A little over a year ago I had my first golf lesson with swing doctor Alex Black, after which my swing underwent significant changes in terms of downswing, ball placement, and alignment. As I’ve written in this space before – to some ad nauseum 🙂 – the results, while not overwhelming in terms of day in /day out numbers, have been more than satisfactory because the changes eliminated the wild swings (literally!) in my play and re-kindled my love for the game and the quiet joy of just hitting balls on an afternoon sun-washed driving range.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve got a pretty specific goal in mind for 2014 – shooting bogey golf regularly),and in order to accomplish that I’ve got some serious work to do. For one thing, I’ve finally come to understand that hitting balls at the range and playing a round of golf with the goal of shooting somewhere between 88 and 95 are two different things entirely, to the point where they’re almost different sports. I’m doggedly committing myself to better course management (slowing the game down, getting out of trouble as quickly as possible, not compounding the inevitable mistakes that will be made, etc.) which hopefully will help. And I absolutely have to play better on the par 3s and par 5s – after all, the one sure way to post a big number is to fill your scorecard with 5s and 6s on the par 3s and 7s and higher on the par 5s. That’s where the course management thing comes in – avoiding the big numbers that turns your round from chicken a la king to chicken a la crap.

But there’s also a technical aspect to it, and that’s where Alex comes in. I know I need to have to hone a more consistent swing and transition from backswing to downswing, shifting my weight from back leg to front and driving through the ball more consistently. And I have to get more consistent with my 5-wood and my hybrids – not only because that’s typically where the big numbers on the par 5s come in, but those are the clubs I have to have confidence in on narrow holes where I absolutely, no-bones-about-it, must hit the fairway off the tee (hello, Wentworth By The Sea!). And finally, there’s nothing wrong with having Alex just take a look at my swing to see if anything bad has crept in since I last saw him eight months ago, just prior to last year’s Goodboys Invitational. I’m excited about seeing my swing guru and hearing what he has to say.