This will be a bit of a convoluted post, but stay with me and it will all make sense.

Yesterday I played in our club “off-course” challenge. (Twenty of us played a “tournament” round at Plymouth Country Club in Plymouth, Massachusetts—a challenging course with lots of blind spots and domed greens — the kind that have you putting back and forth for three putts!) I was playing pretty well, hitting most of the fairways, getting out of the rough, and staying out of the sand. I try not to look at my total score while I’m playing a round of golf. Bad karma. But I had a sense that I might be on track for a personal best — until I got to the 17th hole.

I hit a great drive and was in a perfect position to be on the green in two. But as the golf gods were in control, and I was not, my second shot landed just to the right of the green, on a steep incline, buried deep in some ground cover—about the worst place it could have landed. I was lucky to find the ball at all. Hitting off an uneven lie is always a little tricky. Trying to hit off this hill was getting closer to bizarre. One thing I remembered to do was position my shoulders as close to parallel with the hillside as possible. (My little diagram gives you some idea of how this works.) This would at least give me some chance of getting under the ball but keeping my balance at the same time as trying to hit out of the rough took all my core strength. — This is where the Bosu comes into play. I’ve been practicing my golf swing using a Bosu as a platform. It isn’t easy, and you sweat bullets when you do it right. Check out this short video below, to see what I mean. (Uploading this to YouTube is a little humbling… but I figured it would be a “teachable moment”… and so here it is. Promise not to laugh.)

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And what about my game? Unfortunately, the golf gods were not kind. It took me three tries to get my ball up and onto the green. I had all I could do to maintain my footing, but at least I didn’t topple down the hill into the mush below. Meantime, my fellow golfers were happily putting away far above me. By the time I landed on the green they had finished, I was lying five and had a sixty foot putt. We only needed two net scores for the team and the group behind us was waiting, so I picked up and gave myself a 7 for the hole. Totally wiped out my personal best score.

It was a lesson in humility and I’m sure a grand entertainment for the gang playing just behind us. Ah, the sweet joy of golf.

By the way, if you want to see the right way to hit a golf shot from an uphill lie, check out this video from a pro. Of course he’s not swinging in two feet of rough!!! I’d like to see him try that and get out of it in one good swing. 🙂

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Shot And Swing Tips:
Golf: How To Hit From An Uphill Lie