Getting back on track

So six weeks after my hernia operation I finally got back to hitting a ball.

I must admit I have had a total break from Golf and feel much better for it, but I'm also now motivated to get back into practice. The plan is to hit the range a few time per week and try to sneak in some putting practice.

Today's range session went rather well considering. I concentrated on hitting irons and really enjoyed myself.

No issues after the operation so weather permitting I'm good to go. Would be nice to get on the course, I'll try and sneak some time during the week if possible.

September Log

5 holes, swing practice, 16th Sept.
5 holes, swing practice, 13th Sept.
18 holes, Medal 11th Sept.
30 Min's putting practice, 10th Sept.
30 Min's Putting lesson, 10th Sept.
15 holes, general practice, 9th Sept.
8 holes, swingl practice, 8th Sept.
Lesson and 120 balls, driving range, 8th Sept.
5 holes, wind play, 6th Sept.
100 balls, Driving range, 4th Sept.
6 holes, short game practice, 3rd Sept.
1 hr Putting practice, 3rd Sept.
7 holes, short game practice, 2nd Sept.
30 Mins Putting Practice, 2nd Sept.
11 holes, Short game practice, 1st Sept.
45 Min's Putting Practice, 1st Sept.
Log September 2010

Out of action for a while

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life got busy lately!

I'm now going to be out of action for some weeks as my hernia op is coming up.

See You in November.

Swing changes

I've been trying to implement the swing changes after my lesson with Harry the other week. So far it has consisted of a lot of indoors movements trying to feel the correct swing and a lot of swings into a net. I have tried taking it to the course a couple of times but that is demoralising.

I understand that swing changes often mean you get worse before you get better and that's the case with me. I now do not know weather a draw or a fade is coming from my swing so I'm missing both ways and just not striking the ball well everything feels weak and fast at the moment. I will persevere as I know this takes time and I have all winter!

I just think I will need to start spending more range time rather than on course time and that sucks a bit.

4th in the comp.

How did I do just informed me that my net 69 was good enough for 4th in yesterdays monthly medal. My playing partner Matthew came 3rd also with a net 69 but a better last 9 count back. The comp was won with a net 67. So the highest scoring comp of the year!!!! and the CSS is still 69!!!!! How does that work???

Anyhow, it all adds up to no handicap cut. And me slightly ruing the out of bounds push fade I had on the par 5 16th that cost me 2 shots :)

It's the first time I have ever been out of bounds on that hole!

September Medal

I played very poorly today but in hindsight and after analysing my golf I learned quite a lot.

Firstly the facts, I scored 94 net 69 and if the css is it's usual 69 it will be as you were in terms of my handicap.

My long game was tosh and I played all day with an over the top move that made me come across the ball and get a fade with longer clubs and a pull with short ones. I can't explain how alien the fade shot shape is to me I only get one per blue moon usually. Even if I'm playing bad my swing will produce a hook or a push as my miss but almost never a fade. As a consequence I spent all day playing and expecting my normal right to left spin and yet getting left to right spin. This really stuffed up my iron shots but I just could not bring myself to play for a fade through terror of aiming left and seeing the ball going even more left. So I aimed straight and dealt with the result. The result was only one green in regulation, ONE!!!!

So what's my excuse? I mean I always have an excuse right? :) Well here it is, it pissed it down with rain the whole way apart from when we got to the last few holes. It's the first time I ever played golf in full waterproofs (normally in a social knock I walk off if it pisses down) and it is different in the wet. Impossible to keep my grips dry, my glove, even my glasses kept steaming up! I'm a fair weather golfer!!! Rain is not fun.

The greens were saturated, standing water puddles and some were more like sponges rather than greens.

But how did I putt after last nights lesson? Well, bad, no real real bad!... I had an OK looking 33 putt's, but 3 putted twice, once from just 4 feet! And missed a tone of four to five footers. I can't blame the greens, water or not, it was tentativeness that did for me and that brings me to what I learned.

My best golf is played care free in social rounds, rip the driver or three wood, hit the green. Who cares about the out of bounds left? The worst that can happen is a lost ball and because you don't care you seldom find the trouble on a social knock.

Switch to a medal, and out comes the 3 iron and you trying so hard not to hit it left you get frozen legs, body takes over and a duck hook into the out of bounds is the likely result! Or you knob it because your thinking about trouble rather than smacking it down the middle!

On the greens your thinking about not missing from three feet so you dolly it at the hole instead of stroking it in positively.

In short you get tense and tentative instead of relaxed and positive and why? all because of a stupid card!! It's just daft, I mean what's the worst thing that could happen? 0.1 back and a few lost balls? Really, it makes no difference to me if my handicap is 26 instead of 25, both are tosh, I can 0.1 back ten times and it makes no difference. But one round in the low 80's and it's a huge cut.

So from here on in I promise to play medals without caring what happens, if I knob it out of bounds six times and shoot a hundred and five then so what? I do know that playing without being worried about it will mean that I'm much more likely to play to my potential rather than to my handicap.

Anyway, after that long moan, the positives? I really enjoyed playing a full round, even if it was raining! I'm going to play more medals, I have missed it. I chipped brilliantly today justifying all the short game work of recent times and giving myself loads of 3-5 foot one put chances after missing the greens. Even my sand play was great!

We will see what happens next week.

18 holes
Score 94, 24 over par.
48.5% fairways hit.
1/18 GiR
33 putt's (1.83/hole - 2.00/GiR)
Penalties 2

Putting lesson

On Friday evening I had a putting lesson with Harry. The lesson revolved around a couple of drills the main one being for grooving a good putting stroke from close in and the other for distance lag putt's.

Firstly my grip was ok and my alignment is ok, the main change in my set up is to get me further over the ball so I'm looking right down on it rather than slightly inside the line.

The first drill was using tees to form a gate in front of the hole just larger than a golf ball then using tees to form a club path gate from 4-5 foot away. Once I got the speed right the ball was going through the gate almost all the time. My stroke can be very consistent when I get in the groove. Then once you take the tee peg gate away it's almost impossible to miss the hole it seams so big.

The other drill was similar but from a distance of 30 feet and instead of a tee gate in front of the hole a tee coral was formed with pegs in a semi circle one foot from the hole. the aim is to get the ball in or past the hole but stopping within 1 foot of the hole. But that was secondary in the lesson to the stroke which he made me change to a much straighter follow through.

It seams my problem is i'm doing to much of an arc stroke instead of a straight through stroke.

Anyway as always happens by the end of the lesson I was sinking putts for fun from all over the practice green. Just in time for the Saturday medal I thought!!! :)

Lesson

So I had my lesson with Harry the assistant pro and the crux of the lesson is to do with my weight transfer and hip rotation.

Harry Say's I over rotate my hips thereby straightening my leg and leaving too much weight on my left side, I then reverse that by hanging back on my right side in effect leaning back on my through swing.

Sounds like Stack and Tilt!!

So the drill to change this is to angle in my right foot and to get a little weight on my right side in my back swing. Then swing through without leaning back. This is much easier to say that to do! However when it goes correctly I do get a very powerful strike so I'm happy to practice this move until I 'get it'.

However I have also decided to postpone implementing the swing practice until next week, that's after a shocking 8 holes last night when I tried out the new swing! Normally not a problem but I'm entered in a medal this Saturday morning and I don't want to mess with my swing or my head before I play it. I'm hoping for a nice cut, but we will see... It's always different with a card in hand.

Tonight I played 5 holes on my own trying the new swing and put 2 balls out of bounds before I got a text from Stephen and I headed back to the first tee, I did not score those 5 holes as I was just practising.

Back on the first again we were joined by Tom a young guy off 17 and we made a three ball for a quick nine holes. In a turn of fortunes I played great for the ten holes we played together as a three ball, scoring a 4 over par 42 for 10 holes. How much would I pay for that score through 10 on Saturday :)

In another development I booked Harry for a putting lesson on Friday Afternoon after talking to him about it. It will I hope be a start on being a great putter!

Stats for tonight's round:

10 holes
Score 42 gross (par 38)
FW's 57.1%
GiR 6/10
Putts 20 (2.0/hole & 2.17/GiR)
Penalties 0 :)

Putting!

You have to love putting :)

No really! I think It must be the one area that a club golfer can become as good as a pro in and it makes such a massive difference to your scores.

Putting does not take the natural athleticism and robot like precision of a tour pro's full swing, it only needs a decent technique, a lot of dedicated practice time and the mental belief that you are, or are going to become a great putter. And yet constantly on Golf forums you see people bemoan that they are crap at putting, I have even been guilty of it myself in the past! The funny thing is that while every club has a practice putting green, the only people I ever see on ours for more than 10 minuets before a round are Juniors or young scratch team players. Yet go to a Tour event's practice day and the practice green will not only be full of pro's but also of coaches and gizmos/computers/cameras and they stay there working on their putting for a long time.

I'm confident that I'm going to become a great putter :)

To that end I'm dedicated to practicing my putting and I have been thinking about how I'm going to do that over the winter when the practice green will be hairy and slow. Also what I need to practice and how.

Firstly my putting has improved no end this year from practice and the corresponding belief, but I need to build on it so...

