy time of the year. The lies are tight due to the long drought we’ve experienced and it’s easy to find yourself dealing with tree trouble even if you haven’t hit it far off line. But you can manage your way around the course if you pay attention and don’t compound your errors.

When I’m scoring well I avoid doubles by giving some thought to my tee shots and playing recovery shots for what they are – a chance to manage the screw-up quotient. When I’m not scoring well I just bang away off the tee and then whack away at improbable miracle recovery shots. After a few of these management errors I flail harder to try to make up for it and there goes the round.

I know things are slowly getting better because I can spot the individual shots that wrecked my score. When I’m playing poorly I just have a generalized sense of bad golf, not specific recollections of bad shots. If I could just manage the screw-up quotient a little better I’d have a chance to erase most of those doubles.

It also wouldn’t hurt if it would rain a little (at night, of course) and the wind would lie down.

(Apologies and many thanks to Jay Ward Productions and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show for hours of entertainment and for Mr. Peabody, Sherman, and the wayback machine.)

The Case of the Missing Servant doesn’t center on golf. It’s a mystery, includes a lot of detail about Indian culture, and contains an entertaining array of characters. If you like books similar to Agatha Christie’s Poirot series, you’ll probably like The Case of the Missing Servant. The lead character, Vish Puri, even likes to show off and wrap things up in front of a crowd, a la Poirot.

But back to speed of play. Near the end of book, one of the characters heads out to the course for an after-work round. He’s a golf nut, not a golf pro. His round is described as beginning at 8:30. It includes an eagle on 5 and a birdie on 8. He shoots 7 under par. He has a post-round Diet Coke and leaves the course “shortly after ten o’clock.” Total time for a 7 under par round and drinks: Just over 90 minutes.

As you might expect, this description of golf was a bit disconcerting to me. Maybe the reason I’ve never shot 7 under is that I don’t play in less than 90 minutes. The number of holes played isn’t specified in the book so I suppose you could argue it was a quick 9, but if that’s the case I’d like a little more detail about going 7 under in 9. Doing it in 18 is amazing enough for an after-work round by a tech company employee. I’m also curious as to why one eagle and one birdie were singled out. I’d think those other 4 strokes under par were at least as noteworthy.

The book got good reviews. To be fair, it isn’t a golf book and the round of golf played no significant part in the plot. I thought the book was a fine representative of its species, with the added benefits of a little humor and insight into today’s India. But I can’t help wondering about how that round was presented.

On the other hand, if there’s someone out there who knows how to shoot 7 under in 90 minutes, there’s a grateful world and a lot of fame and fortune waiting for them.

For the last several years I’ve played almost all of my golf at my home course. I enjoy playing different courses, but that isn’t how things have worked out recently. But last week I got a call from a guy I knew with a great offer of a round at a nice course and I jumped at the chance. I’d never played the course or played with the guys that would be there, and a change sounded like fun.

I had vowed not to look like an idiot, so I started out carefully. I hit a decent opening drive on the par 5 first hole, laid up carefully into no-man’s land, misjudged my half wedge, and made bogey. The second hole was a sharp dogleg from an elevated tee. Uncertain if I would hit through the dogleg, I held back a little and hit a little push slice. After a cautious second shot to just short of the green I pitched short (worried about running it off the back of a fast green), putted short (ditto), and made double. On the par 3 third I listened to a variety of opinions about what to hit, tried to hit my 6 hybrid too hard, pulled it, and bogeyed.

About this time I decided to just hit the ball like I knew what I was doing even if I didn’t know what was over the next rise. I enjoyed myself a lot more and ended up with a 7 over 79 after going 4 over in the first 3 holes. I hit it into a few stupid spots, but I just kept trying to play each shot aggressively and with commitment.

When I get in trouble on the course or don’t have a good time, it’s usually because I can’t settle into the shot and the game. I don’t decide on the shot and play it with confidence. I don’t clear my mind and just concentrate on hitting the ball. Instead I question my decisions, let my mind wander, and only half of me plays golf. The other half of me watches me try to play golf.

I have to learn this lesson over and over, but I think I’m beginning to get a handle on my multiple personality disorder and just hit the ball. That other half can watch all he wants as long as he keeps his opinions to himself, at least until after the round. I get tired of him asking, “Are you sure?” at the top of my backswing.

