Smooth. That one word changed everything today. To be fair, I was even through the 6th. However, my great round was falling apart in front of my eyes, and that one-word mantra made me play some of the best golf of my life and finish the best round of my life (0.1 differential) on a high note.

I played the front well. I birdied the par 5 4th like I should and then gave back the stroke on the hard par 4 5th. After parring the par 3 6th, the wheels began to fall off. I snap-hooked a 3-wood into a tree on the next tee. After a good layup to get around the corner, I fatted a 54-degree and bladed a 60-degree which led to my only double bogey. I then bogeyed the next two holes thanks to more bad wedges and a pulled 9-iron that left me short-sided. 4-over from the tips is not a bad front nine at Bear Creek Golf Club, but after my start, it was certainly disappointing.

Bear Creek was back to its old tricks today with incredibly slow play. I was well on my way to another 5-hour round despite everyone having their own carts and being off the path. They perpetually put all of the groups of the day on the course within the same 45 minutes. The course was wide open aside from the logjam, so after the turn, I drove to 14 and played through 18 and then swung back around and still caught up to the groups in front of me by the time I got to 12. I played the front nine in nearly two-and-a-half hours and the back in just over an hour.

My epiphany began with a 3-wood off the tee on 14 (my first hole of the back). I knew I had to hit it smooth because if it didn’t draw a little, my “hard” swing with a penetrating ball flight could have rolled into the pond. I hit a beautiful high draw. On the next hole, I middled a driver and 3-wood to leave just a pitch on and made birdie. On the 16th, I felt I needed to step on a 5-wood to get it there and it over-drew with some help from the wind for my only penalty shot of the day thanks to it plopping in the pond left of the green. A smooth 4-iron just to get in the fairway led to a par on the short 17th. The 18th is what really locked me in. I perfectly middled a drive dead straight down the middle 290 yards on this uphill hole. I then did the same with an 8-iron and left it perfectly where I was aimed pin high just right of the flag. That hole kills me almost every time I play it.

After that 18th, I didn’t try and kill anything the rest of the day and made two more birdies. After the 5-wood I tried to kill and hit into the pond, I was 2-under through the final 6 holes, hit every fairway, hit it at least 285 yards with the driver every time (including a 330-yarder), and hit 5 of 6 greens in regulation (including hitting the par 5 11th green in 2).

“Swing easy” or “Swing slower” might be the two most common pieces of advice fellow golfers give each other all the time. Overswinging is a problem, but most of the time that advice doesn’t help very much if you receive it from someone else because it doesn’t fix some underlying problems and creates others. However, when I took the advice from myself and internalized it, it fixed some things I struggle with consistently.

Strike is king. Give me two golfers — one who strikes it well and one who can hit it farther than him but isn’t a consistent ball striker, and I’ll take the guy hitting it out of the center every time. I am the second guy, and it drives me nuts. When I catch it, I am long and downright impressive. But catch me on a bad ball-striking day, and I am painful to watch. I think part of this is because I always played with guys who hit it way longer than me growing up. I would swing out of my shoes to try and keep up with them. When I actually started hitting it long and pushing that 300 number, I kept swinging out of my shoes because I liked being that long hitter and seeing that number. The funny thing is if you strike it out of the middle every time, you don’t lose distance because those off-center hits with a couple more miles of swing speed (or perceived swing speed) don’t go as far as that 295-yarder right down broadway, plus you’re in trouble a lot less. I think the biggest thing I got out of “Smooth” today is it took the tension out of my arms and hands and kept my head and hips more still. With that tension, I have a tendency to pull the club “over the top.” I also have a tendency to move my head a bit more than I should because my hips slide back and forward and my shoulders and hips fly off the ball trying to generate more power. Thinking smooth, I stayed much more balanced and kept everything much more where it should be. When you aren’t relying on a bunch of different moving parts to perfectly sync up in a more violent motion, it’s a hell of a lot easier to hit a little white ball in the center of a small chunk of metal. I hit the middle of the milled circle that marks the sweet spot of the Cobra F9 perfectly (you can see the ballmark on the black face after you hit until you wipe it off which I love to check strike) the last four times I hit driver.

I’m not breaking new ground with this idea. There are a billion articles and videos about this, and I’ve read and watched hundreds of them. “Hitting the center is the most important thing.” “If you miss the sweet spot consistently, your distance and direction will be a mystery.” I’ve tried “slowing down” before. The problem was I always was just zapped of distance, and I would still have the wild misses. The difference this time is it worked. I could feel it working every once in a while recently when I would go to it, but I never dove all in. Today, with these results, I don’t think I have a choice.

I think the differences in why this is working for me now are my swing is just way more dialed in and I am not using inferior equipment. With how much I am playing, I have a good-ish swing. I have the power. I just need to make it more repeatable. The equipment is a big part of it. I have used old outdated equipment for nearly all of my playing “career.” This is the first time in my life I am using arguably the longest driver, some of the best fairway woods on the market, and truly modern irons. “Indian, not the arrows” is a good (if slightly problematic in 2020) saying most of the time. However, if you don’t trust your equipment to keep pace with the course or your playing partners, you are going to try to hit them harder than you should. I don’t feel like I need to do that now. This is especially true now that I have cranked my driver down to its “longest” settings. I have the length to break par from the tips at any course in the area. I have the arrows (besides arguably new wedges with fresh grooves). Now it’s just about executing shots consistently and not making the big mistakes.

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give a mention of my putting. I was the best I have ever been today. My confidence is at an all-time high with that Huntington Beach gem of a putter. The greens were super fast today, but I was locked in. Anything inside of 20 feet I thought was going in the hole. Anything outside of that, I lagged to basically a gimme. The highlight was my final hole, the 13th. I was a bit long with a 54-degree and it rolled up the ridge onto the top shelf. It left me with 20 feet down a ridge for birdie. I buried it in the center of the cup. Putting days like this make you never want to leave the course.

Unfortunately, I can’t build on this momentum immediately. I just barely dodged the storms today, but we are supposed to get more the rest of the week and weekend. However next week, it is supposed to be gorgeous. I wouldn’t be surprised if I play every day. I think I break par by the end of the week.

Side Note: Bear Creek actually has their cups in the ground now. They haven’t gone to the pool noodles though. They turned the cups upside down for the same effect. I’ve seen other courses online do this, and St. Peters had theirs like this for a bit before going to the noodle. It is an OK choice. You get the odd ball that hits the metal and kicks out, but it’s a much better option than raising the cups if you want a realistic round and to make it more obvious if you actually “made” the putt.