I need to have a lesson, but not just any old lesson. I want to find a pro that is a bit of a putting specialist because I want some one to teach me a solid basic putting stroke. Grip, stance, stroke, tempo etc. I'm currently using a straight back, straight through stroke with a face balanced mallet putter but find myself wondering if I'm not more suited to a taller stance and an arc putting style. Once I have some expert guidance on my putting stroke then I can shift the doubt from my mind and get on with practicing my stroke over the winter.

I figure the winter is the best time for working on the technical aspects of the putting stroke and that summer is the time to work on the feel, line reading and target concentration aspect of putting.

My aim is to be able to almost always lag a put to within three feet, To be deadly at holing out from three feet and to be very handy from the 5-10 ft range :D

My new golf ball (Wilson Staff FG Tour)

I'll make no secret that I really like the Taylor Made Penta TP golf ball, it putt's great, feels soft yet powerful, holds it's line well off the driver and checks up on the green fairly sharp'ish. It's downsides are that it's cover gets shredded fairly fast and it costs about £3 a ball.

There is no way I would pay that much out of principle, because I can full well imagine how much it actually costs to make a golf ball and the answer is not anywhere close to £3. Also as I still lose balls with regularity then it would hinder my game, call me tight but if there is a chance that I'm going to throw away £3 into the long cabbage then I get a little tentative which is wholly counter productive.

On the other hand I have started to subscribe to the theory that says you should play one type of ball so you know how it will react on the greens, rather than playing any old found ball that you pull out of the bag. I find that argument to be common sense.

So your left with a few options;

1) buy premium tour balls, take the cost on the chin because you know that your getting top performance around the green?

2) Buy a cheap ball that you don't mind loosing and put up with the niggle in the back of your mind that tells you that chip would have stopped at 4 feet from the pin rather than 6 if you had been playing a decent spinney ball?

3) Compromise between the two? (Usually the worst of all options in my mind)

I had pretty much decided to go with option 2 and fill my bag with Srixon AD333's, They feel softish and so putt ok, you don't mind losing the odd one or three and there even durable enough that you can play practice rounds with them as well. I could have got them for £1.03 per ball brand new.

Then I started to hear about a new urethane covered tour level ball that was a better value price. What first got my attention was the enthusiastic recommendations it got by people whose opinions I respected on Golf Magic forum. As I researched it further there was not very much negative to be said about the ball. Performance wise it was right up there with the ProV1, Z-Star, Penta type balls. As you would expect everyone had a different opinion about which of those balls was actually the very best. But the fact remained that the performance of the new ball was at that kind of level where it's accepted as one of the top performing balls.

Then I saw them on offer from a reputable Internet retailer meaning that I could get them at a price of £1.25/ball. After finally getting to try out a sleeve last night I am a convert and my order is placed. My ball of choice for the foreseeable future is the Wilson Staff FG Tour.

Why do I like it?

Well the tech stuff tells me it's a three piece ball with a durable urethane cover and traction control for more efficient interaction with the club face, but that is meaning less to me.

* I like the way it feels off my putter and the way it rolls towards the hole. It gives me confidence with the flat stick.
* I like the fact that it feels tacky out of the box giving you the impression of grip and spin.
* It feels soft yet substantial off the mid/long irons and sounds good when you hit it.
* It spins a lot off short irons/wedges and stops fast on the green.
On chips and short pitches you can throw it at the hole with a lofted wedge and it will check up, or run it in with less loft but be confident it's not going to shoot through the green.
* I love the way it launches higher off my woods and the fact that it does not seam to miss behave with too much draw spin. But then I am a low spin player with my woods and the higher launch got me noticeably better carry.
* Durability, I played only 11 holes last night but had multiple drives and multiple iron shots/pitches/chips on every hole, the three balls I played all look like new so far apart from some grass staining.

One thing is yet to be seen, how that higher launch performs into the wind?

Perception is everything with a golf ball, I felt confident with it so I probably swung better at it, consequently I got better driving distance, I putted well with it and just liked the ball. At £1.25 if I lose a few I'm not bothered and probably because of that I still have the three that I took out to play last night. For me it's as good as the Penta that is my yardstick for Tour level balls.

I feel like I got a bargain :D

August Month End

Despite the three week break I still got in plenty of golf and in hindsight played the best golf of my year by far.

The stats show the hard work of June and July on my short game is starting to pay off. One putt's are up and three putt's are down. My putting stroke is a lot more positive and chipping is getting the ball closer more often as seen in my scramble stats.

The headline stats in total may look no better than July but scoring has improved and I have to put that squarely down to short game!

Stats for the month

Fairways hit 48.3% (My average 47.6%)
Missed left 27.8% (31.7%)
Missed Right 23.9% (20.7%)

Greens in regulation 30.1% (27.5%)

Scrambling 11,4%* (7.7%)
Sand saves 0.0%** (5.0%)

Putting Average 1.88 (1.97)
Putting per GIR 2.06 (2.19)

Scores by Par
Par 3's - 3.8 (4.1)
Par 4's - 5.1 (5.3)
Par 5's - 5.6 (5.9)

Scoring
Eagles - 0% (0%)
Birdies 3% (2%)
Pars 31% (25%)
Bogie's 43% (41%)
Doubles or worse 23% (32%)

Score total +16.9 (+21.0)


* (only records up and down for a par not a bogey)
** (only records sand saves for a par not a bogey)


Practice time

Putting time 75 Min's
Driving range 335 balls (Estimate 300 Min's)
Practice holes played = 97


August Practice Log...

9 holes general play, 31st August.
150 balls, Driving range, 30th August.
125 balls, Driving range, 29th August.
18 holes, general play, 27th August.
45 Min's Putting practice, 26th August.
11 holes, general practice, 26th August.
14 holes, general practice, 25th August.
60 balls, Driving range, 5th August.
18 holes, general play, 4th August.
30 Min's Putting practice, 4th August.
9 holes, general play, 3rd August.
18 holes, General play, 2nd August.

Lowest nine hole score

A new Personal best over the back nine holes last night, warmed up in the net and putted for 15 Min's. In particularly in the nets I felt pretty good and was feeling my swing plane quite well, this is something I have only recently started to become aware of, when I feel it like that, then it's easy to come down on the inside and get a draw shot. I also had great tempo for once.

I guess all the ball pounding at the range this weekend helped :)

Anyway, first tee and a cracking baby draw right down the middle set the tone for the nine holes. I hit every fairway but one which just ran through the dog leg into the first cut. I did not hit a huge GiR percentage but all the misses were close and I got up and down a couple of times, One bad hole on the par three 15th where I took a penalty in the water but rescued a double Bogey 5. That was more than offset by my best ever birdie on my nemesis hole 14, three iron drawn over and round the marsh, seven iron drawn over the trees and stream to 10 feet and a nice putt for the first bird on that hole I can remember :D

Steady play coming back in which should have been at least one stroke better and it added up to a 4 over par 38!!

Now I just need to put two good nines together and then do it in a comp :p

9 Holes
Score 38 gross (par 34)
FW's 83%
GiR 3/9
Putts 14 (1.56/hole & 1.67/GiR)
Penalties 1 :(

New wood?

While I did not get out to the golf course over the bank holiday weekend, I did manage to get to the range a few times. I had in mind trying out some new three woods with a stiff shaft to replace my old regular shafted MD three wood. I tried the G15 in a few different shaft options, a Titelist 909, a Mizuno and finally a TM Burner superfast.

The G15 is solid and gave me the least side spin but was unremarkable in distance, the Titelist I just hooked the hell out of, but they only had it in a regular shaft that felt on the soft side. The Mizuno just felt heavy and lifeless and then there was the Burner.

While they only had it in a regular shaft It got my attention because it's so damn light, next it did something I was not expecting, it got me to hit a fade, normally a fade for me comes from a sketchy swing and happens only once in a blue moon far more common for my bad shot is a pull/hook, this three wood was fading far more often than any other club I have hit in a long time. Eventually I got it under control, I.e straight or a slight draw and it did feel like it was longer off the tee. I will have to try it in a stiff shaft soon to see what the difference is.

Because of the three wood I then tried the burner superfast driver in stiff and reg, all I can say is I want one!!! It's so light weight and so easy to hit compared to my 420cc R9. Probably because of the light weight shaft it did feel faster and the ball went longer their was no doubt about that, maybe as much as 10 yards difference on average. but there were also far fewer bad hits on the massive burner face, it may only be 40cc bigger than my R9 but the burner face looked huge next to my current driver.

Best driver I have ever hit which is not saying much because I have not tried that many, but still it's on my shopping list with one caveat. I'm not paying £199 for one!!!

I paid out £250 for my R9 which is now worth £60 with golf bidder just one year later! That is the problem with Taylor Made, too many new club releases and second hand prices fall too fast.

While I want the Burner I'm waiting till it is super seeded in 6 months and then I'll get one for £99!!

A game of two halves.

Harry could not make it back in time, so my lesson is postponed until week of 4th September. Instead I went to play a few holes and ended up playing a full 18.

Tonight's 18 holes were a tale of two halves, I started out playing really good golf again, solid swing and the ball was under control to a satisfying degree. I ended the front nine 5 over par for a PB on the front nine of 41 out. Then after a couple of easy Bogey's I had a decision to make on the 12th tee (which is a natural walk off spot as it's the closest point to the clubhouse). Walk off and practice putting, or continue around and see if I could put together a low score.