Yesterday I gave myself one of those “Come on, Charlie, it’s not that bad,” talks as I drove to the course. When I got there I found the Cotton Baron in the parking lot, back from a trip to Vegas that lasted a lot longer than planned and involved a marriage. He entertained me with his tale of woe, so I was distracted from my own irrational thoughts. The Baron, The Cowboys, and Ronfucius and I arranged our usual wolf game, and we were off. I birdied the first hole, got through the front nine in a one-under 35, and ended up with a 76, my best round in quite a while.

It could have been better if not for two missed short putts and a bladed sand shot on 18 that nearly took the Baron’s head off as it flew over the back of the green, hit the edge of the cart path, and then rocketed back across and off the front of the green, but I’ll take a 76 any day.

I often wonder how one person can have a 15 stroke difference from day to day, but I guess I shouldn’t be. The pros can play like crap one week and run away from the field the next. Tiger can miss the cut one week and then win. Phil can limp around Torrey Pines and then lip out a putt for 59 in Phoenix. It’s the nature of the game.

I’m just glad how I react to life’s minor irritations only affects a meaningless skins or wolf game, and not my livelihood and reputation. If my life depended on my game, I bet my score might affect my mood at least as much as my mood affects my score. That could make for volatile life on and off the course.

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Ronfucius and I had just finished playing our usual mediocre rounds yesterday and were bemoaning how our games had deteriorated. Neither of us has played much recently, partly because of weather and partly because of other demands on our time, and we’re just not popping out those nice rounds with regularity.  On the other hand, the weather has warmed up nicely and we had a good time needling and laughing our way around the course.

I’ve always been at risk for making life harder than it has to be by trying to live up to self-imposed standards. I can get caught up in how well I’m playing golf or if I’m keeping some project of my own on schedule when no one else cares and it really doesn’t make any difference. In short, I tend to forget the standards are self-imposed, and if I don’t like them, I can change them. I can stop making demands.

Back when I was getting paid for my time, I suppose that made a little sense. No one was telling me what to do from moment to moment, and if I didn’t set a personal schedule and personal goals I was at risk for not accomplishing anything. Eventually that would be noticed and I’d suffer in terms of raises or promotions.

Those self-imposed standards had the risk of sucking the joy out my job, but at least they led to financial rewards and career advancement. Applying those standards to my golf game or my piddly-squat projects risks sucking the joy without any payback. I suspect that means I’d be better off letting some things slide a bit.

I bet no one would notice. Having a good time needling and laughing my way around the golf course and daily life may not be such a bad standard to impose on myself, anyway. I suspect that Meyer, the voice of wisdom in the quote at the top of this post, would agree.

It’s a nice afternoon and the roof of the carport I’ve built still has a few courses of shingles to go. But the roof doesn’t leak and there’s no rain in the forecast anyway, so I think I’ll see how they’re doing at Torrey Pines.

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“The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or a temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.” (Henry David Thoreau)

It’s stupid to voluntarily subject yourself to misery. But you go, and the whole group is there. Everybody agrees this is crazy, but the game goes on. The golf is forgettable; it’s one of those days you say you’re “working on my handicap”. Everyone threatens to quit several times during the round, but no one takes it seriously. After all, where would they rather be?

Lately the weather has been nasty and I’ve been seeing where I’d rather be. As I write this in the midmorning, it’s 34 degrees, mostly sunny, and windy. The clouds are starting to roll in and it might hit 45 before the day is done. I’ve played in worse, but these days I haven’t been playing as much golf in this kind of weather. I miss the jokes, needling, and, dare I admit it, emotional support of my golf buddies, and I hope they’ll understand why I’m not as reliably there as I used to be. So far, they seem to. In fact, they’re staying warm more often themselves.

I’m rediscovering some things I used to do, and learning some new things. I’m getting more reading done. I’m keeping up a little better with the chores and some things I like to do that often nag at me. Maybe my wife is happier with me when I get those things done, but I probably irritate her by being in the way as often as I help out, so I’m guessing that’s a wash. The feral cats don’t seem to care.

I think I’m trying to see where golf fits in my life. It’s a luxury I didn’t have when I was working – golf had to fit where the time was. Now I could play every day if I wanted to. I even did that for a little while. I missed the rest of my life when I played that much, but I miss golf and the guys if I don’t play enough.

I’m not a natural at golf and my game goes downhill rapidly if my play drops below a certain frequency. If I don’t play often enough I have to adjust my expectations. That was no problem when I always sucked, but now that I’ve played well for a while it’s harder.

It’s a balancing act, and I guess we all reach our own equilibrium. I know some guys who play every day and love it, and I know some others who play once a month and that’s enough. I’m somewhere in between, and closer to every day than once a month. I’ll let you and my golf buddies know when I figure it out.