Week 26

Walk slowly, never backward

Hole 3 at Durham City GC

Big Question

Are you expecting linear progress in your golf game?

Feels

My feeling this week is one of connection.

A new lesson and more learning this week have led me to a feeling of connection to this process. Everything I am experiencing is part and parcel of developing new skills. Noticing my mind wandering, obsessing about and accepting the challenge is fascinating to me. Ultimately, I am connected to my goals and driven to achieve them.

Practice and Lessons

A new lesson this week along with some feedback (linked below). Working on my 'casting' is the next step in the swing journey. Casting is a loss of angle in the wrists, early in the downswing, causing a loss of power, minimal shaft lean and some flipping at impact.

The drill/feel prescribed after this lesson came in the form of an analogy. Ryan told me to imagine standing in some water up to my waist and suggested the grip end enters the water before the club head in the downswing. It resonated with me. I understood it and took it to practice.

Practice session

Theme: Dipping the grip

Warm-up and 1/2 shots x 5

Technical

Exaggerate and feel before each shot x 3-5

3/4 shots x 5

Full shots x 5

Game

Decade combine 90-135y (20 balls)

Score: 96.4

Reflection 1: I must do more slow reps!! As a new feeling in the swing and an idea to be working on, I jumped in. I was excited and let that excitement get in the way of my practice quality. I hit a few 3/4 shots and there I was trying some full-speed, full swings. Lesson learnt!

Reflection 2: My 90-135y combine score reflects my game around this distance. Poor! I have spent time on my full swing, hitting 7 irons while working on the technical aspects of the game. More recently, I have spent time on short wedge shots. This distance has been neglected somewhat. I understand I can’t work on everything but more emphasis on this area of my game is in the plan, moving forward.

Play

Scorecard

An interesting round this week. I am happy with the scoring and have lots to reflect on. 2 shocker drives on the 4th and 6th holes left me fighting for double bogeys. The playing strategy of the 4th hole was discussed on Twitter this week. The conversation was interesting, giving many different solutions. Having discussed it with Ryan, I (stupidly) decided to hit a ‘knockdown’ driver. I gripped down a little, set myself up down the left and swung away. The result was a 50-yard slice into the river (this was repeated on the 6th). Clubface control = zero. Key learning: don’t hit shots on the course that you haven’t practiced in the safety of the driving range.

The bogeys on 13 and 16 were on the back of two good tee shots. Both approach shots were heavy and hooky and covered around 50% of the distance to the flag. Shockers. The rest of the round was filled with 2-putt pars and 2 good putts (5 feet on 14 and 20 feet on 17) for birdies.

Strokes Gained vs 5HCP

The most pleasing aspect of the round was my approach play and some short wedge shots. This, despite the 2 shockers, was pretty solid and hopefully, a sign of things to come. 53% GIR for 2023 (to date) is a 13% improvement on my 2022 data. Below is my ‘miss’ profile. The top image shows data from 2022 and the bottom, 2023. It shows a slight shift in miss left to right and some substantial clean-up on the short shots (38% in 2022 and 29% in 2023).

Top 2022, Bottom 2023 (to date)

Speed

3 solid speed sessions this week. I still topped out at 120mph but have improved my averages across the 4 sets. I have decided to trial 3 sessions around my 2 gym sessions, to examine how the body reacts and how the speed develops.

My average driving distance for the round above was 242y, so it is creeping up. My starting point was 233y (the last 5 rounds before starting the speed work) and last Saturday was 240y. Almost a 10-yard increase in average distance after 3 weeks.

Reflective questions

Do you conduct experiments using trial and error?

What areas of your game are you neglecting?

Are you building momentum in your practice?