Follow Through... It Actually Works!

Monday was Columbus Day, I didn’t have to work, and it was a gorgeous day!  Slightly cooler weather, lower humidity than normal, and sunny skies greeted us as we played disc golf.   In the morning I asked my daughter to go with me to the disc golf course.  She is in the banking industry, and so she didn’t have to work either, and both her children were at school, so it was a perfect time to have an outing.

We played the front nine of the original T-1 course.  Carole did quite well considering she doesn’t play nearly as often as I do.  So many of her drives go 30-40 feet farther than mine do.  She isn’t quite as accurate as I am, but when she hits a good drive, it is an amazing thing to watch.  We also played on Sunday and I noticed the same thing then.

Yesterday I was trying to figure out how she was getting that extra distance.  It wasn’t until that afternoon, when I was all by myself that I realized the key – FOLLOW THROUGH!  Danny has been telling me that I need to do work on executing a good follow through.  When he says it, or reminds me, I try especially hard to remember while I’m playing with him, but somehow seem to forget it at the next outing.

In the afternoon, when I went back to work out some more, that advice suddenly dawned on me as I approached hole two.  I think I get nervous when I have to play a hole that is narrow, or has a lot of difficult rough on the edge of the fairway, or is very wooded.  I try to make sure that I release the disc at just the right time so it has the optimal chance of having a good flight.

In my caution, I realized yesterday that I am making things so much harder for myself.  My disc doesn’t have a chance to get up to full speed, which means it doesn’t really have a chance to go as far as it could.  So I threw caution to the wind and decided to just play “all out” on every hole.

Wow!  What a difference that made.  My throws were going just that much farther on every drive, making the approach shot much more doable for me.  The advice that Danny had been urging me to follow was really working. Imagine that!

When Danny came later that afternoon, we played the back nine of T-2 and there were several holes when he commented that he’d never before seen me drive that far.  There were a couple of times that I hit trees, which certainly shortened my drive, but in almost every case, my second throw was remarkably longer than usual.

Even throwing over the lake on hole 16 was amazing.  I threw farther than I have thrown in a long, long time, and with no fear of losing it in the lake.

Now, the question is, will I remember this next time?  Hmmmm….stay tuned!