I finally felt good enough with the shoulder to head over to my neighborhood simulator (Tracer Golf) to test things out, and I am pleased to have survived a half-hour swing session swinging pain-free.

I still feel tenderness in the shoulder when I move it or try to swing, but after I have it warmed up with some tension band work, I can swing without pain, or much of it.

It was a bit strange standing over a ball again after all this time off, and I’m not embarrassed to report that my first half-dozen swings (I just went in cold with the Driver) were pretty wild.

Once I got comfortable however, it was just like old times.

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The good – my setup was a 9 out of ten.  Perfectly square to the target line with the shoulders, but I was extending a little more than I’d like to see, so I’ll remember that the next time out.

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Top position – not bad, but I forgot about my new mission to swing with a flatter plane as I was focused on just making a good pivot and transition down swing.

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Impact – I didn’t have the setting on slo-mo because the picture is too dark (I might be able to fiddle with the settings but when it comes to photography and filming, I’m not very good at much besides pointing and shooting), but even so, you can see the blur of my club head coming down into and through impact:

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As you can see, a perfect inside-out-square path with the driver head, and that’s why I can stripe the ball down the line as long as I get my setup right and club face square at address.

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The bad – I’ve lost a good deal of speed and distance after the long layoff, which is no surprise but a severe bruise to anyone’s ego who is used to getting it out there over 300 yards.

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I still don’t trust Tracer Golf’s club and ball speeds because you’ll remember that I went from registering 130 mph club speed and 190 mph ball speed when the facility first opened (which was ridiculous), to 110 mph club speed and 150 ball speed after they rejigged the software (also ridiculous), so I just use the simulator to track my flight lines.

That’s about it!

I’m hoping I haven’t hurt the shoulder and that the soreness now is just getting the scar tissue and cobwebs worked out – I should know tomorrow how well things went.

But right now, I’m delighted to have been able to swing again, after thinking in dark days past that my swinging days might be over.

More to come.