Swing Practice

As it always does, the round at Sawgrass highlighted weak areas of my game, so I spent the weekend and will continue to spend time in the coming weeks working on those areas. I also played a couple rounds, but I didn't really keep score and focused more on doing the things I was working on in practice.

My practice consisted of a lot of swings, particularly in the area of shaping shots. The only way to play a course like Sawgrass effectively is to be able to shape shots left-right or right-left. Instead of practicing hitting the ball straight, I would work in sets of three shots - draw, straight, fade. And repeat the process. At the start, most of my swings were with the PW or 7-iron, but I worked through all the clubs. Toward the end of the session I started switching clubs every 3 swings, mostly between the longer and shorter clubs to simulate the switching we experience while playing a round. Occasionally I would mix in high or low shots with the draw/fade, but I'll look at shot height as the next step.

Overall the practice was okay. My backswing felt weird at times, although I may have just been overthinking it. I was able to execute the shots I wanted to execute most of the time, but I had streaks of frustration with thin or fat shots. It'll take time.

I also worked on hitting the "stinger" shot with my 4-iron (no lower iron) and a few times with my 5-wood. I read online that the way to hit it is to move the ball back in the stance, put more of your weight on your front side at address, take a low backswing, and keep your hands low in the follow through of the downswing. Since I've never seen one in person I have no idea what a stinger is supposed to look like, but I love the contact and ball flight I get with that setup and swing. It's almost too easy to hit well. Occasionally I'd push the ball right, but the fix there is to make sure I don't let my hips get too far ahead of my chest in the downswing. I'll have to try it out on the course and see what kind of distance I get out of it. It might become a great tee shot on tight fairways.

I also worked on some short game, and I realized I was letting my grip get too strong when chipping. By weakening my grip to be more neutral chipping has become much more controlled and simple. I like simple fixes like that.

It was a hard weekend of practice, and I'm pretty sore at this point from all the swings. I think between playing a couple rounds and the practice I was on the golf course for about 18 hours. The plan for this week is to get 3 or so days of practice and play in the Wednesday group.

Wet Week and a Test

It was a wet week in the afternoons around here, so I didn't get to practice at all this week since getting back from the tournament. I did play 6 holes on Wednesday evening until the lightning made me too nervous to play anymore. I stop enjoying golf or having a club in my hand when lightning is around.

With rain hitting again Thursday I got the mirror out and setup the webcam with the V1 software in my living room to get some looks at my swing. I spent about 30 minutes doing some dry swings and working various feels, checking those feels against the video to see how well I was on or off plane, what my body was doing, etc.

Turns out I've been moving my head too much during the downswing. I had the same sort of problem with hitting when I played baseball, although I learned to control it with pitching. Anyway, my head has basically been moving down to the ball and left, or down the line toward my target. The end result is that I don't get a proper hip bump, the club goes outside the line from my shoulders starting their turn too soon, and the clubface closes too early.

I had an opportunity to work on that today, actually, and I love how my swing feels and the ball flight I get when I keep my head from moving all around. I went up to TPC Sawgrass to play the Stadium course today. I played decent (+6), considering my forecaddie made a few mistakes on yardages that led to a few big numbers. I also played much more aggressive than I typically would (hitting Driver when I'd normally hit 3-wood, for instance), which led to me getting in trouble I would normally avoid and further inflated the score. Putting was awesome. Didn't miss a putt within 6' and made a few in the 8'-20' range for birdie. Again, the visualization stuff I've started to do is making a huge difference. Perhaps I need to start taking that to the full swing.

I also wish I could play the course longer, say where the Tour guys play. Playing from the blue tees was too short for me. Granted, it's my fault - I should have played the 3 or 5 wood more often. My distance is getting stupid long for an amateur that's only been playing a few years, and getting in unnecessary trouble with the driver is starting to be a recurring theme if I play tees less than 7000 yards. That's a recent thing for me, so I'll adjust.

Probably the best moment was the eagle on the par 5 11th. I had a monster drive, albeit on the right side of the fairway, which left about 235 to the flag in the front of the green. The wind was helping and left to right, so we decided to play to 220. Worst case if I came up short I'd have a decent bunker shot, but I wouldn't go long and be in more trouble. Well, I took my 4-iron out, focused on doing nothing but treating my head and spine as an axis around which I turn, and the ball took off with a high trajectory and a maybe 5 yard draw. The ball landed just on the green and trickled up to about 8 feet away from the pin. I made the putt to sink my 4th ever eagle.

I enjoy playing the Stadium course. It's such a great test. You get punished for every mistake, and while it's possible to recover, doing so requires a lot of focus and good decisions.

This weekend I'll play a bit and practice. I need to get some reps with the no-head-movement feel, and I'd like to put in some good time with bunkers. They kind of killed me today at Stadium (and last weekend at the tournament), and I haven't felt comfortable in a greenside bunker in weeks.

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.