interesting day on the range

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
21

Interesting day on the range…Well actually the course.

Today i got out for a morning session at mare island. Slightly breezy but a bright sunny morning and a treat to see the sun rise over vallejo and light up the bay.

Anyway on to my observation. Lately lag and I have been playing a lot of golf. We have had several discussions on the dangers of using yardages and yardage markers. Today on both hole 15 and 16 I had my ball come up exactly on the 150 mark. But due to the slope of both of those holes i pulled an extra club.

Well what i noticed was that I didnt actually need to pull the extra clubs. On each shot with the extra club I hit them thin. Thin to win I guess but hitting it thin normally ends up with a shorter shot.

Now when I went back to my initial gut instinct I hit them to Pin High.

From now on…No more yardage markers, Only feel. I plan to go through the bag. If you have been used to playing yardages I would encourage you to try to play an entire round using site as your distance markers.

Hope you all have a good day,

J

22

Sounds like you’ve already had a good day. Thin because your brain knew you had too much club and pulled out of the shot a bit?

I lived in SF way back when b/w colleges and loved the city–lived on Haight and Divisadero, painted the Victorian houses for a living, took guitar lessons and played at night. I remember the sourdough bread and jack cheese. You can’t get good sourdough outside of the city b/c the climate is great there for making that bread. Also, those little pecan pies in individual tins at the corner grocery stores. Funny what you remember…

23

I had a very interesting morning that rattled my cage for a moment and in all my years is something I have not personally experienced.

Rainy morning and no customers at all, so I’m by mysefl hitting a 5 wood at my favorite tree. Everyone knows those times when you are finished with transition and you just feel that everything is going to be perfect and you crunch the living snot out the ball and see a marvelous parabola when your field of vision finally starts to acquire the flight path.

So my eyes start to see some of the ascension starting at about 90 yards out when suddenly the ball goes straight “vertical” from that point with just a little “right” curve to it. As I see the ball going vertical, with a definite slowing in velocity, my eyes are really fixed on the ball flight and I’m thinking “what in the hell is that”. I didn’t have enough time to think that maybe it was a bad, or cut, ball by some measure, when I caught within my field of vision something “dark” separating and falling from the flight path.

Then I put it all together as I focused on the dark thing which I now perceived as falling. I HIT A BIRD IN FLIGHT! :open_mouth: :open_mouth: What are the odds on that!

Walked out alone, just me and the bird…it was a starling I think. It was most certainly dead and bleeding from the beak.

I felt terrible. I don’t mind snuffing out attacking roosters, but this bird did not deserve to meet that kind of fate but it did. Little did it know while probably out seeking worms that velocity, something it uses naturally, would be the thing that knocks it out of the air.

Put the club down and sat for a long time to regroup the nerves. Damdest thing I ever saw. It’s one of those moments, like seeing the Twin Towers fall, that will be etched in my mind forever.

24

Range,
wow. I have only ever seen that in baseball. In Junior high our center fielder was throwing to the plate. NAils a birt in mid air. It was feathers every where. We held a memorial service for the bird and gave him a grave stone out past the center field fence.

Remember when Randy Johnson hit that bird about 10 yrs back?

Paul,

Yeah it was almost like my whole body knew I had to much club and decided to pull out of it. Its been happening more and more over the last few weeks as my ball striking and control get better.

Interestingly, the two holes prior to the thinned shot I had birdie puts of 6 feet and 14 ft. Both good shots but couldn’t put the putts in. Could have made for a much more interesting morning.

25

Several years ago I was playing #15 at my home course. It’s a tight 400ish yard par 4 with trees down the left side and trees and a creek down the right. I hit my 3 wood down the left center and had 150 or so in. I hit a high draw with a 7 or 8 iron to the left side of the green and just before my ball hit the ground a bird must have heard it coming in and started to take off. It got a couple of feet off the ground, but my ball hit it and drove it back down. I just saw an explosion of feathers from the fairway. When I got up to the green it was dead and the middle of it’s body had been caved in. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen on a golf course. The ironic thing is that I had holed out for eagle the day before from about the same spot in the fairway with the same club…everyone joked that I had a eagle the first day and a birdie the second.

