The Fitness Caddie Blog: “The Lip”

It has been a busy week, one filled with more pain ( I will spare you the details of Dr. Sese working on the scar tissue and knots in my shoulder joint, it hurt!) and a laundry list of details to be sorted out with my golf game.  Today provided a chance to play along with my team during their match, and did I ever get a quick education on where I am at.  Here’s a quick recap of the good, the ok, the out right awful and the I hope I never see that shot again.

• Good: Hitting three drives over 250 yards, straight with a little draw!
• Good: My aiming, I actually knew left from right today
• Good: Sinking a 15 footer to save par on hole 8
• Ok: My chips were the right idea, just needing to be dialed in
• Out Right Awful: Bogeys on the first three holes, two of those were three putts
• Never Again: Snap hooking my drive on the ninth
• and the winner of today’s round, missing a 1 foot putt to save par out of the sand!!!

The good news about today though is that I never felt defeated and if anything, walked away feeling encouraged.  However, missing one foot putts is nothing new for me.  I never know if it’s my vision causing an issue or just that I have lost so much confidence from that distance that I tense up.  My punishment will be a 5am visit to the gym tomorrow and a trip to the putting green in the afternoon where I will be until I make 100 one footers in a row.  Hopefully the golf course won’t mind me being there all night. 

Here are a few pictures of my golf team from our match last week, plus a funny one of me in my mud boots and ski jacket which look a little out of place since the suns out.

It’s official, I survived my first week of golf boot-camp.  And let me tell you, it was painful!  The catch is, my boot-camp had no pushups, burpies or running involved.  Instead it was my favorite Golf Doctor working on getting all the knots out of my lats and having me overhead deep squat until I finally got close to a normal range of motion.  This gave a whole new meaning to the saying “no pain, no gain”.  I used to believe it meant working out through the aches and feeling destroyed after each workout, but I was wrong.  The work I have done in the last week in Dr. Sese’s office and in the gym may not have involved having a drop cloth to collect the sweat, but it has been some of the most difficult work I have ever done.  The pay off though is that I have never felt better.  In fact, I cannot remember a time in my life when I have felt this mobile, had this much energy and been more optimistic about what the future holds for my golf game.  I played the back nine at The Golf Course at Redmond Ridge Thursday afternoon, and found that despite how great my body feels, I have a great deal of work to do.  Shots such as wedges within 100 yards and approaches from out of deep rough were hard to get the feel for.  (I must mention that I hit a drive 275 yards!)  And I would prefer to not discuss my putting!  What awaits me this weekend?  The foam roller, a few more workouts, the driving range and putting green.  What should be awaiting you is the golf course, the forecast is for sun and 70 degrees!

Today marked the beginning of the second part of spring golf season for my high school team (although I’m not sure if the first four weeks counted since we had so many cancellations due to snow and rain).  And it also marked the beginning of my journey towards rediscovering my golf game!  Apparently mother nature did not get the memo yesterday that I had plans to play golf at a high level again, so she gave me hope this morning and then left me with hail in the afternoon.  Here are a few pictures of my attempt at playing today…….

Ever tried putting on hail?

How about hitting a tee shot when the temperature drops 15 degrees in a matter of 20 minutes?
For mid April, this is by far the slowest start to a golf season I can remember. But that doesn’t mean my game will continue to be on hold, it just means the gym is going to be my center for golf improvement until the sun starts to return. In fact, this morning, I started my day out with Dr. Harry Sese, a local TPI Golf Medical Professional who is helping treat all my wonderful physical issues. And this morning, he gave me a great deal of hope that the limitations I’m battling in my back, can be resolved. So I took what he and I worked on to Heroics and then to the golf course! Even though I only played four holes today with my team, I hit a few shots that I was unaware existed in my abilities. That’s the beauty of golf, all it takes is a few shots to keep you coming back for more, and without fail, I will be back out there tomorrow!

What an amazing weekend of Masters golf! I find myself sitting here post tournament reflecting upon 4 days of pure excitement, and 4 days that left me thinking about my own golf game. This past year has been the longest break I have taken from playing golf competitively, and from even practicing on a regular basis. What’s interesting is that I cannot seem to come up with a good excuse for why this happened. My last year of college gave me a glimpse into the kind of player I could have been, and now 5 years later, I am mad at myself for putting something that meant so much to me, to the side. I work each day with people on developing their golf game in the gym, and this time of year, coaching high school players on how to make golf a part of their life, both things that I love dearly. But in the back on my mind, there are quite a few what-ifs and unanswered questions that I didn’t realize existed until this past week. Of course this lead me to a quick google search to see if I could still find my old college scores, and instead I managed to run across a picture that was in the Seattle Times after I won the WSWGA State Championship in 04′.
Why on earth this picture is still around, I don’t know. I’m glad it is though because it gave me a chance not only to laugh tonight, but to think about that time in my life and how much I loved to play the game then. With all this in mind, I decided that as I turn 27 today, I am going to begin to put the pieces back together in my golf game, and am going to compete again this coming summer! Along the way, I will share with you the good, the bad and the ugly of what will surely be an adventure. Fair warning though, if you hear someone yell fore on the golf course and you happen to be standing on the left side of the fairway, it will probably be me! (I have a tendency to hook the golf ball, so watch out!)

It is the greatest 4 days of the year, and although many disagree with me, the most exciting sporting event of the year next to the Ryder Cup.  That’s right, it’s Masters weekend!!  What is better than watching to return of Tiger Woods, young players such as Anthony Kim attacking Augusta, and here on Thursday, watching Chad Campbell put together an amazing round?  However, I cannot just let you sit there and watch the tournament for hours on end.  Take advantage of this most inspirational 4 days to bust out the stability ball and work on your balance.  Better yet, grab a foam roller or tennis ball and work on some of those knots!  And if you really wanted to make me happy, take this time to warm your body up with some balance work and then take a good 10 minutes to stretch.  The greatest players in the world do all this, it is time to join them!