Addressing the Setup

I took the last two days off golf and spent the time instead relaxing, working out, stretching, and the occasional slow motion swing to keep the feel I've had lately.

The thing that really hurt me this past weekend was my shots off the tee. A pull/hook started to develop in my swing in the week or two prior to the tournament, and with the rain and all I never had a chance to try to work it out on the range. In retrospect, I should have spent time thinking about my setup and double checking everything there. Something didn't feel right about how I was swinging with my driver and occasionally my 3-wood or 5-wood, and in the end it cost me quite a few strokes in the tournament - at least 6 strokes from hazards or OB alone, which would have easily put me ahead of the pack.

So in the last two days I've re-read some material on the golf swing, doing some mirror work, and put some thought into my feels, leading me to ultimately consider how I've been setting up. I know that a big contributing factor to the pulls/hooks has been that I haven't been able to get my weight shifted to my left side prior to starting the downswing. This is leading to one of two things - I either completely spin out, come over the top, and get a straight pull - or I end up dragging my legs through during the downswing, letting my arms get behind my body, and end up basically slinging everything through the ball, leading to the hooks.

This is a persistent tendency of mine and a habit I've been trying to break for a while now. After doing my research and thinking about it, I'm pretty sure the problem starts at my setup before I even start my swing. I'll find out today when I go play, but from looking in the mirror I may not be getting enough axis tilt at address with my spine where the upper spine and lower spine are setup in a straight line, my left hip is setup slightly higher than my right, ultimately setup in what's called the reverse-K.

The reverse-K makes it extremely easy for me to turn and weight shift, both of which I struggled with this past weekend. Most of my swings during the tournament felt rigid and out of place - I never really felt good and easy swings out there. So today I'm going to make sure I have the proper setup before hitting my shots. I likely just got away from this the last few weeks as I started to think more about target practice than mechanical practice, which is fine, but now that the tournaments are ramping down for a bit I can focus a little more on my mechanics. Sooner or later it will just become habit, and I won't have to think about it as much.

We'll see how it goes today. I expect to feel a little off anyway just because I've had two days of nothingness, but if I see better results with the longer clubs then I'll know I'm on the right track.

Good Weekend - T2

I placed T2 at the event at PGA National this past weekend. I was in the running to win all the way through but came up a little short. It was a great learning experience to be in the position where a good round could win the tournament. It's interesting how your perspective changes in that position where you know every shot counts and determines whether you win or not.

At times I had to make 10' putts to save par, and knowing the situation I was in I knew I had to come through (and did). Other times it was a 3' putt, but I was just as aware of the situation and treated those 3-footers no different than the ten-footers.

Probably the biggest situation and one that I'm particularly proud of was a really bad tee shot that was headed out-of-bounds. Amazingly the ball hit a tree and ricocheted off some branches and bounced back out into the fairway, which left 200 yards to the pin on an elevated, small green.

While assessing the shot and making my decisions I recognized the importance of that moment. We were on the 3rd to last hole, and a bogey at this point would hurt any chance I might have to win or place top 3 in the tournament. While walking towards the ball to get into my setup I even said to myself, "This shot is going to determine where you finish, so you have to execute."

The lie was slightly downhill and slightly ball above my feet. The wind was blowing hard left-to-right and slightly hurting. I trusted my swing and let it rip.. the ball took off in a piercing ball flight, landed on the front of the green and bounced hard right and into the rough just off the green, stopping about a foot short of a bunker. I'll take it. I chipped up to 4'. At that point I knew I was going to make the putt. There was no other option.

It was a great experience to go through moments like that, and I had quite a few of them. I can't say I always came through, but as each moment of adversity came I continued to dig deep and do everything in my ability to win the moment.

To top it off, I've now achieved both of my golf goals for the year. The first goal was to win a single day tournament, and I did that in February. The second goal was to place top 3 in a "major", or a 2 day event, and I did that this past weekend. Time for some new goals!

Practice Days

Yesterday was a long day of practice and a practice round on the PGA National Palmer course. I ended up being out in the heat and humidity for about 7 hours total, which completely sapped my energy by the end of the day. I did shoot 3-over in the practice round, which is a nice score, but it's a practice round. As I played the Palmer course I realized how much better of a player I am now than I was just a year ago. I'll expand on that after the tournament. Today I got up early to get some practice in before my round on the Champion course. Good thing I did - I ended up only getting 4 holes in before the rain started and pretty much lasted the rest of the day. Tomorrow calls for more rain, but hopefully we can get our round in before the real nasty stuff starts. I'm not a fan of lightning. I didn't get to prep as much as I wanted, but it is what it is. I feel relaxed and ready though. It's going to be a fun test.

Rainy Days

We've had a lot of rain the last 2 days so it's been difficult to get much opportunity to practice for this weekend's tournament at PGA National. Yesterday I ended up taking the day off. Today I used my lunch hour to get about 45 minutes of swings on the range and mental work on the practice green before the thunderstorms swept in. Tonight I'm heading south and tomorrow I'll play a practice round on the Palmer course, which I'll be playing on Sunday. Friday's practice round is on the Champion course, home of the Bear Trap. Before and/or after the rounds I'll be getting in a lot of short game and putting work. The greens were very quick last year, so I expect I'll need to get used to the speed again. Love fast greens though. They make putting easier. Last year at this tournament I went 1-over through the Bear Trap with a bogey on the tricky par 3 15th. I find that hole more difficult than the par 3 17th that they make a fuss over on TV when the PGA Tour plays there. The 15th is shorter, but the green is so narrow that any kind of miss to the right and you're in the water. The challenge is that you know this off the tee.. which is why I bailed way left and into one of the bunkers last year. Even though I didn't get to practice much the last 2 days, I feel good about my game. I also like the courses I'm playing, which helps with the psychology of it all. Plus I've already qualified for nationals so some of the pressure is off - top 3 in this tournament qualify for nationals, but I took care of that last weekend. On the technical side, with the little bit of practice I got I worked on getting a little better shoulder turn in my backswing. The basic feel is to get my left shoulder in line or over my right foot. I have a tendency to get a little flat with my shoulders with my left shoulder maybe reaching to my right thigh in the turn, which causes all kinds of fun compensations. This move helps me feel more tension along my side in the form of a rubber and effect, so once I've gone as far as I can go back, the downswing is just a matter of unwinding the coil. It's not really that simple of course, but that's the feel I've been working. The end result is better impact and a little more speed and distance. Plus it makes the swing feel tension free, and that's always a good thing.

Weekend Rounds and Practice

One might think I'd be tired at this point. I played 72 holes of golf this past weekend, plus a little bit of practice, and then added some more practice after work this evening, but I'm not really all that tired at all.

Yesterday I wrapped up the weekend with 36 holes, playing both of my home courses at LPGA International. I shot a 75 in the morning round with the members group. Again, tee shots were hurting me as I struggled with my control. Also again, I took a few unnecessary risks and paid for them. There's a bit of a recurring theme there. By the end of the round I realized that throughout the round I heard a lot of comments from the others in the group along the lines of "great save" - meaning I made a putt to save par after being in some kind of trouble on my 3rd shot.

But that was one of the positives of the day - this putting visualization thing I've started doing is flat out amazing. It's like I went to Target and got a new mental game. It's not that I'm perfect every putt, but my confidence went from zero to hero in a matter of days, and it's showing on the greens.

In the afternoon I played the Legends course and shot a 76. The round was a little messy, the greens were still bumpy from the aerification, and as the round progressed I was definitely showing signs of fatigue. Either way I was relatively happy with my play. My drives started to straighten out as I realized my grip was getting too strong and I was letting my swing get a little too flat and around my body, ultimately leading me to spinning out a bit on the downswing instead of shifting my weight left... all of which ultimately led to a big inside-out angle with a closed clubface to produce a big draw and/or hook depending on timing.

This evening after work I hit some balls at the range to work the hooks out my system. I worked on three things for it:

1. Better posture - straightened the upper back a bit between the shoulder blades to promote a better and more stable shoulder turn, stood up a little more in my legs, and made sure I was bending at my hips instead of rounding my back. I didn't notice anything specific with regards to better ballstriking, but the swing felt much more efficient.
2. More down-the-line with the backswing - This is more of a feel I try to get, but basically in addition to the feeling of my shoulders and arms staying in their position for the first 18" of my backswing, I try to get the feeling that my hands are moving down a straight line and up into my shoulders in the backswing. I worked on this feeling some to get away from coming too inside on the backswing, which leads to me coming back over the top on the downswing or getting stuck with my hands behind my body.
3. Weight shift - I worked on getting my weight to my left side as I start my downswing. The feel here is that I'm not turning my body as I start to bring the club down. In reality I am, but I'm allowing my arms and hands to get down on-plane from my left weight shift for the turn really kicks in.

Afterwards I worked on chipping and bunker shots. I was a little off with chipping today, but I think it was because I was getting worn out mentally between the work day and the practice.

I finished with putting. I didn't have a single mechanical thought today while putting, which was great. I only spent 15 minutes on the putting green but felt like I got better in those 15 minutes than I did in an hour with the kind of practice I used to do (more mechanical). I did a lot of the same types of putting drills I typically do - work from all kinds of angles anywhere from 3' to 10' away - but instead of thinking about how I was putting, I practiced my visualization and ability to maintain that focus every putt. By this point I knew I was mentally worn out from the day and that it would be a challenge, but I saw that as good practice for maintaining concentration throughout the round. While I made mistakes, I was very pleased with my putting practice today.

Overall it was a good, short practice (about 1.5 hours). Tomorrow if I can get out of work on time I'm going to try to get 9 holes in since Wednesday I'll be limited in what I can do to prep for the weekend tournament since we're driving down to West Palm that evening.

3rd Tournament Win

Well, I won the tournament at the Ocean Hammock Conservatory course, shooting a 76 (+4). As my third win of the year that should qualify me for the GCAT National Championship, but I'll find out for sure. I didn't play my best, but it was good enough. The score definitely could have been better, but I took some unnecessary risks and paid for them.

Mentally I also got ahead of myself. After 9 holes I was even par and started thinking about how I was in contention. I noticed that I started to play more afraid. Not so much in course management because I was still playing aggressive targets, but I started to get tentative in my swing. Generally this happens when I'm trying to control every shot to make it perfect - unfortunately golf is not a game of perfect.

A lesson from today is that when I'm in contention I remember to stay aggressive. When those feelings of excitement and adrenaline kick in I need to use them to make even better shots. Swing hard, swing free and see what happens.

That tentativeness even got me on the greens on the last few holes. I had birdie putts I should have made and I had a few par putts get away from me.

On the positive side I was able to win and shoot well without having my best stuff. The pulls and hooks were back again today - right off the first tee in fact, but rather than fight them I started to just go with them and recognize that I was going to pull or hook the ball most of the time. It worked out well - if I didn't and the ball went straight than I was on the right side of the fairway or green. If it did the pull or hook, then I was close to my target.

Some quick stats on the round:

• Fairways - 4 of 14 (29%) - that's pretty low, but it's reflective of my struggles off the tee with the pulls/hooks. Plus it was windy and wind is not friendly to side spin.
• Greens in Regulation - 11/18 (61%) - not bad, but lower than I'd like. Even so, that means my short game and putting kept me in contention, which is a great sign given my recent struggles in that department.
• 3-putts - 3 - too many. That's 3 strokes I gave away. Looking back I also know that those 3 strokes were more mental than anything. I don't think I was in the right frame of mind when I made/missed those putts.
• Total putts - 34. Way too many. Ideally I'd like to get that to around 28, although my ball striking being off today didn't really help this stat.

Despite my critical nature of my 3rd win today, I'm happy about how I kept my head in the game and never let a bad hole blow up into a big score. I had nothing worse than a bogey and did everything I could to keep it that way. In fact, on the last hole (a par 5) I hit my drive in the water off the tee (bad idea to use driver), hit my third shot to the right of the green, chipped it up to about 15' from the hole for my 4th shot, and ended up making the 15' left-to-right 3' break, downhill putt to save par. I wasn't about to give in.

And even though my game wasn't great, most of my bogeys were because I took unnecessary risks. I got too aggressive on those holes and paid for it. But that's okay. I get better from those failures. For instance, you won't find me going for greens on par 5's with hard right-to-left wind and with water on the left of the green on days I'm hitting hard hooks again!

Tomorrow's another golf day - playing with the members in the morning and probably another round in the afternoon. Yeah, I'm playing a ton of golf right now.

Maybe later I'll update the post with a picture of the scorecard and my shot-by-shot recap.

Friday Round with Pulls and Hooks

Shot 76 on the Legends course this morning. I won't do a shot by shot recap on it, but there were some positive things happening:

• Chipping was much more solid than it has been. Most chips were getting within a foot or two of the hole. I've put a lot of effort there, so it's good to see it translate on the course.
• Worked on visualization on all shots, but especially putting - basically I focus on seeing a small point of the cup in my head as I initiate the putt. It's a mental thing, but it appears to be working very well for me because I don't think about what I'm doing mechanically, leading to much better putts and more makes.
• Despite not hitting the ball well - lots of pulls and hooks, I still managed to only be 4-over. Once I work out the swing kinks, and assuming I maintain the short game and putting that's starting to come around, scores should drop quick.

As mentioned, I had some serious pull and hook issues. That 76 scores includes 2 or 3 hazard penalties because I pulled the ball into the trees or some other stupid thing. Not sure what's going on with that. I have a week until the two day event at PGA National to work it out. I'll probably get it on video and see what I'm doing wrong.

After the round I went to work on my swing a bit to try to figure out the pull/hook problem. I figured a few things, but that might just be compensations. Ball striking in general is off. Granted, most people would kill for the dispersion I have right now, but I don't like the ball flight because any kind of side wind is going to put me in trees or water on a tight course. I have the tournament tomorrow, so I'll have to work on it Sunday most likely.

I also worked on some short game and putting. For both I worked on visualization, as  mentioned above. I feel like at this point I have the mechanics down and instead need to be stronger mentally in those situations.