New Year's Resolution (Part 1)

It's been a while since I had a chance to write.  Between the busyness of the holidays, vacationing to visit my family, and getting back to be faced by a lot of household tasks, it's been tough to get on and write a post.  However, I've had time to think and reflect now, and I want to write a two part post outlining my New Year's resolutions.  Part 1 will look at 2008 in review and outline strengths and weaknesses, and try to do a little analysis of what I need to do to get to my next set of goals.  Part 2 (hopefully up tomorrow) will outline what my goals for 2009 are along with what I plan to do to get to those goals.

As I pointed out when I started the blog, I started playing seriously again in June.  My first round was just over 100 (at a fairly difficult course), and my first round at my now home course was a 94.  Over the last few months I've managed to break 80 once and now consistently shoot in the mid 80s (last 5 rounds at my home course have had a scoring average of 86).  My swing has gone through a slight swing change (with an emphasis on some of the fundamentals of Hogan), and although I feel like I have a better swing, my ball striking hasn't always reflected that.  My putting has definitely improved over the months.  I recently had my first sub-30 putt round and have averaged 32.5 putts over my last 10 rounds (down from 33.8 overall).  

But, not every part of my game has been rosy.  Three or four months ago, I would've considered driving one of my strengths (normally hit the ball straight and averaged around 240 off the tee).  Currently, I'm struggling to keep the driver in play and have lost a lot of distance (in a recent round I averaged just over 200 off the tee).  I think I know the mechanical flaw, though, and I'll soon be seeing a pro about it (more on that in Part 2).  

Let me end by throwing out some yearend stats (the more you read the more you'll find that I'm a very analytical/numbers person).  All stats are averaged over every round I recorded for the year (basically from July until the end of the year).  Obviously most numbers were worse when I started in July and better now, although it's not always the case.

------------------------------------

Score: 91.96 (Handicap = 18.1)

GIR: 18.65%

FWY Hit: 52.17%

GIR FWY Hit: 24.48%

Total Putts: 33.79

Putts per GIR: 2.19

GIR 1st putt (ft.): 23.8

Scrambling: 14.15%

Up & Down: 19.49%

U&D 1st putt (ft.): 12.71

------------------------------------

Two main areas of my game stand out.  Firstly, as stated earlier is my driving.  It's been atrocious lately (even when I hit the fairway, it is often ugly looking).  Second is my short/mid iron game.  I need to hit more than 24% of greens when I'm in the fairway.  My course isn't long and I'm usually close enough that I have 6I or less in my hands.  Other than that, I'm not too unhappy with my game.  Up and downs have gotten significantly better over the course of the year, and the bad GIR putting stems mainly from leaving myself almost 25 foot putts when I get on.

In Part 2 of this post I'll look at these problems more specifically and then go in depth with how I plan on tackling them over the next 8 months.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!