Don't hate the driver

One of the most oft-used pieces of advice that novice golfers receive is:

Don't Use The Driver.

It's the most difficult club to hit. It will ruin your game. It will run off with your spouse and steal your credit cards.

To be sure, it is tough to hit a driver WELL. But at the par-56 course today, I was struggling with every other aspect so that when I reached the par-4 ninth hole, I decided to try my driver, a Mitsushiba that I'd found in a thrift store many years ago.

The results were, in short, not horrible. I hit the ball far and slightly to the left, but it landed close enough to the green that I was able to reach it in three shots. I finished with a 7, a score I've gotten before on that same hole. It felt good to know it was my lousy putting that cost me, rather than horrible shots to the green.

It all went downhill after the first hole.

By hole nine, I had already resigned myself to a day of terrible putting. After one-putting on the first hole for a bogey, I played terribly on the green the rest of the day. Forget about three-putts: I had to four-putt some holes (including an otherwise satisfactory ninth) and on one ignominious occasion, a five-putt.

My putts alone were one-under on the front nine. Oy.

So I spent the back nine figuring out how to putt. It may have made a difference; I made 27 putts on the front nine and 26 on the back.

But back to the driver; At Village Greens in Sinking Spring, Pa., only two holes -- nine and 18 -- are long enough to warrant anything but an iron from the tee. After my relative success on hole nine, I tried Mitsushiba on the last hole. Once again it went left, but had good distance. A line of trees to the left of the fairway kept my ball from going into the street. Hey, I'll take any help I can get. From there I needed three more shots to get on the green. It sounds like a lot, but I was pretty pleased with the last shot, one I took with my lob wedge that got me slightly uphill of the hole.

I finished the hole with a 7, three-putting to finish. On this kind of day, three-putts don't bother me. As much.

Finished with a 106. My scores keep going up,
not down.

The goal of cutting down on three-putts eluded me to day. I probably don't need to point out that my goal of breaking 100 at Village Greens was just as unreachable.

I suspect the two are related.

Here are more stats from today's game: