There is nothing more exciting than getting out on the course with new gear. Throw in a great weather day and I couldn’t have been more excited to get out to the Golf Club of Wentzville to play it for just the second time ever.

As I have mentioned previously, I got a new putter, the Cleveland Huntington Beach Model #1. It is a 33-inch milled blade putter with toe hang, which is the complete opposite from my old putter. I loved it on the indoor putting green. Out on the course, there were some definite growing pains. There is a huge difference from the pressure of trying to post a score and knocking in nearly identical six-foot putts consistently while watching TV. My pace was good for most of the day, but between reading the green and start line I missed a bunch of putts, including some that are must makes. I think it will just take time to get used to the putter. I pulled some putts, but I nearly completely eliminated my push. Just like with the longer shots, the first step is to take away one miss completely, so you can dial in the other and be more consistent.

The low-key better pickup were new golf shoes.

I have been using spikeless golf shoes for a long time. I always liked them because they were comfortable and well made because they were Nike. However, I had noticed recently, especially with the dead grass of winter golf, that my feet would slip out from under me sometimes and throw off my balance and compromise my strike. I also had been reading that you lose a lot of energy to the ground if you don’t dig in and drive off the ground. My feet would definitely spin more than is ideal even when I got a good grip with the spikeless shoes.

I decided to buy the Nike Roshe Tour instead of the spikeless Roshe to give spikes another try. So far, so good. They were comfortable and got more so throughout the round as I broke them in. It was an extremely wet course day. There was standing water all over the course, and the added bonus of these is that they are waterproof. I had a good ball-striking day, which of course, cannot be entirely attributed to the shoes, but they certainly didn’t hurt. The one bummer with the shoes came after the round.

The spike on the inside of the ball of my foot on my left shoe was missing when I took them off after the round. I have no idea when or what took the spike off. I had to pry out the broken plastic piece with a nail. I think I did it when I was cleaning some club with my shoe after a practice swing. I do this unconsciously, and I did this with spikes in the past with no problem. I think I just must have caught it wrong. The other option is it was just a faulty spike and just the torque of my swing snapped it off. I immediately went and bought a bag of replacement spikes and fixed it. However, the only kind of spike that Walmart had was not a perfect match, so I will have to wait until the end of April to get the real replacements in because Amazon is delaying shipment of non-essential orders due to the pandemic.

As far as the rest of the round, it was a good day off the tee and with the irons. I made a couple mistakes with each that caused the bogeys. My lone double was incredibly unlucky. I hit a gorgeous drawing drive that just clipped a limb and shot perpendicular to its flight and into the abyss of a wooded creek area. I am still not sure how the physics of the bounce worked.

The biggest disappointment was my wedge play. My chipping and pitching were not as good as normal. If you’re breaking in a new putter, you would like more easy looks than I had today. However, there was one definite highlight with the 54-degree.

The 18th is a 514-yard par 5 up and down a hill and across a pond to a wide and shallow green with a ridge running down the middle of it. I hit a great drive up the right side to near the top of the hill, but because of the rain the previous few days I didn’t get any rollout and had nearly 250 yards left to the center of the green. I decided once again to hit the 3-wood and make a play at the green. Unlike at Incline Village earlier this week, I hit a gem. I absolutely roped the ball to pin high just left of the green on the fairway across the pond– undoubtedly, one of the best 3-woods of my life. I then hit a phenomenal chip all the way across the green that hit just on the other side of the ridge and rolled out to just 4 ft. below the cup. I cleaned up the straight uphill putt and made my first birdie with the Huntington Beach.

I was in a dark place this weekend after Eagle Springs. I have completely turned the corner. I am striking the ball much better and have a putter that has me excited to practice and improve. I am way more confident in my swing and ability to hit a spot. I still have a few things to clean up. 7 shots to get rid of isn’t nothing. However, I am playing at Links at Dardenne tomorrow a course I score very well on.