26

I’m not bragging here, so everyone please accept that prerequisite. Went to the range this afternoon to test out one club that Bentshaft has made for me to play in the '12 TRGA tourney. (He’s made the whole set, but I just took the 6i. 1968 Hogan Bounce Soles Plus 1, Apex 4 shafts, bent flat 4 deg. lead taped to D2.0. Further info and photos will be posted soon). I do not want to give too much information here on the public site, but I’ve been working on something Lag has informed me of during module 2.

I started just flushing that thing from the beginning of my session today. I asked Bob (Bent) to check if I was sincronizing my hip turn with my hand hit. (That’s all I’m going to say). Bob said it looked good, but I needed more hip turn during the back turn.

Then, without my knowledge, or awareness, my former longtime teacher and coach pulled up behind us. I hear Darrel say to Bob something like “Tom’s really hitting it good”. I turned around and said hello, shook hands, etc. Then I flushed a couple more. Bob says, “Yes, he’s hitting it good, but he isn’t satisfied unless he flushes everything now”. Darell said , “I could hear it, that’s why I came over here”.

Huge compliment

27

So you guys want to work at a range? Not so fast, sometimes it is difficult. Had to make a very tough decision today.

Elderly gentleman, mid 80’s, obviously somewhat demented, multiple phyiscal impairments requiring a walker, came with his family to hit some balls.

Family tells me he was at one time a very good player and just wanted to get outside to hit some balls. A family member is standing behind him holding onto his belt while at address because his gait and balance were terrible. I was real concerned when I first saw this. He took one swing and as long as the family member was holding onto him things went ok.

So I went back around the corner into my “corporate office” where shade is plentiful and the next thing I hear is a groan and the sound of a metal club hitting cement. I look around the corner to find him fallen into a contorted position upon the ground. For some reason on the next ball she was not holding onto him because she left to get something off a nearby bench.

As sincerely and cordially as I could, I informed the family that his day hitting balls has come to a conclusion. Although the elderly man did not know fully what was going on, the family almost seemed relieved that someone else would be the “bad guy” as they tried in vain to explain to him that he can’t hit anymore balls.

So he’s now resting on that bench as I approach him to talk. I said " it looks to me like you were a fine player at one time". He responded " I just want to hit some balls but just can’t do it"…“no good sounds anymore”. We talked about golf and Hogan a bit and I told him the story of Hogan hitting his 3 last balls and walking away. He liked the story a lot. I tried to comfort him with time catches us all, and to be fortunate that memories of his playing days are something no one can take away, although at the same time I was thinking even those memories might soon fade from his awareness.

When we were done talking I asked him if he would like to hear some sounds again. He nodded approval.

When I finished he smiled and said…“well hit”. They were too! I absolutely pulverized those shots with pressure that still amazes me. I think he enjoyed them.

I said" thank you" to him and although again, at the same time, I was thinking… thank you Lag. :smiley:

They packed up and went on their way.

28

That’s a great story, RR. Thanks for sharing!

29

It’s easy to feel for the old trooper missing the good sound and struggling to get it back one more time.
That was a really a good thing what you did for him and his family there RR. Reading about it made my day and then some.

30

RR
Yeah…thanks for the tears…happy/sad…

bent

31

It is so hot outdoors I am sweating from places I didn’t know have sweat glands.

And the humidity makes an asthmatic rat scurry indoors as breathing water vapor is just as dangerous as swimming in a sewer without a life vest.

So I “hit” six balls last night around 10:00 pm in real dark conditions. It gets dark out in the open range spaces and you can’t see diddly-squat. By that time of day I had my old slippery tennis shoes on and the short dormant grass, what little there was where I was standing, was feeling a little greasy due to the humidity I guess. It was almost like standing on hard pan with tennis shoes so I couldn’t get a real good connection going on with the feet.