I should have taken the putting option :p

I'm sure it happens to everyone but my swing left town on the 12 tee and got progressively worse culminating in a 7 on the 18th.For the back nine was a 13 over par 47 but the score does not tell the whole story....

Front nine five pars --- Back nine just one par!
Front nine hit 50% fairways --- Back nine hit just one fairway, 16%!!
Front nine hit 6/9 greens in reg, 66% --- Back nine hit none!!!!
Only thing that was better on the back nine was my short game :(

Also after bragging about no three putts for ages I had 2 of them back to back.

Anyway I should be happy with anything in the 80's :)

18 Holes
Score 88 gross (par 70)
FW's 35%
GiR 6/18
Putts 33 (1.83/hole & 2.16/GiR)
Penalties 2!!

A quick Nine

After work I went up to the club for nine holes and some putting practice. Before I started I booked a lesson with Harry, as he is going on his vacation next week, he will fit me in tomorrow for a 45min lesson. I'm really interested to see what he has to say and what he wants me to work on.

My golf tonight was a mixture of solid good golf, and horror holes. 6 pars, with a double a triple and a quad bogey!!!!

It added upto a nine over par 45. Should have had one birdie as well but missed a three footer through trying to hard :(

One bright note, for the third time out no three putt's!!! I'm sure that run can't continue long but it's evidence of my improving putting/chipping.

45 (Nine over par)
50% FW's Hit
5/9 GiR's
16 putts (1.78/hole & 2.00/GiR)
3 penalties!!!!

Back to the Golf.

Well I got back onto the golf course again last evening after nearly three weeks away. The weather was fine and Stephen was keen to get some holes in so we went straight off at 5:15 and played 14 holes, missing out a loop of four holes to bypass some slow four balls, the holes we played including the last 6 with Harry the assistant pro who joined us on the 12th. My game was part rusty part ok, I was 9 over after 11 holes but then I remember a couple of shockers which included a nine on my nemesis hole 14 (par 4). In all it came to a 71 gross out of par 54. I also remember missed 4 foot birdie putt on the par 5 16th Green.

My mid/long irons were strangely either pushed or fading, I felt that I was coming across the ball out to in, but a bit of range time will sort that, driver was playing nice if not long, with a baby draw and apart from the missed 4 footer my putting was really good including a couple of ten footers holed for once.

14 holes
score 71 (par 54)
FW's 63%
GiR 3/14
Putts 24 (1.71/hole & 2.0/GiR)
Penalties 4!!!

It was noticeable that the sunset is drawing in and soon I will not be able to play 18 holes of evening golf. there are no more mid week medals with start times after 5 pm. So if I want a few more cracks at the handicap I'll have to play on the weekends. I will see how that goes.

Basically the plan is to enjoy the remaining light evenings by playing and practising short game stuff then to start working on my swing as the weather/light gets more scarce.

I have more or less decided to give Harry a go at shaping/improving my swing/game this autumn/winter and I'll take his first lesson in September, Because he has seen me play so often, both good and bad games and because I know him well enough to get a no BS opinion, I think he is best placed to know about what's realistic for me and what I should work on.

New personal best score from the yellow tees.

Well I followed Tuesdays front nine 42 with a 43 last night together with a 41 on the back nine for a personal best 18 hole score of 84 (14 over) seven shots dropped on each nine holes is at least consistent!

One caveat, I was playing alone last night, where as on Tuesday I was in a three ball, so less pressure and distraction last night. Even so it was encouraging.

I went back to mainly using my three wood or an iron off the tee, only pulling the driver where there is very wide margin for error. Iron shots were slightly less well struck than Tuesday but still mostly solid. The short chipping/pitching was not to bad and although I did not drain many memorable putts, I managed to get around in 33 blows with the flat stick and for perhaps the first time ever no three putts!! One 4 iron that found the left hand lateral hazard was the only penalty on the card with a failure to get out of a bunker on the 10th being the other obvious error. All in all I played pretty well, not so many brilliant shots, it was more a case of fewer really bad shots.

57% fairways hit
5/18 GIR's
33 Putts
1 Penalty off the Tee.
1 Birdie
6 Pars
2 Doubles

That could well be my last golf for a few weeks, we will see if I manage to escape over the weekend or not.

Day and night

I played 18 holes on Tuesday and 9 holes on Wednesday, the contrast in my ball striking could not have been greater.

On Tuesday I was 24 over par by the end and I could not hit a solid shot for anything. Driving was very poor with huge hooks followed by huge blocks and my iron play was abysmal too I only managed one par on the 15th hole and I hit just one GIR all round on the 18th where I proceeded to three jack for Bogey, never felt in control of my swing.

1/18 GIR, zero birdies - one par and 37 putts.

However on Wednesday I hit my irons totally solid and stood on the 6th tee at level par, I did wobble a bit on the last few holes but that was due to dodgy tee shots followed by silly course management not poor iron play. In fact I don't think I ever hit my irons better, highlight was a 6 iron to the 5th hole from the left rough to the uphill raised green, 174 to the middle (according to the GPS) and it carried onto the green to leave me a 12 foot birdie attempt. But it was not the distance that pleased me, it was the completely solid hit with a nice 5 yard draw. The fact that I tried a 6i at all was testament to the fact that I was finding the middle of the club face! The end result was a 6 over par 42 for the front nine, which is my best ever score on the front nine holes.

6/9 GIR's, one birdie - three pars and 19 putts.

It's a strange fact that although my putting stroke is vastly improved and I have a lot more confidence in it, my putting stats don't yet bear this out. My lag putting and my chipping/short pitching is improving but I'm not one putting enough times from 3-10 feet and so I still don't get up and down as often as I should and I still make too many three putts from long distance.

Next Monday I'm away for a two week family vacation without golf, when I come back I'm going to restart taking lessons again.

July month end

I managed to play 18 last Thursday to add to this months stats, even with that round it feels like I only played half a month and August could be worse with a two week vacation coming up soon.

Just a mention for my regular playing partner Stephen, who carded a personal best 1 over par round last week when we played a full 18. He was 1 under through 9, level through 16 and it was so close to a par round, great golf by him.

As for my game, my full swing feels a bit out of sync at the moment, but my putting, chipping and pitching has benefited from the focus I have put on it. Correspondingly my confidence is actually high.

Stats for the month

Faiways hit 48.6% (My average 46.8%)
Missed left 33.2% (33.8%)
Missed Right 18.1% (19.4%)

Greens in regulation 34.0% (26.8%)

Scrambling 6.5%* (6.4%)
Sand saves 25.0%** (6.7%)

Putting Average 2.02 (2.01)
Putting per GIR 2.19 (2.26)

Scores by Par
Par 3's - 4.3 (4.2)
Par 4's - 5.0 (5.4)
Par 5's - 6.6 (6.1)

Scoring
Eagles - 0% (0%)
Birdies 2% (1%)
Pars 28% (23%)
Bogies 45% (40%)
Doubles or worse 26% (36%)

Score total +19.0 (+22.6)


* (only records up and down for a par not a bogey)
** (only records sand saves for a par not a bogey)


July Practice log

•18 holes, general practice, 29th July.
•2 hr's pitching practice, 29th July.
•20 holes, general practice, 28th July.
•30 Min's chipping practice, 28th July.
•45 Min's Putting Practice, 28th July.
•40 Min's putting practice, 27th July.
•8 holes general practice, 27th July.
•30 Min's chipping practice, 27th July.
•30 Min's putting practice, 21st July.
•75 balls Driving range, 20th July.
•11 holes, marking a card, 5th July.
•10 holes practice, short pitching, 2nd July.
•30 mins Putting practice, 2nd July.
•160 balls, 1.5 hr's Driving range, 1st July.
•Log July 2010

Speed golf!

I got up to the club last night at 5.15 with the intention of doing a light bit of practice. However Stephen was also at the club and as there seamed to be a lot of people/match plays milling about getting ready to start we decided to head out fast, after playing the first we saw the front nine of the course was already quite busy and we changed plan to head down the 12th and play a few holes out of the way (teeing off of our 12th is allowed if the 11th is not occupied). Well just as we teed off a guy appeared on the tee of the par 3 11th and so we had to get a shift on so as not to hold him up. What proceeded was the fastest 10 holes of golf I ever have played, the guy behind was supper fast and so we kept in front, never letting him wait for a single shot as we played 11 holes in one hour! We figured he would walk in after the 18th but he also continued back up the first after us!

In fact it was far too fast to be enjoyable, just get to the ball hit it, find it, hit it, chip it, putt it and move on. I played bogie golf from memory, it was too fast to record scores and stats, even my memory of the shots is hazy all I can remember is having a great draw going with my driver and for the first time ever using driver on the 14th and drawing it around the right to left dog leg away from the right hand OB, a shot I would never try in a comp!

The guy chased us around back up the first hole and so on until I called time out after the we had played the third. I wanted to practice golf not practice speed playing.

So back we went to the putting green to putt for about 45 Min's, I was working on lag putting from 40 ft and holing out 4 footers. After getting my tempo back on the putting green the course had become more deserted so we played the first hole for the third time that night and then off the 4th tee, got up to the green and spent the next half hour in chipping practice which is what I really headed up to the course to do in the first place!

After about 30 Min's Gavin's arrival was announced when his drive landed with a thump some 20 yards short of the green, the hole is 333 from the forward tees, you can cut some off as it doglegs a little but that drive had to be 290/300 carry into what little wind was wafting. Gavin is the course record holder around our place and hit's it rather a long way!! In fact he hits a 4 iron almost as far as I carry a 3 wood, it's quite amazing. We decided to play on with him and put in a few more holes messing about with 2-3 balls and hitting pitches/chips etc.

Watching someone really good is actually nice for your game, that is if you don't try to murder the ball in response to their mammoth hitting! I resisted trying to hit it a long way and just tried to copy how he hit down through the ball. Really good players get this trajectory that I envy, the ball takes off lower, on a shallower piercing angle and actually climbs higher eventually but always on that piercing angle, then kind of stalls and falls out of the sky much steeper as it runs out of forward momentum. Compared to us hackers and our rainbow trajectory it is very, very different. Especially on short 40-60 yard pitch shots Gavin plays these almost punch shots that have that piercing trajectory they stay relatively low and stop dead quick. Those shots were what I was trying to emulate with very limited success!!

Anyway by this stage having had nothing to eat or drink since lunch time I was feeling it, in fact I was almost feeling a little drunk and wobbly and I could not hit driver for toffee by the end, we finished up on the par 3 11th at five to ten and you could only follow the ball for about a hundred yards before losing sight of it.

In all I spent close to five hours at the club, played 20 holes, and must have hit hundreds of balls, when you include the putting/chipping time it was like a whole weeks practice in one night :p

Very enjoyable but very tiring.

Back to it.

Managed to get upto the golf club last night for a practice session it felt like the first time in a long while. I spent about 40 Min's on the putting green, happy with my putting from 10 foot and in, I'm not great, but I am happy that there is progress from that distance. Lag putting though from greater than 20 foot is still a big problem. I would say that 95% of my three puts come when the first putt is more than 20 foot away from the hole, I'm sure I'm not unique in that respect, but I do want to reduce the number of 3 putts and that means doing more and more work on long putting and distance control.

After the putting green I played 8 holes dropping down 2-3 balls and practicing chipping, short pitches and long putts after driving off. Actually my driving was way off with a nasty hook shot or a block to the right all the way around, the full shots I played were affected by a push fade that I have developed while trying not to come OTT, but the fade does not show up every time which makes it hard to play for. I still think it's mainly due to me protecting my right hand a little and not releasing the club as hard.

Anyway, I still scored ok with some good putting so all in all it was a good practice session that ended with me chipping onto the first green for 30 Mins as it was so quiet. I need more of these kind of practice evenings but with a fortnights vacation looming I doubt I'll get as much achieved as I would wish before September.

News on the fitness front, I have succeeded in running to my schedule so far and doing a bit of stretching after the runs, the 1/2 stone of blubber that I put on in the past month is starting to shift and my legs are starting to recover after the run's, but as yet I have not found the motivation to add the strength exercises :(

So it's official, cut 0.4 down to 25.0 coming 9th in the combined midweek medal last night. No golf for me now until next week as family stuff takes over the weekend.

Medal 7

I got talked into playing a medal tonight on short notice.

I only found out yesterday that the medal was on and thought I better get to the driving range last night because I have not hit a ball for two weeks. Unfortunately after about half a bucket of balls I hit the mat too hard with a wedge and hurt the back of my right hand. I have had this problem once before but in a much more painful way, that time I was out of action all winter, indeed I could not even hold a knife for weeks that time...

This time it was not nearly as bad and I just protected it through today and decided I would try to play the medal and see how it went. In fact despite being a bit apprehensive before I started, the hand was pretty much OK in the end, I just could not power through with the right hand, so I left the club face open a bit and played a push fade instead of a draw with my irons.

The course was sodden and playing about as long as it can do and the greens were like sponges, quite a change from the last time I played it when everything was baked bone dry.

Anyhow neither of those reasons excused my poor play, in fact I was wild off the tee a few times, and my short game and putting was abysmal, probably just the result of two weeks away from the course. I was out in 51 and pretty despondent, however I came back better and finished with a 95 that included a suicide 8 on the par 3 15th hole. Because that score will be reduced to a net double bogey 6 and assuming the CSS is the usual 69 I should get cut 0.4. Not quite what I had hoped for but it could have been a whole lot worse after the first 9 holes...


64% fairways hit.
33% GIR.
38 putt's, inc 4 3 putt's.
4 penalties.
1 up and down sand save for a par.
4 pars, 5 doubles or worse.

Back to the rain.

Just back from a week of too much work, too much heat and far too much heavy food and wheat beer in Germany.

I feel sluggish and chubby, it's time to resurrect a fitness regime!

I stopped running and using the gym weights when I was confirmed for the hernia I got while doing squat thrusts with too much weight in the gym. That was a few months back now and I'm starting to feel the lack of real heart pumping exercise. Seeing as I can't get the hernia op until October I have decided to get back to running and some light body weight exercises/stretching until then.

At least I can keep fit and keep the weight off even if I can't really build any mussel.

Besides, the fitness does really help with golf, especially towards the end of a round when you have been carrying the bag in some heat for 3 hours.

I just came off the treadmill having jogged 3 miles at 6 mph, plus a 10Min walking warm up and 10Min's walking warm down with the obligatory stretches. Not feeling too bad considering it's at least 2 months since I last ran. Should be back up to speed in a month or so I hope. Plan is to run three times a week, do body exercise another 3 times a week with stretching at every session. Lunch times are my designated exercise time so I still get to golf in the evenings :)

Apparently it rained here most of this past week so while I'm looking forward to finding the course a bit less parched, I do hope it stops soon as I'm in golfing withdrawal!

Two weeks no golf

Since returning from Scotland a bad back has sidelined me and combined with a weeks worth of trade show for work that starts tomorrow it looks like no golf for a while :(

Scotish Open

No practice for me these past two days, On Wednesday I had a work meeting in Glasgow and afterwards having finished early I nipped up to Loch Lomond to check out practice day at the Scottish Open. I managed to see Phil Mickleson and Ernie Ells among others play in the Pro Am and spent time walking the course and checking out the practice range till late o'clock.

Indeed I enjoyed it so much I arranged a quick day off work for the next day and found somewhere to stay the night near by. I then got to spend Thursday watching the first round golf too. I followed Chris Wood, Christian Cevaer & Michael Hoey in the morning, then vaguely followed big Phil's, big Easy's and big (literally :p) Montnty's groups in the afternoon. By the ninth hole in the afternoon the crowds following those headline groups made it too much hassle so I went and watched the pro's practicing on the range for an hour then took a ringside seat at the par 3 17'th and watched all the remaining afternoon groups come in.

It was very enjoyable and quite revealing as to how those guys actually play and practice and how the courses are set up.

Firstly let me say they hit it a god damn long way without much obvious speed and strength, it's quite clear that technique and tempo plays a huge part in the power they display. I mean 300 yards carry is a long way!! No really! Makes me laugh when so many Internet amateurs claim 300 yard driving averages, to this day I have not seen any handicap player hit a driver as high and as far through the air as those pros do, and another thing, most of them deliberately use a fade shot off the tee ( if not on all shots) and I'm quite sure that if they went after one they could get more yardage than they actually play for.

The other amazing thing is how little they try and work the ball unless they have too. Baby fades, little cut shots and small draws are the order of the day until they get out of position. Highlight of Thursday was Phill Mickleson on the first fairway, he was 20 yards behind a big dead tree, he sliced the ball around the tree and onto the green in true big Phil style. That was worth watching :)

But the most impressive thing was their distance and trajectory control with irons and their short game skills, truly worth watching.

And the most surprising thing is how many putts they miss. Now obviously they are good putters and to be fair their distance control is spot on and impressive, but it just goes to show why putting is often the thing that makes the difference for those guys, because from 4-6 foot they miss a lot more than I expected even on the practice green. Still much better than us hackers of course but amazingly human.

Having said that the greens looked awfully fast, and the course looked set up pretty tough with shaved run off areas and some fairly demanding fairways to be found. No way would I brake 100 on a course like that even off the short tee's! Those greens would give me about 45 putts and my lack of short game would kill me :p

It was very obvious why the pro's rounds take 5 hours, they spend an age on the greens, reading it, walking around to every side view, getting set up, trying to make the putt count. Where as in club golf we pretty much all rush the bit at the green, which for the sake of family life's and our Sat morning sanity is probably no bad thing because we all hate 4.5 hour rounds let alone 5.5 hour ones, but I think putting and how to read greens correctly, that may be the single biggest difference we could make to our hackers games if we went at it like a Pro.

All in all I enjoyed being there and if you ever get the chance of watching an event especially a practice day when there are much fewer spectators then I heartily recommend it.

Handicap's UK versus USA...

I use a scorecard app on my iphone, it's called GolfShot and after a round it emails you the scorecard and adds the round to your stats.

Last night I noticed something on the scorecard that was emailed to me, it has a USA style course rating and slope rating for my home course. I checked the other scorecards and I got info for rounds off the yellow tee's and the white tee's.

This kicked off a google search about US handicaps and one thing lead to another and soon I was deep in calculations.

Now I know full well that only my real Congu handicap counts, but... In my vainglory I have calculated other handicaps...

I decided I will have an official handicap at the club and a unofficial handicap, call it a society handicap that I will play off for society/forum meets and matches that get played for a few quid between friends and strangers. This will make me feel less of a bandit in casual matches because at the moment I will not play anyone for money off 25, it's just not right, I do not feel comfortable doing it.

Also I was interested to see how my USGA handicap would come out compared to my Congu handicap so here are the results...

Official Congu Handicap (All qualifying comps off medal tee's) = 25.4
USGA comp only handicap {(All qualifying comps off medal tee's) 2 lowest cards from the 7 comps played} = 23.0

UK Society handicap (All 2010 recorded scorecards all tee's) = 17.5
USGA Society handicap {(All 2010 recorded scorecards all tee's) 6 lowest cards from the 16 played} = 16.0

I find it very interesting that because USGA handicaps can use cards from general play + match play and only use the best cards from up to your last 20 rounds that they do come out lower than uk handicaps.

*disclaimer

This assumes that the GolfShot app is accurate in it's course and slope rating of my home club!!!

The course rating seams fine as 69 off the white tee's tallies with our normal CSS, and 68 for the yellows would therefore seam feasible. Where I'm unsure is on the slope rating, on websites it suggests that the average is 112 and uses 113 in the calculations, GolfShot has our slope rating at quite a high 120 for the yellows and 122 off the whites which seams very high if the average is 112 ish!!!

However I have nothing else to confirm/disprove it by and even if I use 112 the result still comes out lower than the UK version, so as a piece of fun it stands :D

Watching the pro

I was lucky enough to tag along tonight for 11 holes with Pete the club pro and Stephen who was having a playing lesson. Watching Pete work around the course is really an education and your tempo always improves for a while after seeing his easy powerful swing.

I managed to play quite well despite a few chip outs following misdirected drives, and one out of bounds with my 3 wood.

I scored 51 for the 11 holes including one birdie from 5 greens in regulation, & 21 putts.

I'm getting to the stage that I would like to play a medal again :D

More short game practice planned for the rest of the week, I was thinking about going up to the Loch Lomond European tour event on Wednesday/Thursday, but the weather forecast is not good so I will stay home and play golf instead!

Penta

On Friday evening I headed up to the club to practice my short game while playing a few holes. I also wanted to test some balls I had found yet never played before, I took a TaylorMade Penta, a Srixon Z-Star & a Z-StarX.

I don't know what it is about the Penta but I really enjoy playing it, the ball is really long off my driver, not only that but it has a great trajectory for me and holds it's line into the wind well. Feels fine off the irons and stops on the greens just fine. But as important as that aspect is it's insignificant compared to how it comes off my putter, I feel really confident with this ball, it seams to roll at the hole really well and feels great off the putter.

If only I could justify spending £35 a dozen for any golf ball, then I would play this ball every time I could in both practice and competition. Alas, I can't justify it, maybe when I stop losing ball so often...

The short game practice was not too successful due to the course being busy, I did get a few 100-75 yard pitches in and got a few close using a little cut shot that I learned at the driving range.

More practice needed!

Due to the rain I headed upto the driving range after work last night. Got a couple of alignment sticks from the shop and started hitting balls.

I concentrated on full wedge shots, 54 degree wedge, 50 degree wedge and the Driver.

I started enjoying it and ended up using 160 balls! :S

I hit my wedges really nicely, that is in terms of contact, I also had good contact with the driver, but the results for all of them were less pleasing in terms of direction. With me aligned correctly my wedges went straight left maybe 10 degrees and my driver either blocked then faded or started straight and hooked left.

The driver was just wild and I believe I was swinging at it too hard and too fast last night so I backed off it and went back to wedges.

I ended up trying to swing more in to out to in and did succeed in getting my wedges more on line towards the end, indeed I was hitting them satisfyingly close to the target by the end and started trying slight cut shots which worked quite well and combined with trying to hit the ball first I was getting some good stop even with the range balls.

July practice plan

After reviewing my stats and practice log for June I'm motivated to change some things in July and set out a practice plan.

General practice
My aim is to make more of my general practice time while playing holes on the golf course. I often just play without thinking about the practice. I intend to focus more of my putting and especially my short game practice on the course, because I have to be practicing pitches, chips and putting on real greens, I'm convinced that this is the only way to actually transfer my practice gains to the golf course. This may mean playing less holes overall but I think it will be key to improvement.

Putting
I aim to keep up my level of practice for the next month as putting is 'the' most important thing and I'm starting to believe I can putt. Slight change of emphasis as per the above to take it more onto the course. I need to set up a putting routine so I don't get rushed and un-focused on the green which happens to often right now.

Chipping
Needs lots of work and more time, more on course focus, and onto a green chipping time is needed. I also intend to get a lesson off Harry the Assist pro, I want to learn how to play those high spinning low flying, high checking shots he uses.

Pitching
Also needs more work and time, again on course practice will be the bulk of my focus. Pitch mark repairer at the ready!! I need to figure out distance control as a priority. I'm not sure if I should go for a feel based system using less clubs or a more scientific system of 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 swings with more wedges. I need to decide this. Also intend if money allows to get a pitching lesson and use my iphone GPS program for distances.

Sand
I'm now confident of getting out of sand, I need to practice getting it closer to the hole while getting out.

Irons
Swing changes are postponed until the autumn/winter time. All iron practice will be general during practice rounds or while warming up/for tempo at a driving range. Main goal with irons is to hit to a distance and a predictable shot shape. I want to improve my GIR % and because I think it is artificially high this month after my one great 15 holes where I hit 70 odd percent of the greens. I'm going to look at my overall percentage and try and move it towards 30% GIR. That means hitting a consistent iron shape and distance.

Fairway woods
No specific practice intended, a 3 wood off the deck is a penalty waiting to happen for me, I will not go there at the moment.

Driving
Weekly driving range sessions using driver, 3 wood and 3 hybrid off the tee, focused on finding target fairways and hitting out of the middle of the club consistently.

End of Month report

So it's time to start a new months practice log and record Junes practice & performance for posterity.

Before writing this post I felt like I spent a lot of time this month playing and practicing for not much difference in scorring, But then I looked at my stats for June against my stats for the rest of the year and it shows a marked improvement this month. Then thinking back I have improved my putting (despite the stats) and I have worked through the shanks and come out stronger. I have enjoyed getting out in the great weather and got more comfortable in comps. In fact I have had some really good scores and less bad scores. But also I have recorded good rounds and not always recorded bad rounds so I'm not sure the stats paints a completely true picture. I will try from now on to record both good and the bad when I play with a card.

All in all it has been a good month. As well as the practice log I will record my stats for the month here as well, hoefully in time I will see genuine prgression by looking back to posts like this.

I have good feelings for July :D

Stats

Faiways hit 50.8% (My average 46.4%)
Missed left 27.6% (34%)
Missed Right 21.7% (19.7%)

Greens in regulation 37.0% (25.3%)

Scrambling 3.9%* (6.4%)
Sand saves 0.0%** (0.0%)

Putting Average 2.02 (2.01)
Putting per GIR 2.13 (2.28)

Scores by Par
Par 3's - 3.9 (4.2)
Par 4's - 5.3 (5.5)
Par 5's - 5.8 (6.0)

Scoring
Eagles - 0% (0%)
Birdies 1% (1%)
Pars 32% (22%)
Bogies 36% (39%)
Doubles or worse 31% (38%)

Score total +19.4 (+23.4)


* (only records up and down for a par not a boggy)
** (only records sand saves for a par not a boggy)

Practice time

Putting time 495 Min's
Short game Practice 570 Min's
Driving range 840 balls (Estimate 480 Min's)
Practice holes played = 135
Comps
Medal Holes played = 36
Match Play holes = 13

Practice log

5 holes short game practice, 29th June.
45 Min's Putting practice, 29th June.
11 holes general play, 27th June.
30 Min's putting practice, 27th June.
4 holes general practice, 26th June.
18 holes general practice, 25th June.
1hr putting practice, 25th June.
18 holes general practice, 24th June.
45 mins putting practice, 24th June.
1 hr chipping and short pitching practice, 24th June.
60 balls, driving range, 24th June.
9 holes on course practice, 23rd June.
45 mins, putting practice, 23rd June.
80 balls driving range, June 23rd.
40 balls, driver practice, 19th June.
30 Min's Putting practice, 19th June.
45 Min's bunker practice, 19th June.
1hr Pitching practice, 19th June.
15 holes practice play, 17th june.
1.5 hr's chipping practice, 16th June.
20 Min lesson, swing plane, 15th June.
80 Balls, half swing, in to out practice, Shank city, 15th June.
2 hr's Short game practice, shank city, 15th June.
1 hr's Putting Practice, 12th June.
60 balls, driving range, old irons, 11th June.
9 Holes general play, + second ball practicing pitching inside 100 yd's, 10th June.
Driving range, 80 balls, swing work, 10th June.
12 holes practice, 9th June.
1.5 hr's driving range, swing work, 8th June.
22 holes, practice round, 5th June.
1 hr net practice on swinging from the inside, 5th June.
1 hr chipping and short pitching, 5th June.
Lesson and 2 hrs hitting range balls, 4th June.
2hrs chip & pitch practice, 3rd June.
1hr putting practice, 2nd June.
1hr driving range on tempo, 2nd June
2hrs putting practice, 1st June

First to five wins...

Last night I went up to the club for a few hours practice, on arriving at the putting green I was invited into a putting game with Harry the assistant pro and two scratch team players including our course record holder. No pressure then!

The game was basically that we putted around a circle of four holes, everyone stayed still until one person holed a putt with all three of the others missing. The putts were all 10 foot plus distance and taken at the same time so nobody got a lot of time to think about it. First to 5 won, and yes I won the first game and got to 3 before the second game was ended. So all in all not bad performance under pressure and the game was very good for training putting pace and specifically how not to dolly the putt towards the hole.

After that I concentrated on lag putting spending about 45 Min's in total on the green. Now here's a moan, the practice green I know very well, I can putt really well on it, but the real greens are all different paces and my lag putting practice is not worth much out on the course! Luckily 3 footer and 6 footer practice does seam to be slowly making a difference.

After the putting I went for 5 holes to practice pitching and chipping, Trying to get up and down from everywhere inside 100 yards, I'll be honest I suck at it! Easy sub 10 yard chipping I can get them up and down quite often but anything from more than 10 yards is more miss than hit. One issue in particular I spotted last night is my 54 degree wedge fly's very left of my target line with a full swing, maybe I'm forcing it? Also I'm very prone to leaving chips and pitches short, more work on these shots is certainly needed and I may have to start trying harder to get them past the hole on purpose which is something I often practice in my lag putting.

My focus did get taken somewhat from the short game last night by my driving, I was hitting it a bloody mile! I have no idea where it came from but last night for 4 holes I drove the ball like a proper good golfer, high drawing shots from the middle of the club face, it was a joy to hit them, the only thing that felt different to normal was that my tempo and speed just felt really balanced if that makes sense? Anyway it's almost for sure that I'll hit driver like a hacker again next time, that's just golf!

Trust

Sometimes I guess you just have to trust that the practice time you are putting in will make a difference in the end.

The past two days I have spent practice time on the putting green and on the short game.

Putting in particular has been rather ace on the practice green, spent a really good hour last night on there sinking loads. Making sure I worked first on 3 footers, then 6 footers and finally some distance putts. I ended playing putting tennis with Stephen which was really good, he won 3 games to 2, but then he should being off 10!

Pitching on the practice ground is getting much better with my shank all but a distant memory, chipping has also been going from strength to strength in practice.

So when walking out on the course I should be feeling pretty good about my chances of scoring right?

Well Thursday I played 18 and sucked in every part of my game, Then Friday I played another 18 and sucked again, indeed after holing everything I looked at on Fridays hour long putting practice, as soon as I got into the actual round my putting went awol, It was almost funny.

I'm afraid I did not keep stats, on Thursday I doubt I even broke 100, yesterday was a bit better but not inspiring.

But I will keep the faith and trust that practice will tell in the end.

I have to mention that Stephen my playing partner has been playing the best golf of his year these past two rounds, 76 on Thursday and 75 last night, good to see him back to form after losing his single figure status over the first half of this year.

Finally I went up to the club late tonight after our Men's open had ended, just intended to play a few, but it turned into a find the balls walk. One things for sure I will not need to buy any balls for the rest of the year now :D

I can probably play proV1's in all comps for the rest of the year, it was silly the number I found.

Anyway the four holes I actually played tonight I par'ed all of them so it was a good couple of hours!

I had a break for a few days since last Saturday, doing family stuff instead of golf. I got back into it yesterday (Wednesday) with some putting, chipping and a few practice holes. With no comps on the horizon I'm just working on my game.

Looks like my hernia op will not be anytime soon due to holidays, work trips etc. So that will not interfere with summer golf :D Mind you the doc says only two weeks off from golf anyhow :p

However I do feel a bit unfit, I stopped running and going to the gym when I got news of the hernia and after a month I really feel the lack of fitness training on my golf. Carrying the bag in the heat is getting harder. Time to get running again!!

Today I went to the range working on my swing, take away, keeping some back leg flex etc. quite pleased with early results on camera, I'm achieving a better back swing plane which is a start.

However it is obvious on camera that my alignment is poor, I set up closed probably to subconsciously prevent left to right ball flight. Something for me to work on next time.

Going for a few holes at the club late tonight and some more putting. Going to try and get some pitching/chipping practice on the course when it's quiet, I really wish we had a chipping green so i did not have to feel like I'm sneaking on the course to do something a bit dodgy!!!

Pitching practice

I had some really good pitching, bunker, putting & driving practice today at the club/driving range.

I find that I can concentrate and get really good results for 30 Min's to an hour then things get sloppy and I start 'experimenting' with my technique. But a change in focus can get me back on track again.

So I started pitching to target markers in a cross wind and getting good results, both in terms of the ball strike and feel for distance. Using a 54 degree wedge for shots of about 40-50 yards.

Once my focus was lost on pitching and I started playing iffy ones, I went and worked on bunkers getting out of the shallow practice bunker every time and even starting to get some feel for the distance that the ball rolled after landing with different swing strengths.

Finally when I got sloppy in my bunker focus it was onto the putting green where I had 30 Min's of sublime putting from 3-10 feet, starting at 3 feet and concentrating on rolling the ball at the hole instead of hitting it, I got into a rhythm hitting the target almost every time and gradually extended the distance, I started to putt very well, seeing the break and having the speed of the green almost exactly. In fact that was my best putting practice, I will have to try and duplicate it again next time. It could be the basis for a practice routine that makes me a better putter.

Well I say finally, but an hour later I was at the range with unexpected free time and 40 balls, Actually my warm up irons were real bad and so I went to the driver which after a few wild slices and hooks, I started to get good width and middle them really nicely, again hitting through a cross wind so I can't say if the draw shape was partly my swing or all winds work, but the point is that a high % went where I wanted them to and they felt solid good long hits.

All in all, very happy with today's practice.

I also must take notice of my limited concentration time, multi hour practice ending in a sloppy technique can not be as productive as a good 45 Min's of solid confidence inspiring practice. I want to try and keep my practice to between 30 Min's and at most 1 hour, on any one area of my game with breaks in between areas.

My Swing

I have been watching quite a few of my swing clips recently on V1 home swing software, where you can compare your swing to some pro swings. It makes it easy to see differences and faults. There is a list of thinks I would like to change about my swing:

Straightening of my right leg on the back swing.

Cupping of my left wrist at the top of the back swing, makes the club point slightly right at the top.

My wrists are far back behind my shoulder on the back swing, I.e. on a quite flat inside plane.

OTT move, possibly related to the swing plane.

Out to in, I don't release the club down the line, I release the club inside the line after impact.

I suspect there are other faults or issues that I don't have the knowledge to see yet.

The big question is, are any of these faults deal breakers with regards to improving over time? I still can't decide weather to tackle them now or leave them for the Autumn/winter/future and just concentrate on my short game now during the summer playing months while we have good greens conditions. My head say's get a short game, my heart wants a good full swing asap.

What I don't know is weather a good swing can help a consistent short game?

I can get around with my swing, (My best was just last night, 8 over par 66 for the 15 holes we played, but more often I score high 80's when I play well).

From videos it looks like I often aim slightly right (subconsciously, I don't do it on purpose), but I get a good release on the ball so I hit in effect a controlled pull which some times draws/hooks if I get it wrong, very occasionally I get a fade with a wood or long iron but that's rare, mostly my problem is the left side although recently while trying to deliberately swing in to out with driver and 3 wood I have been seeing more push shots than pulls.

Best golf of the year

I can't believe that a few days ago I was ready to jack in the game, and then tonight I played my best ever golf. The catalyst is not in doubt, freed from fear of uncontrollable shanks I played without protecting my pitches and chips for the first time in weeks. Tonight I actually did have one shank, but I knew what caused it and also knew I would not do it again.

It started when I headed up to the club to go to the practice area and work on pitching. I saw Stephen on the putting green and we decided to play a few holes on the way to the practice ground. So off we went and I just had the confidence on every shot right from the start, as the round progressed I got more and more confident I almost knew I was going to hit a good shot even before I got to the ball. We cut out 3 holes to bypass a slow 4 ball and by the time we got to the practice ground I just wanted to keep going so we just played.

I returned a score of 66 for the 15 holes we played, which is 8 over par, I had just one double bogey on the 6th hole when my third hit a ball washer and rebounded 30 yards.

But on the back nine I played the best golf I ever have experienced. I came back in 38, par for the nine is 34, That included three 3 putts!!!!!! No doubles, No duffs, loads of GIR's and pars, great driving and even despite the 3 putts I putted well.

I can account for all four of the dropped shots, one of them on each of the three puts and the shank on the 12th.

It's true what they say, golf is more fun the better you play :)

One day, I know I'll do this in a medal, can't wait!!

Stats:

fairways hit 45% (My average 46.4%)
Greens in Regulation 73.3% (My average 25.3%)
Putts per Green 2.2 (My Average 2.01)
Putts per GIR 2.28 (My average 2.28)

Never did get around to practice my pitching :D

Releasing the club face

My thread on Golf Magic's forum, asking for help with my shank problem received a good amount of replies all trying to help. Three people in particular gave similar advice to do with releasing the club head. That rang a bell with what Harry the assistant club pro told me once before too. Anyway I decided to give more attention to releasing the club and started by chipping with airflow balls so I could put some oomph behind the release to really get the feel of it without the balls going miles.

On last nights results we may be onto something, I chipped the air flow balls and then went to real golf balls and by the end of a long session of only chipping I could genuinely say I never shanked even one ball.

Tonight I aim to head up to the course and the practice ground to try pitching in a similar way. I know I've claimed a cure before, but I'm very exited after last nights chipping performance, I could even stand close to the ball and find the middle of the club face.

I'm kind of praying that this could be the simple answer I have been hoping for that restores my confidence in my short shot ball striking.

I think that when asking about problems online, posting a video clip really helps people to give better advice. Also I can see what they meant when saying I was leaving the club face wide open. In the video clip when the hosel hits the ball the club face is nowhere to be seen, That must be because it was lagging behind wide open. Also now I come to think of it it did feel recently like I was holding the club face off to try and stop the ball going left as much.

Rabbit's Matchplay

Well I got taken apart last night in my first ever match play event. I lost the match by halving the 13th Hole for a boggy 5.

We were both off 25 handicap's. I had 6 pars in 13 holes and won just one hole, played about as good as I could do! Out in 45 despite twice out of bounds off the tee on that nine holes.

It was an object lesson in scoring, I outdrove the guy by miles, but every time he got to the 150 marker I knew he would be in the hole in three shots. He just played a stormer, every time I got par he halved, he played like a 10 handicap! It was actually a pleasure to watch him play so well, I did not mind losing because I played my best golf and still got slaughtered.

But what it really drove home was how important a strong short game is, he pitched, chipped and putted just fantastically, while chipping/short pitches were my downfall.

If you had put my long game with his short game then we would have had some damn good scoring combination despite my two lose drives.

My stats especially GIR were the best for a long time:

46% of GIR (My average is 22%)
54% FW's hit (My average is 46.4%),
1.77 putts per hole (My average is 2.00)
2.00 putts per GIR, (My average is 2.28)

And I made my first ever up and down from a bunker!!!

Mx25's back in the bag :D

Up and Down, but not for Par....

This game of golf we play can take you from the heights to the depths of despair and back up again in no time.

Yesterday I visited the Pitch n Putt, they had cut the grass and the greens are showing some sign of regrowth, so I started out practicing chips and pitches. But soon the shanks had me in despair, I just could not stop hitting them. Both chips and pitches, total nightmare.

After that I went to a driving range to practice half swings trying to work out how to swing in to out correctly. But all I got was shanks and fats. In desperation I took a lesson from the pro at the range, he wanted me to swing on a different plane, taking the club straight back and straight through and boy did it feel wired, it also gave me a slice and did not stop me shanking.

Because I'm unlikely ever to have another lesson with this dude just due to it not being my normal range, I'm going to ignore what he wanted me to do. Waste of £15.

I was low, I could have just quit and sold the clubs, it's so hard when your shanking and you have swing changes, everything is wrong and nothing feels solid.

I was also so tempted to cancel my match play that was just recently arranged for that evening.

When I got home I posted in desperation on Golf Magic forum for help with my shank problems. I included some video and got some good feed back which I will be using to try and help.

If your interested the thread is here http://www.golfmagic.com/forum/forummessages/mps/dt/1/UTN/36213/V/8/SP/

Then my wife wanted me out from under foot so I had to go play the match play. With low, low expectations I surprised myself by hitting the ball solid and having no shanks!!!

It's a stupid game..

Anyway, I'm easily pleased and because I played well, despite losing badly, I'm back in upbeat mood and ready to do battle with the shanks and beat them.

Also for a bonus, I'm still off 25 and not 26, for some reason I did not get 0.1 back on Sunday like I feared. :D

Medal 6

No return was the final outcome.

Two shanked 8 irons from the fairway on the 8th hole, both into the right hand hazard, where I scored a nine to wreak the score. That was followed by the no return on the 9th after losing my ball in the rough. I did not have the heart to go back the 200+ yards and play another from the tee, not on captains day when I felt we were losing ground and causing a hold up. Combined with an 8 on the next hole before I got my head back together.

It all equalled game over concerning a handicap cut and the NR means a 0.1 back, so now I'm off 26 :(

It started badly in the practice net this morning before the round. I was not hitting it well at all and seriously regretted putting my old irons in the bag this morning, so I went out in a poor state of mind.

However I did get my tee shot away on the 1st ending under a tree, which was to become quite a feature of the front nine for for me.

I was playing with Stephen now off 10, and Alan who I have not played with before off 28. One of the things that has changed from my first medal is that the nerves have gone. Alan played well apart from off the tee which cost him, and Stephen went out in 4 over par was looking like he was onto a great round but it unraveled for him on the back nine, I'm sure it was the beer that the captain treated us to at the halfway house!!

Anyway I played steady just under my handicap going alright up until the 8th, finding tough lies under trees cost me but not seriously, I was going OK. Then the nightmare of the shanks and the no return.

After the half time beer I cheered up, I mean why get upset, I'm playing golf on a fantastic sunny day with good company!

I proceeded to come home in 44 which included the 8 from the 10th hole.

Ohh well, I learned some stuff as usual.

My swing changes unraveled in the pressure of marking a card, even the woods, I played an OTT swing all day. The only time I felt secure was inside 100 yards!

On the positive side, my putting was good today on Captains day when the greens were as fast as they can make them and the pins were in the toughest places. Also I did not shank any short pitch shots, just the two full 8 irons which is probably due to the ball being below my feet at the time.

After the round I took my name off the comp list for next week, I need to sort my iron play out before trying again in a medal. Next comp Monday 21st after work.

Iron change and ProV1's

I stopped by a driving range yesterday while out on my travels. I had my 8 iron in the car boot from my last set of irons. It's an MD Tungsten Ti2 iron with a regular shaft and off the shelf loft and lie.

The reason I took it was to compare the results to my new set of irons, Mx25's, stiff shaft purchased over the winter off ebay.

Yesterday I was leaving the Mx25's out right quite often, pushing them not fading. This is one of the results of the new in to out swing I'm working on.

The old 8 iron with the regular flex was drawing back from the right quite strongly, lovely to see, a true draw aim down the target with alignment sticks, ball starts right of the target and comes back left to the target.

The driving range had a shop attached and they kindly measured the lie of my Mx25 8 iron. Turns out they are 3 degrees flat.

I was thinking about this and I bet that the irons being flat helped me when my swing was out to in with a closed face, they probably stopped me pulling the ball as much. Now however they are not helping me bring the ball back from the right side.

While I like the lower ball flight I get with the stiff shafts, I think the Mx25's will be retired until I get a chance to have them bent back to a regular lie. In fact I'm considering going to Mizuno to be custom fitted then I will see where the irons should really be bent back to, then I would only need do it once.

Until then I will be going back to regular flex MD irons. They actually are easy to hit, the only thing I slightly dislike is, if I go over the top by accident then the ball can pull hook alarmingly and even on a well struck shot they do tend to fly really high which is ok if there is not much wind!

Anyway I will get up the local range today to give them a hit before playing the medal with them tomorrow.

Up at the course last night for 9 holes, Some good some indifferent, driving ranged between really good ball flights and some that I came across out to in. My new swing is still work in progress. Irons went ok but nothing ace. Still it all resulted in a 43 for the 9 holes, inc 3 par's so I can't complain. The thing is I feel I can go much lower than that, Maybe it's delusion, but I feel better than that score, well at least in general play! I look on this as a good thing as the game is about mental confidence as much as anything! The best thing of all though is that's the second time out on the course in two days with not one single shank!!!! That alone had me smiling all night.

The other thing that made me smile like a kid was going into the field left of our par 5 2nd, late on in the evening. I was like a kid in a sweet shop, because the grass is high and it's out of bounds nobody tries to find their ball, I came out after 10 mins with 5 proV1's a proV1x, an NXT Tour, and a Callaway Tour (i)S plus a hand full of lesser balls.

Felt like I was 12 again!

Anti-Shank

I think i figured it out.

I have been setting up with the club sole flat to the ground. the shaft of the club is then quite steep, if you draw a line up from the hosel to the butt of the club, that same line would point to my stomach rather than my waist. When I take the club back to 9 o'clock and then bring it back to the ball, hey presto instead of coming back face to ball it comes back hosel to ball.

Now, if I set up with the club butt pointing to my waist, i.e. flatter, and then reach just a smidgen for the ball, taking the club away by turning the shoulders and returning it brings the club face back to the ball, not the hosel.

So I tried it out on the course, 12 holes, no shanks.

I have my fingers crossed that I have found a cure :D

Woods still going strong tonight and putter was hot too, if I can get my irons working then I will be quietly confident again.

I entered some more medals in the next few weeks so we will see.

Range time

Due to the rain I headed to the driving range tonight, working on a couple of things, keeping flex in my rear knee on the back swing, not getting to steep on the back swing and then coming down on the inside.

The range time went fairly successfully for such big changes in swing thoughts, my woods in particular once again went very well, I struck all my irons and wedges well on full shots, chips were a bit to strong and short pitch shots were still shank infested.

Accuracy was not great with the irons, but that will come when I'm not having to think about how I'm swinging the club.

All in all very promising.

Regarding the shanks, I paid special attention to them today. I now am sure 100% that I can shank with both an inside to out swing and an outside to in swing, so I'm almost ready to discount path as the root cause.

I can also shank holding the club face off and when making sure the club is released and even closed through the ball. I tried altering the standing distance away from the ball, tried making sure my shoulders turned both back and through.

