First, an update on how my practice is going. I am still very inconsistent. Looking like a pro one day and looking like a 12 handicap who hits it far the next.

To me it seems very natural to be this way. I am in transition from having a swing thought checklist, to simplifying my swing and eliminating the rotating montage of erroneous swing thoughts. The good news is both the good days and bad days are better than they were the previous week.

It’s mostly a mental battle now of trusting it and gaining confidence. Practicing on the range and eliminating the thoughts and playing golf is how to fight this battle.

When I just hit the ball freely, my body works together, when I get a little off, the lower body stalls and my ball flight becomes erratic.

Now on to another fine story that happened on Friday. I made a new friend. A soon to be high school senior who has scholarship offers to some high profile D1 golf schools. He has an amazingly soft ball flight with his irons and works hard. As long as he doesn’t spend his college years playing intramural sports and chasing skanky women (like someone I know), he has a very bright future in golf.

On Friday we were hitting balls next to each other, talking about the golf swing, trading stories…having a great time. This is one of the big issues in getting my game back on track. Having fun at the golf course and I was.

Let me digress to reiterate for the new readers my philosophy on bad golfers. I have nothing against bad golfers…no matter how bad they are. I have an EXTREME prejudice against golfers who take themselves too seriously at any skill level. However, my disdain increases as the skill level decreases with those who have the “scratch” mentality. In other words, if Tiger wants to take himself too seriously, I don’t approve, but I accept it completely. If someone is advancing the ball 10 feet at a time and still maintaining their 90 second pre-shot routine, I become like a crotchety 100 year old man, with the TV stuck on Elmo and a remote control with dead batteries.

As the young lad and I were talking about the David Leadbetter disciple who had offered him some horrible unsolicited advice, a woman of about 50 walks up to me and says…

“I am five clubs into my warm up routine and you have not stopped talking the whole time. You are bothering my concentration as I am working on something in my swing. Please be quiet.”

While hitting balls she looked less like a golfer than a contestant on Bowling for Dollars…but at least her pre-shot routine was long and useless.

Now if she would have come up to me and said that she had a hard day at work, wanted to come enjoy the day and some peace and quiet at the driving range…I would have apologized and gracefully granted her request.

You know those scenes in the movies and on TV where the protagonist reacts the way he wants to and the reaction is extreme. We then find out that scene played out in his head, only to see that he was so dumbfounded, that he basically did nothing…well…