Fair Shoulder Turn

Wednesday started off mostly cloudy and warm – about 65 degrees. The forecast, however, promised improving skies throughout the day making Wednesday golf nearly a certainty. Great news! I completed my morning calisthenics then headed out with Ykraps. I was up on time so I had plenty of time to putter on the PC while sipping my morning coffee. At 6:20am I started meditation and stretching. I was off on my run by 6:45am. I ran shirtless and was quite comfortable. The run went about as well and easily as it could. I felt terrific afterwards. I made a cheese omelet for breakfast. This time I didn’t bother adding a third egg for Bella after Mindy reported her not eating the one I made her on Monday. I packed some veggies and tuna for lunch. I was off to the shower by 7:40am. While in the shower I purposefully scalded the poison ivy on my legs. Afterwards I swabbed the same area with rubbing alcohol before applying a liberal amount of Benadryl gel. It’s a tried and tested treatment that works quite well. I probably haven’t mentioned it, but my legs are dotted with poison ivy after last Saturday’s mowing. I think I whacked too deep in the brush along the pond splattering my legs with ivy debris. Thus far I’ve done a good job of not allowing it to spread. I remembered to grab a pair of shorts for golf before heading downstairs. I also remembered to pack a to-go ‘ivy care’ package (cotton balls and Benadryl gel). Mindy and the kids planned to spend the entire day at the Ohio State Fair. They’d be meeting her long lost friend, Teri and her two kids, Massimo and Giana. I left for work at 8:15am. Work was quite manageable – a welcome change after a rough week or so. We had our weekly staff meeting, but in a more informal setting. It didn’t last as long as it usually does either. A bit of good news came from the meeting. We’re gonna get a comp day for our on-call weekends again provided we’ve had a busy one. I decided to work through lunch since I planned to leave early for Wednesday golf. Mid-afternoon I asked my boss if I could take Thursday off for my on-call comp day. He agreed. Cool! I would have preferred Friday but a peer was already scheduled off. The forecast for Thrusday was ideal. Having it off work sounded really good. Made my afternoon! I received a voice mail from neighbor Kenny asking if we planned to golf and also expressed an interest in joining us. Not five minutes later I received an email from Tom Clark asking the same. Yes to both. I emailed Bob Imber, too, who was fresh back from vacation. I later learned that he wouldn’t be able to make it after finding himself in catch-up mode after a ten day vacation. I wrapped things up around 4:25pm and changed into my golf attire. I left the office right at 4:30pm. It felt fantastic to be heading off to golf all the while knowing that I had the following day off of work. Yahoo! I called Mindy just as I was leaving. They were still at the fair. We didn’t talk long. Said they’d be heading home shortly. After hanging up from talking with Mindy I phoned my mom to see how she was doing. She sounded far better than she did last week, although still trying to manage her pain. We talked for a good while. We hung up just as I was coming up on Rt 762 and Young Rd. I arrived at Split Rock around 5:10pm. Kenny was already there, but it looked like he’d just arrived. We went in and paid and got two carts. I drove back to the lot to fetch my water bottle and to see if Tom was out there. He pulled up a minute or so later. He would be carting with me. We were told to tee off the back, which was our preference. We all three hit nice drives on the 500 yard par 5 –all three in the fairway, although mine was a little short. I hit a beautiful 3-wood to follow, and so did Tom C, except that his rolled up against a tree trunk just to the left of the green. I was setting about 80 yards out middle of the fairway. Don’t you know, the short iron bug got me again. I sent my PW shot flying hard left and into a grove of thick mature trees. UGH! For the life of me, I did not know what I was doing wrong, but whatever it was, I was consistent. I struggled getting out of the tree grove and took a nine. Meanwhile, Tom was struggling, too even after being just off the par 5 green in two. He even tossed his wedge disgust. Kenny wasn’t fairing much better. We collectively agreed to go back and play the hole over again. Tom & Kenny hit powerful drives equaling or surpassing their first. Me, I hit a weak draw towards the trees but got a very favorable bounce back into play. I hit a decent 3-wood just past the 150 stick, and hit my third shot into the green-side sand trap. Four on, three putt. Bad! Unable to fix my swing, I struggled mightily with the par-3 #12. I took a nine. In fact, I used 15 strokes on the two back nine par 3s. Very ugly! But even still, I managed a few pars and a few bogeys otherwise. More importantly, I think I finally figured out and fixed my swing. The solution came to me once I simply disallowed the problem to affect my psyche. I just went with it. The problem was a simple missing shoulder turn. For some reason I had gotten away from turning my shoulders in my back swing with my mid/short irons, and instead made my back swing with arms only. That produced a very pronounced outside in swing pattern that more often than not resulted in a horribly weak slice. I was elated that I fixed my swing. It didn’t bother me that I shot a 50, especially considering that I used 22 strokes between the two par 3s and the first par 5. Kenny suggested we play the other nine. We went inside to inquire. Another $5 – that’s it! We were all three game. I had only one really bad hole on the front nine (2nd nine), but even that was due to a slight miss on a par 3 that has a sharp hill to the immediate right of the green feeding into a stream. I found the stream, and ended up with a six. All totaled I left myself with three birdie putts from inside of 15 feet. Once again, though, I couldn’t convert even one. But more importantly, I didn’t mis-hit even one mid/short iron shot. We finished the second nine just as darkness was setting in. I marveled at the orange full moon rising in the eastern sky. It was awesome! I talked with Mindy just as I was leaving the course. Said she figured we either played an extra nine or went to Barleys. It was fully dark by 9:10pm. I was home by 9:30pm. I was really hungry and craving carbs. I woofed down about twenty Triscuits along with Mindy’s leftover pork quesadilla. I poured myself a CBC IPA, too. It went down smoothly. I tucked the kids into bed. Both were out in a hurry after a long day at the fair. Mindy & I tuned into Shark Week, I believe on The Discovery Channel. I poured a second IPA and got comfy on the sofa knowing I didn’t need to be up at 5:30am. Before I could finish my beer, I dosed off at least a few times. Mindy headed to bed. I stayed up, or at least stayed downstairs. I fell asleep on the sofa before finally caving and heading up to bed.