Day 1: 5/11/2008

Total spent: $20
1 beer,
2 18 hole rounds
6 practice facility rounds

Started with 4 practice rounds: Driving, Chipping, Sand Shots, Putting. Putting was probably the most helpful, especially since I noticed you can change greens via fly-by. Chipping was useful, though nothing really carried over to the game. Same with sand shots. Driving, eh. Probably most useful to gauge the machine.

Then played 2 rounds.

1st round at Cypress. Just a bad round. Started with a couple of birdies, but then just started going at every pin and introducing way too much risk. Think I finished maybe 6 under. Decided I could easily do much, much better, and break 10 under, just by being smarter.

Thus, 2nd round at Cypress. Decided I'd just try and birdie every hole. Forgettable first 3 -- and then Eagle, Bird, Bird, Bird, Eagle. 7 under through 5, possibly a PB. Par on the ninth. Then a solid back 9, to get me to -14 after 17! And then sadly a double on the 18th. First, underplayed the curve on the approach, to leave me in the sand right of the hole. Then, a chip that left me in the rough. Then, a too-strong 8-iron from the rough nearly holed -- but then ran into the sand behind the cup. Needed a long chip from there, then a 2 putt from 85 feet.

Final result -- a 12 under.

What was the secret?
1. Taking it easy and going for birdies instead of pins
2. Making every 20-30 ft putt

What could have been better?
1. Chips from the fringe, esp 8 irons
2. Sand shots
3. Not overestimating mild crosswindws
4. Understanding curves

Soooooo after the round I played 2 more practice rounds with the 2 bucks I had left over -- one for driving, and one for chipping. Driving was for getting curves down, and chipping was for . . . chipping.

On driving, the curve practice definitely helped. It was frustrating trying to remember every A-1/2-1.75 combination. All that's gone. It's much simpler:
1. A to B determines amount of curve. A is max curve.
2. 1 to 2 determines how far out it starts. 1 is max swing.

That knowledge could have saved me between 2 and 4 strokes on the previous round.

The chipping was helpful as well, although it lacked variety. All I tried was 37 yd chips into a crosswind. I learned that taking a backswing almost vertical, and then curving it quite a bit, and using roll, all worked fine. In fact I holed ball 25.

I'd say the next step is to work on the 8 iron cjips from the fringe. I missed that over and over again. The only thing I really learned was that it takes verrrrrry little to move it . . . even a back swing up to my shins put some mustard on it.