Saving you time and money by experimenting and reflecting! An update on the week's progress and activities.... and a Big Question!
Big Question?
What areas of your game are you adding complexity?
Feels
My feeling this week is one of patience.
2 weeks have gone by since my lesson. I have practised for around 8 hours total since then. I can already ‘feel’ and ‘see’ a difference in my strike, ball flight and distances. I also know this could be a mini honeymoon period. It could be complete luck prior to a collapse. It could be a small meaningful change. Whatever it is and whatever it turns into, I will accept and continue forward with practice and play.
Playing
An interesting round to explore this week. I now have a reference point for thinking ‘internally’ versus ‘externally’. Adam Young (and others) discuss our locus of attention, using ‘internal’, ‘external’ and ‘neutral’ focus points as references. Internal focus is one that looks inwards on the swing or the movement. External focus is more ‘outward’ focussing on a target, blade of grass, and visualisation of shot shape. The neutral focus is nothing directly relating to the shot such as your breathing, humming a tune or singing (in your head). I enjoyed reading about it and was curious about what my focus was.
During this round, I spent 8 holes thinking about the move I have been trying to ingrain through my practice. For the other 10 holes, I thought about very little, picked a target and focused on my low point drill (picking a bit of grass to strike to make a small divot after the ball). It is a small sample size but… WOW.
I began striking my irons with some degree of accuracy and carded a 1 over back 9. The focus was on how I was striking the ground. many things could be at play here, but now I have a reference point when considering my focus (especially, off the back of a lesson).
My challenge to you is, could you experiment with your focus next time you’re playing a practice round? Consider;
6 holes ‘internal’
6 holes ‘external’
6 holes ‘neutral
Or 18 holes for each focus type, if you’re lucky to have the time to spread an experiment over 3 rounds.
Practice @ Ramside Hall GC
I have had some interesting practice this week. 2 full sessions alongside a number of ‘mini’ technical sessions, in the garden. The garden sessions have been either without a ball or with a ball hitting into a net. This type of practice is safe and ‘uncouples’ the technique from the ball striking, the target and ball flight. 3 or 4 exaggerated practice swings followed by a shot into a net, with a focus on the movement, not the ‘strike’ or result. My plan is to continue this for the next 6 to 8 weeks minimum and review the movement quality after another lesson, to see how the move is bedding in.
Video recording is helping here too. After 10 ‘recordings’ over the last 2 weeks, I observed my club face and body rotation, being much closer to what my coach was asking for. I have been posting these mini recordings as YouTube Shorts, if you would like to follow along, consider subscribing here and I will keep uploading my progress (or not!).
My practice session took an interesting turn, with a trip to a local Top Tracer driving range.
I was not aware of the capabilities of the software and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. I decided to start with some iron work and to explore my distances and tendencies with 3 clubs, the 9i, 7i and 5i. My data is above and it shows carry and total. The screen in the range bay shows the ball flight and trajectories along with several other data points such as yards offline, ball speed and curve. To my eye, the flights and curve were pretty much bang on, but the total numbers will have been a few yards off.
Next, I explored the approach play games to see if any caught my eye and went for an on-course, 9-ball one at the Belfry. The game gave me a distance, wind, elevation and image of the scene showing the hazards etc. All I had to do was pick a club and hit the shot at my selected target line. The approach shot distances were varied, the wind changed direction each time and it provided some 'reality' and variety in my practice, which I appreciated.
My potential use cases moving forward include;
checking in on distances (once per month maybe)
checking ongoing distances over time to check the effects of training stimulus
check tendencies with different clubs in the bag
varied practice rounds on 'virtual' course
for visuals and data on practice sessions involving draw, fade, straight or high and low shots (for feedback)
I would recommend a trial for your practice to see how you get on with it! I will share some of the sessions in the coming weeks, to show you some of the features (and data).
Mental Scorecard
I have not forgotten about the mental scorecard but I made the decision on the morning of my round to shelve it. I didn't want to overload my thinking and add too much too soon after a lesson. It is something I will return to but feel this is a good decision at present.
Speed work
I have completed 3 gym sessions this week, including upper and lower body strength work, supplemented with some mobility and rotational work. To supplement this, I swung my driver at top speed in the garden 40 times split into 5 sets of 8 reps, all-out effort. It didn't take long and can only help me swing the driver a little faster. My main focus was to have the 'swoosh' sound happen on the target side of my body (close to or past where the ball would be) and to give it 100% effort.
Updates will come on driving average, p-average (both from Shot Scope) and some carry distances, using the Top Tracer numbers.
Starting points below; (27.09.22)
I will update the chart after 1 month to include October's numbers, hopefully showing some improvement in each category.
Reflective Questions
What are you giving your focus to when playing your shot?
How do you know your focus type is helping you?
How are you monitoring and updating your distances?
How are you offsetting age-related swing speed losses?
Next week
Variable/differential practice sessions, further gym work and the Chipper experiment conclusion.
Thanks for reading!