Month: June 2023

This picture shows the results of a single chipping session from about twenty meters one late afternoon of training for a couple hours. Being able to chip and one putt provides a huge advantage on the golf course, especially for those holes where you just miss the green in regulation and have a challenging chip and putt left over.

In general the results are pretty good, a majority of chances to one putt which is the goal of this exercise.

However, if I were to improve my chipping skills, one notices two things: the ball tends to be to the right of the hole and the average distance is a bit too long.

A good golfer prefers the ball to be long as this means there is a better chance of chipping the ball in the hole, but too far past the hole is not good either.

I therefore have two simple goals for the next time, namely: chip more balls along the line of the hole (close my club face ever so slightly), and avoid chipping the ball too far past the hole (minimal decrease ball strike velocity).

Hurrah, for the first time this year I finally did it: I completed eighteen holes without a single double-bogie, played the very same ball and to top things off I broke eighty.

38 + 38 = 76 (no birdies though).

Finally my handicap has stopped going up and is back down to a 6.4.

Last month my golf game has been very sharp, and I have put in some pretty good rounds. However, starting two weeks ago disaster struck and I cannot figure out what I was doing differently with my swing that has impacted my golf game so negatively.

My woods and long irons were inconsistent, I was striking the club in the ground before the ball, I was rarely contacting well with the ball, and most of my shots were pulled or hooked off to the left.

In desperation I signed up for a one hour golf lesson. With a couple very simple changes the pro saved my life by tweaking my swing.

I noted down a number of key aspects that the pro observed and told me about. I printed out the following list and will carry it with me on the golf course for extra inspiration:

Golf lesson:
* Put hands forward.
* Feel club leading edge slightly open and right of target.
* Do NOT close the face!

Long irons and woods:
* Stand proud.
* Trust your tempo and don't swing too fast.
* Stay behind the ball, follow through and do not fall forward.
* Do NOT hang hands between the knees!

Tip: 
* Practice hitting draws with open club face.

For the last couple of decades, modern civilization has been very caught up in conserving energy and doing everything possible to avert inevitable ecological disaster. Global warming is getting worse by the year, so we better do something about it soon, or else.

So in our infinite wisdom and tremendous thirst for modern technologies, many factories are rolling out fully electric vehicles, solar panels, windmills, and a multitude of other crazy gadgets..

Since it has become a bit of a panic with time quickly running out, we are not thinking very much about the long term effects of our current decisions. Are these decisions really as sound as we hope? Could the long term effects negate the effects we are attempting to avoid right now?

One aspect of this hurried chaos is that in a few years time we will have an abundance of used and leaking batteries, solar panels, burned out turbines and broken blades. This nasty material will collect and we will end up with mountains of unprocessed man-made junk.

Ironically, in blind frenzy we are so overly focused on avoiding short term disaster that we have forgotten that the long term effects will be a hundred times worse.

Perhaps mother nature has already fated mankind to eventual extinction and there is nothing we can do about it. I hope not.