Hello.  It has been close to a month since my last update, so it is about that time.  I last left you as I was headed to West Virginia for the PGA Greenbriar Classic Pre Qualifier.  A 76 left me one shy of advancing to the Monday Qualifier.  This stung pretty bad, but I refused to let the one poor day keep me down.  From there I moved on to the John Deere Classic Pre Qualifier.  I successfully got through with a 72.  I unfortunately followed that up with a 73 at the actual qualifier and failed to make it into the event.  The two missed qualifiers allowed me to make it home for the Metropolitan Open at Saint Albans CC back in Saint Louis.  I finished tied for 16th with rounds of 76-70-73.  It was a week that found my game in much the same state it has been in this year with good driving, putting, and chipping, but erratic iron and wedge play.  After all of this, I knew it was time to make a change.  Something had to give to allow for my iron and wedge play to return to my old form.  I flew straight from Saint Louis to Orlando to work with Brian Mogg on my game.  It was time to make a change. 
    I knew as I stepped foot on the Waldorf Astoria range in Orlando that I could either keep swinging normally and keep getting the same results or listen to what Brian had to say and realize that I was going to have to make some adjustments to my swing in order to get back on track.  That is exactly what we did over the course of two days.  Almost immediately Brian pointed out to me that my grip was extraordinarily weak.  This caused me to be extremely active at impact with my hands in order to time out every single shot.  One day I might be able to time it out well by rotating my hands just right, but other days if my timing was not exactly right, I was going to struggle.  So we strengthened my grip substantially to get my hands much more passive through the shot. 
    Today was my first test under the gun at the Waterloo Open in Waterloo, Iowa.  What resulted was a day full of extremely frustrating results.  As the above picture indicates it is easy to see that I spent a bunch of time today in the trees.  I scraped up my forearm escaping from the trees on one hole that left battle scars.  I shot a 78 and struggled all day being able to go out and trust the changes that are taking place.  My brain was still wired to my old pattern of active hands, but I had a much stronger grip in place.  Couple that together, and it is easy to see why I fought a hard hook all day.  I want to be able to get to the point where I can just let it go and trust my swing 100 percent, but today I had to be really swing thought oriented, and unfortunately I still did not make all the swing adjustments necessary to hit the ball cleanly with the right trajectory and curve.  As I mentioned earlier, it can be really easy for me to just go back to exactly the same thing I was doing before last week and feel comfortable.  That is exactly what I am not going to do.  Change is never easy.  I will have to allow myself to feel uncomfortable out on the course and range for a period as I acclimate myself to my new swing for the betterment of my game's consistency.   Passive hands are going to translate to much lower, consistent scores day in and day out.  It may feel weird today, but as soon as I get this adjustment dialed in, look out.  The rest of my game is there waiting.  I know with all my heart that once my driving and iron play return, I am going to be destined for greatness.  The results this year have been poor, and frankly, nothing short of a nightmare, but I am fully invested in the belief that I took one step backward to take a whole bunch of steps forward.  Thanks for reading, and I look forward to finding my footing and making the rest of 2012 my best year yet.  It's going to happen.