Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Pebble Beach Pro-am (Practice Days)

We had three great days of practice. After a few days off at home, Kevin and I both flew in on Sunday. We met up Monday morning and played a practice round at Spyglass. Kevin started working with Ricky Sullivan last week in Charleston, SC and Ricky came out to Pebble for the week. They changed Kevin's address position by lowering his center of gravity in his setup. He maintains that position throughout the swing and has the feeling of swinging more level with his chest through impact. Kevin is hitting the ball extremely well. After the round, we returned back to Pebble and worked on the short game. An adjustment with his right hand grip started producing the pitch and lob shots Kevin was looking for and then some work in the bunker with "less hinge" in the backswing completed a very productive day.

On Tuesday, we played Pebble Beach with amateur Joe Rice and celebrity (singer) Darius Rucker. Mr. Rice played with Dustin Johnson (two-time defending Champion) the last two years. It was an extremely windy day but Kevin's ball striking held up in the windy conditions. We had a great time as Kevin's girlfriend, sister, and brother-in-law all arrived for the week and met us on the back nine.

Today we played Monterrey CC with Tommy Gainey. Another golf course with great views along the water. Kevin continues to hit it well. The bumpy greens have Kevin a little rattled so after a short session on the range we spent the rest of the day on the putting green. Kevin felt his hands were getting a little too high and Ricky felt that Kevin was not striking his putts with enough "authority." He thought Kevin was stroking his putts too soft and the ball was not rolling very well off of the putter. They worked on increasing his grip pressure slightly and then maintaining that pressure through the entire stroke. The ball instantly starting rolling better and it was staying on line even though the ball was bouncing.

Tomorrow we start at Pebble Beach at 10:12.

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