Anyway, I think all six were pretty good contact given the conditions. On a one to ten scale probably 8.0 to 8.5. Anyone ever sense that when cupped, open and flat just prior to turning hard after the transitional drop and load, that the L thumb and 4:30 are one in the same. I used to kind of sense the shaft and 4:30 being in harmony, but a little easier to sense the thumb.

Going to be another hot one today…thumbs up all, or maybe sideways is a better choice of words :slight_smile:

32

I always think of Kevin Costner at the range when you describe your stories there RR. Ever get any Renee Russo’s in?

33

I was just thinking the same thing! You must be one famous rat!
Here’s to savin’ the world with one wedge!

RatWorld.jpg
RatWorld.jpg500×737 60.8 KB

34

Classic!

35

RR wrote…

…I’ll hitch a ride on that image…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbaISxK8QY[/youtube]

36

Great picture IOZ…I might have to PM you for some instructions on how to do that :laughing: Very funny stuff! I like it.

Oh boy…you bet! That was the only part of the movie not reality based. If she showed up at our range the “range closed” sign would immediately go up, blinds closed, air-conditioning on, and all those “swing” contraptions she had would be used somehow :wink:

If Captain worked at our range he would have a field day for sure as nearly everyday is met with situations full of opportunity for expressive exploration. :laughing: I could relate some stories but I don’t know if Lag would approve to context, although the content is ambigious.

Just the other day a gorgeous young blonde, and I mean young and gorgeous, happened on by along with an guy. They purchased ice cream from the custard stand next door and were eating them while sitting on our bench at the back of the pro-shop.

I didn’t really know if they were just relaxing, wasting time, or were soon to be hitting balls so I just let them be and I went on to do other things inside the building. They come indoors…he says nothing but she says…“ok I’m ready to suck now”. :open_mouth: That’s when I could have used the first edition of Captain’s book: One Thousand Range Responses. I was speechless- but I must say I did have some Captain-type thoughts, but couldn’t get them out quick enough.

Found out from her guy friend that the time on the bench was for her getting up the nerve to swing a club which I guess she had never done before.

Now get this. The very next day she walks in again with a guy and I said something like…“geez weren’t you two here yesterday?” She says “I was but this is a new guy”. I said something like “well then you must have had fun yesterday” upon which she responded…"yeah, I didn’t suck as bad as I thought I would and now I am going to try it with him ( pointing to the new guy ). :laughing:

Just another day in the life…but fun nonetheless!

37

Here’s a cool pic just made up about the irish lads and their recent major success and the nights after the wins…pretty funny… probably applies more to McDowell and Big D than Paddy and Rory

hangover.jpg

38

Then there’s the other part of the job…

Middle aged women hitting balls all alone tonight. Walked by her station and noticed she was using wood woods and older irons. Not sure exactly what she had as I only glanced at them quickly, but they registered with me as mens clubs.

When she was done she came inside the building and when I asked what else she needed, she said she was looking for her car keys and thought she might have dropped them inside the building while paying. I told her I would look inside and she should look outside. While inside I glanced out the window to see her sitting in her car putting the key into the ignition. I stepped outside to ask where she found the keys. She said " I was sitting on them". I told her not to worry as once I was looking for my glasses only to find them on my face. We both had a good chuckle.

In closing down the conversation I said…“well I hope you had fun tonight”. No sooner did the word “tonight” get out of my mouth did she start to cry and it was a strong emotional cry. I asked her if she was ok and she said…“yes, today was the second anniversary of my father’s death. He was a golfer and I thought I would use his clubs to hit a few balls. I don’t know why exactly, but it just seemed like a good thing to do. Maybe because he used to take me golfing when I was younger.”

We talked for a spell about death and emotions.

Don’t want to bore everyone with all the little things we talked about, but just prior to leaving she thanked me for talking to her and making her feel like she was not alone in her emotional crisis.

So it is not all fun and games. I do know this…this game we call golf can cut across many bands of human awareness and emotion in some very serious ways.

Trust me on that! :slight_smile:

39

:laughing:

If Captain worked at your range you’d have to also employ a defense lawyer.

40

Loved those last two stories RR, keep them coming. Brought a tear to my eye that last one. :blush: