I was puring everything at the range today with my shorter clubs. A good sign usually. Grip feels super weird with the wedges, almost like the club face is gonna fly open on my downswing - I can feel it wide open until the last instant. Not worrying about my clubhead speed or distance right now just trying to practice my weight shift (I stay on my back foot because of playing baseball for over a decade) without hip sliding, and my grip/setup. I was standing too close to the ball before.
This week we’re gonna deal with my swing path, I am about 4-6 degrees out to in. I also have a gnarly dual plane thing going on where I come back on the inside and then come down over the top. He said he doesnt mind a dual plane swing or taking it back on the inside but obviously gotta fix the OTT stuff.
Another two lessons this week. We identified the problem - I have regressed back to an extremely over the top swing. I take away inside go over the top. So now he’s trying to get me to do everything opposite - take away slightly outside and drop to the inside like a furyk kind of move. In fact it’s a lot like furyk. He thinks that’ll work for me.
He said my swing looks aesthetically great and I’m just not getting my hands over or getting my weight transferred so that’s mostly what we’ve been working on. I agree and looked at some videos and it doesn’t look bad at all just OTT. So, we did some waist high swings where I focused on weight transfer and getting my hands over and I started rocketing my PW like 125 yards from a waist high swing with it just because I started turning my hands over. Wow.
Then we did target drills on the simulator 30,40,50,60,75 yards, 3 shots each. I was beating my instructor from 30-60 yards and then he switched to try hard mode and got 2 close ones on the 75 and squeaked out a win. We broke down my stats on those shots and from 30-50 yards I was doing as good as 100% of the PGA and from 60-75 I was as good as 70%, in terms of percentage and proximity. Stuck a few to just a few inches. That was a good feeling because I’ve been telling him I am so confident in my game from 20-100 yards and on the green I just cannot for the life of me get the ball off the ground in a full swing. So I confirmed I’m not FOS about my putting and about my short game with this guy and that felt good because it’s easy to get delusional/arrogant about it.
To be fair my wedge is lofted ~42 degrees, more like a 9 iron. But he wanted to show me how much of a difference quickness can make when you get your hands and lower body working together and I was blown away.
I’m in no position to give advice but I find a quicker/accelerating/shorter shot is much better with wedges/short irons.
So, I played this morning. I’m usually a very easy going guy but was a bit put off today. Had a time for 8amish at a very nice, on the expensive end, public course. Little did we know there was a shotgun tournament going off at 8am sharp and then anyone that made a time after that doubling up on a hole, shotgun. Immediately turned the round into a 5 and half hour affair.
I’m right to be pissed they didn’t say anything when booking it right?
It really opened my eyes to how a swing works which I think is what he was trying to do. My full shots go shorter than my half shots. Trying to get me to think about why that is. I
You are right to be pissed about that but most public courses around me are 5.5 hour MINIMUM on the weekend…
And I’ll say it. And this is just a GENERALIZATION and an observation that has no likely basis in reality. And it is one that is not fair. It is just one man’s opinion about the general state of a public course in southern california on the weekend.
But CERTAIN asian/japanese groups are really slow and are real assholes sometimes. I am still collecting the data on this but good fucking lord the weekend down here is a total shitshow. Asian players stereo-typically take the game VERY seriously and take a shitload of time per hole.
Vegas is like 2k or 3k feet above sea level so that will add a little distance. 91 mph swing speed is pretty slow, no way you’re going to be hitting it 270 at that speed. To carry a driver 270 you probably need to be at 110 mph minimum. Depending on your launch conditions 210 is definitely a reasonable distance for that swing speed
Shot a 109 today, lol. Even higher yesterday but stopped keeping score after 8 holes. Think I’m shutting it down for the season, maybe forever. It’s just not fun regressing back to Day 1. Didn’t think it was even possible.
Dude I have spurts like that followed by spurts of playing absolutely incredible - as with everything it is just practice. Spend more time at the range and more time practicing short game IMO. Dont give up, this game is way too enjoyable to just put it on the shelf.
Short game for me can make the difference between a 110 round and a 95. And it is the easiest thing to master technique wise, the putting stroke is not complicated and neither is chipping/pitching. It’s just repetition until you master the muscle movements required.
Maybe I’ll just go to the range on weekends but I’m done at regular courses for a while. Perhaps the occasional round at my place but I just can’t put myself through this anymore. I’m STILL angry!!!
dont overthink it. I truly believe that. Theres a lot of analysis itt, but all that fog/swing thought in one’s brain as they try to execute a physical motion is a lot to ask. Fred Couples said he played well after a couple weeks off.
It’s muscle memory. Relax, consider the shot, address it and swing
So if you’re up in the Northeast I’d recommend getting out to Crumpin-Fox in northwest MA/Southern VT area. Especially this time of year it’s pretty incredible. Was trying to finish before the sunlight went out so not too many good pics but here is a hell of a par 5. Dropped an 88 on its 72.3/144 with 6500 yards that was playing prolly 6200 yards with a bunch of forward tees.
There was a frost delay in the morning so our time got pushed a bit. I play all year round up here at courses that stay open but damn getting told that sucks.
Yeah, we talkin bout practice. Hit the range 3 or 4 times recently, just trying to figure things out. It went Ok I guess but I tire quickly without the usual break walking to my next shot. But I did play yesterday, the struggle continues.
Two fun things I almost forgot. Hit my longest non cartpath drive ever, 278yds. Hit a nice one slightly left that hit some serious downhill hard ground and was 30yds short of the green in the rough. Almost didn’t find it, never expected it to be all the way down the hill, lol.
Also I shanked a 9i so hard that when it hit a tree like a 5000 acorns dropped to the ground, sounded like drummers in a marching band haha. Guys in my foursome got a kick out of that, I wasn’t too pleased at the time but I managed to crack a smile.