That leaves, posture and/or weight shift or grip as the most likely cause.

Next time out I'm going to try a more in the palm grip and also concentrate on keeping my head rock still and staying in posture.

However I'm beginning to think it's just something I will have to live through and one day they will just get better. My new strategy on the course is using chip and run from anywhere short of a full swing :D

Finally, I was going to post some video from the other day, but the format I shot it in does not seam to work with my editor program so until I figure how to crop it there will be no clips.

The way ahead

I've been thinking the past few days about my game and how to proceed for the rest of the summer.

I had earmarked this summer down as for working on my short game and just playing rather than concentrating on my swing. However right now I'm motivated to change/work on my swing to get it more inside to out in the hope that that will solve my shank issue.

I do think pitching practice is a way to both work at my short game and work at my swing, doing three quarter swings, half swings and part swings, because 100 - 20 yards in is where I need to practice my game anyway.

Real lack of local short game facilities now that the Pitch n' Putt is not a nice place to practice also becomes an issue.

If I still had that Pitch n' Putt facility, I could work on my swing mechanics in conjunction with my pitching game. I will revisit the place after the rain stops and see if there are any signs of it returning to life. As it is now your hitting a ball into a dirt circle instead of a green and one that is almost the hardness of a cricket wicket! Then losing sight of your ball as it bounces off into the 8 inch high rough.

The only other option is the golf club's practice area, which really is just a triangle of steeply uphill grass where you can't work out your yardages, only work on your technique.

I guess I will have to just suck it up and use one or the other because I believe working on pitch shots will eventually help all my game including my shank.

Saturday in the sunshine.

Just back from a long enjoyable day at the golf course in brilliant sunshine. I'm probably going to be lobster red tomorrow despite the sun cream.

I began this morning on the practice ground with my video camera and chipping/pitching I wanted to get a down the line shot of my shanking and succeeded very quickly.

After capturing some swings on memory card I set off down the 8th which was deserted and close to where I was practicing. Focusing on swinging from the inside I found that my 3 wood was going great with some nice draws. The irons were a bit hit and miss and distance was certainly down with the longer and mid irons.

But no shanks.

I played OK and got back to the club house for some liquid refreshment and a spot of putting while I waited for my lunch.

After that I went to the net and filmed some more swings with a wedge, and an 8 iron before wandering towards the first tee.

As I was walking there I met Harry the assistant pro and we decided to play a few holes. Harry helped me a lot, we talked about course management, my grip, ball position and importantly my aiming. Then onto little pitch shots where he really wanted me to minimise my leg movement and get the club releasing through the ball. That seamed to have a good effect so I will be pursuing it in future practice. I almost have myself convinced that excess leg movement is also a component of my issue.

Anyhow it was a great fun day, especially for my driving, out of 17 holes that I used the 3 wood to tee off with only one shot would have had me in real trouble. I did not keep stats, but I hit a lot of fairways.

I have not looked at the video in detail yet, maybe I will be able to post it tomorrow.

Video shocker!

I pleaded with Dave the new pro I saw tonight at short notice at the Golf academy, 'Please cure my shank'.

He watched a few balls and I even shanked one for him. Then we went up to the video studio and he videoed a shot.

It's a shame I don't have a copy of that swing to show you because it was shocking, no really, dreadful. I wonder how the hell I hit the ball at all and no wonder everything went left!

It's my fault and a bad trend, I seam to miss interpret instruction into an extreme version of what I'm told. In an effort to hit down on the ball I have developed the most amazingly steep over the top, out to in swing combined with an anti slice closed club face which has given me my pull hook.

So instead of an inside to out shank, I had the opposite a big time out to in shank.

Taking the club back way outside the line I almost can't do anything but come back over the top, it was disappointing, frustrating and almost embarrassing to see it. In 3-4 months I had taken a decent swing and screwed it into a crap one.

I have a video of my last lesson in march and the video of my swing today after he told me to flatten the down swing and stop holding the face closed on the back swing. It was bit better on the second video today almost like the swing from march, but still a bit steep? So we headed down to the range and the mirror and I basically went back to one of my early lessons on swinging from the inside. Rotating open the club face on the back swing and holding my left wrist flat at the top instead of cupped. All typical high handicapper lesson stuff.

When I flattened out the swing plane on the range I hit a true draw again, not a pull draw that I have been playing, but rather a genuine start to the right and draw back to target shot.

The swing felt very, very different, more like a swing around my body and not hitting down on it at all. In fact the pro told me to forget hitting down on it until I have cured my shanks and I agree.

I'm not going to go near a course with card in my hand until I have this swing grooved and I have sorted my pitching & chipping out. So for me it's hitting balls at the range and the practice area for the foreseeable future.

Another thing is for sure, different pro's tell you different stuff, I have decided that I always will have video lessons so I can see what the hell they are on about from now on, and that I'll have a lesson each month or two just to make sure I'm keeping on track.

Anyway I'm relieved to have a more substantial idea of what has been going wrong and something to work on to cure it.


March 2010, 5 iron.


June 2010, 8 iron.

Short game practice & dispare

I decided to head to the Pitch n' Putt for some short game practice. It's a few weeks since I have been there so I was surprised to see they have killed it in such a short time. The greens are dead, in fact mostly there is only soil where the greens are, not even brown grass, just totally dead, it's such a shame, also they have let the grass between holes grow to above ankle height, meaning you can't find your ball unless you keep careful track on it. From being an ace short practice facility it's become almost totally useless.

Also dead is my short game, infested with shanks again, it was a dead loss, it seams the only way I can make sure not to shank it is to hit the ball a bit fat and roll my wrists through making the ball go left. When I do that you can see a nice mark on the face where I got grass between the club and ball, which is always soooo close to the heal of the club.

I have given up trying to get my weight back that seams to make no difference. So I rang the golf academy and booked in for a Video lesson tomorrow night, if they can't show me what I'm doing wrong and give me something to work it out of my game I don't know what to do.

I have decided there is no way I'm playing another comp until this is sorted.

Medal 5

The good = I broke 100 and had 0 penalties off the tee, best driving performance for some time.

The bad = my chipping & putting went walkabout, 41 blows with the flat stick, 5*3 putts :(

The Ugly = The shanks are back and this time in my irons, I had 6 of them, 1 of which was into water for my only penalty.

I knew I may be in trouble at the driving range before the game, I went to warm up my driver & 3 wood, but it was obvious from the second ball with a wedge that I was swinging real bad. I was push slicing balls, and I almost never ever do that anymore with an iron, it's even very rare in my wood play and the dreaded shank was back.

I felt too fast and not controlled and in the end I mainly just stood with feet together hitting balls to regain some or any of my tempo.

Then our tee time got moved back so I had an hour to kill, which was spent putting.

You would think that 3 hours practice on this area of my game, over the past two days would translate into a decent putting performance, but not a bit of it.

I was playing with Stephen and Harry the assist pro.

In common with other comps my start was bad 5,8,8.

The first 8 was course management stupidity, me playing ping pong in the trees instead of chipping out, I very much hope I have learned my lesson with trees now!!!

The second 8 was my first 9 iron shank and penalty combined with a 3 putt!

Honestly if it was not a medal, I would have walked right then but I kept it together and after that I actually scored ok despite the shanks and three puts!

21 for the first three holes, ended up at 97 for the 18.

57% FW's hit
4 GiR's
41 putts

No cut, no increase in Handicap.

I'm not going to play this weekends medal, next comp I'm entered for is the 12th June. That will give me time to practice finding the middle of the club face instead of the hosel. I'm going to get out the Video camera and try and see what's happening.

Tuesday Practice log

I sometimes moan at the lack of practice facilities at my home golf course. We have only one putting green where no chipping is allowed. A couple of areas for practice on quite steep slopes and neither is long enough to hit anything more than a gap wedge, although one of the areas does have a practice bunker. Then one net and that's pretty much it.

So even though committee notices prohibit practice on the course, many of us do some. This takes the form of dropping the odd second ball while out on the course. Taking a few chips around one of the green's that's out of the way. While that works after a fashion, it's not great and often like last night it's not even possible. When I got to the club at 5pm it was busy with roll ups, match play pairs etc etc.

In the end I settled for putting practice only, which may be a blessing in disguise in terms of quality practice, but is not as satisfying as getting out and doing it while playing 12 holes.

I concentrated 90% on putts inside 5 feet, most of them were 3-4 feet in my estimation, I found that I was missing something like 2 every 10 balls.

Basically I put 5 balls around the hole in a rough circle and tried putting them in, I sometimes got around the circle with all 5 in the hole, but never twice in a row.

When funds and time allow a putting lesson is going to be arranged, because I can both push and pull putts. I have a two ball Odyssey putter and when concentrating on the stroke going straight back and straight through the ball often does go dead straight, but because I'm concentrating on the stroke I often forget to hit the ball with a good rhythm. Then when I concentrate only on the line and speed, I get great rhythm and a good feeling stroke, but that's when pushes and pulls can appear.

By the end of the two hours I was mostly trying to get a routine and ball position that is consistent for every putt, which is not as easy as it seams.

Anyway despite my back hurting by the end, I got a lot out of it and I'm determined to make more putting time, not just tag it on after 12 holes if I feel like it.

I will become a good putter!