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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - July 31 2009 : 08:06:13 AM
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It's been a month since my venture onto a REALLY challenging course. I've been working on that full-proof tee shot and hitting my irons with better trajectory/spin. I haven't worked on the putting very much. Yesterday I decided to try my hand again on another REALLY difficult course that I had never played. This time I played a links course playing about 6600 yards. The conditions were difficult again: the ground was soggy, the sand bunkers were packed down due to recent rains, but the greens were still fast. So the course played much longer than the stated 6600 yards. Again, the course got the best of my as I only managed an 87. 
But still, the results were better this time. For the round:
+ I hit 14/14 acceptable drives, with 7 of my last 8 nearly perfect. This course had fairway bunkers about 250 yards out on nearly every hole, so they were directly in my path and I had to maneuver around them. I didn't hit a single fairway bunker or water hazard from the tee the entire round. I was quite pleased with that. 
+ I doubled my GIR on this course compared to my last outing on a comparable course.
+ My iron shots were much better, esp. my long irons and short wedges. I hit 3 short wedges inside 5 feet.
- My putting was very bad. I missed putts from 5', 8', 6', 6', 3', 11', 12', and 6'. My longest putt made was 4'. 
-/+ My mental game was mixed. My putting struggles weighed me down throughout the first 9 holes. I hit a bunch of good tee shots and some good irons but just couldn't seem to get the ball in the hole. But on the back 9 I beared down on myself and got fired up for every hole. It showed as I shot 5 strokes better on the back than on the front.
So what did I learn this 2nd time playing a course "out of my league"?
1) Driving could use some more work, but overall my driver swing is consistent enough to take on this type of challenge.
2) Iron play still needs some work. Mostly my distances were off. I'd really like to increase my distances so I can take a shorter iron into such difficult greens. Why should I be hitting 4i when the really good players are hitting 7i?
3) I definitely need to practice those fast, subtle-breaking putts. 4) I must focus on staying in attack mode throughout my round, even when adversity strikes repeatedly. (i.e. "yeah, you got me that time but I'm going to bring you to your knees on this next hole!!")
So how do I adjust my practice regimen?
1) I think I'll focus mostly on my short/mid iron play, hitting just enough drives/ fw woods, and wedges to remain sharp. To do this I think I'll play target games (e.g. can't switch to another club until I've reached my goal 10 consecutive times).
2) I'll also do the ring drill where I'll putt from 3'-6' from all angles and see how many in a row I can make.
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Edited by - jclenden on July 31 2009 08:25:20 AM |
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - August 18 2009 : 1:32:45 PM
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I finished my league season last week. I won first place for points, as well as both the low gross and low net trophies. It was a good season. Still, many things to improve. I haven't been able to practice much lately and it showed when I went back out onto the course. I shot a +8 for 9 holes. I had a triple bogey on the 2nd hole, and it was all caused by mis-hit wedges and putts! It was a very irritating day because my swing felt out of control, soooo...
1) I've spent the past few days putting a ball with a line on it with the sole goal of hitting end-over-end putts. I found myself taking the clubhead slightly inside on the backswing and therefore coming back across the ball at impact instead of driving through the ball. Simple putting is great, but you still have to swing the club straight through the ball!
2) I spent a long time hitting wedge shots at the range to work on getting my full swing stroke back. It seems my left knee wasn't holding it's position on the downswing. I also was moving my head slightly back and down on the downswing. Once I got those two things straightened out it made a big difference, wedge through driver.
Tonight, weather permitting, I'll go play another 9 and we'll see if the swing holds up and if the putting improves. |
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simpleswing
951 Posts |
 Posted - August 18 2009 : 5:44:41 PM
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Hi jclenden,
I do like the way you practice.
Practicing putting with a line on the ball is one of the best things you can do. If more people would just spent 15-30 minutes on that each week they'd drop strokes off their game.
Wow, hitting wedge shots at the range. I'll bet you were probably the only one hitting more than a couple wedge shots. It's such a high percentage shot every round yet so few people actually practice it.
Congratulations on your season, keep up the good work.
Joe Davidson
Simple Golf |
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SATTHMNS
121 Posts |
Posted - August 18 2009 : 9:22:32 PM
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I hit more wedge sgots than anything else at the range.
I have really improved my pitching too because of it !!! |
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - August 19 2009 : 08:08:28 AM
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Played 9 last night. The full swing shots went well. The putting was pretty good. All my putts rolled end-over-end. I misjudged the break on a few, but se la vie. At least I struck them well.
The only problem area was my partial swing shots. I left myself several of them and I don't think I hit any of them particularly well. I'll have to work on that the next time at the range.
I will continue the extra putting practice because that gave me a lot of confidence yesterday. |
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - August 26 2009 : 10:08:45 AM
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I have continued extensive putting practice. I only got to the range 2x in recent weeks, but focused mostly on wedge shots. I want to hit the ball high and solid off the turf.
Yesterday I played 28 holes. The first 18 were on a challenging course, and the last 10 were on my league course. Through the first 12 holes I was +2, with 9/12 GIR. Everything was going great. But then I went +7 on the next 6 holes, missing all 6 greens. Inconsistency set in and it burned me on every hole down the stretch. That was disappointing. I made a mental error, a few judgment errors, and a few execution errors. Perhaps the heat got to me, I don't know. So I came back and played 10 in the evening. I regained the consistency and played pretty well.
Over all, my driver play has continued to be solid. My chipping and putting has been mostly good - probably a little too streaky. My short iron play has been solid, although not spectacular. My long iron play has been marginal. My fairway wood play has been good.
So, I will continue my current regimen. I want to ingrain putting and wedge play so thoroughly that it is always reliable and a permanent strength of my game. I'll also hit some drivers and short irons so as not to get too rusty. Over the winter I think I'll address the mid/long iron consistency. |
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - September 03 2009 : 2:39:54 PM
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I was able to play again this week and it didn't go too well. On the front 9 my driver was all over the place, which put me out of position for my 2nd shot on several holes. I also hit one OB. The iron play was marginal - some great shots and some poor ones. My putting was erratic: lots of 1 putts but also 4 3 putts. Today I went to the range to figure out what was happening.
IRONS: In an effort to hit the ball solid, high, and take a divot, I found myself dropping my right shoulder on the downswing, which means I was thrusting my left hip toward the target, too. That change in posture allowed me to hit some high irons, but it also introduced several fat shots. It is not a sustainable swing, and it is not the SS way. As it turns out, the true swing fault behind the dipping was not that I wasn't hitting "down" on the ball, but rather that I had relapsed into flipping my hands at the ball (30 yrs of history there) which was causing thin shots. So, I re-focused on passive hands through impact and on retracing my shoulder movement on the down swing so that I didn't dip my right side. That solved the problem. The right shoulder feels like it's on a "flatter" trajectory, but of course that's just a subjective thing. The important thing is to keep the club on plane, and to return to the ball the same way I departed it on the back swing.
DRIVER: I had unintentionally altered my tempo - sped it up on the downswing. I focused on my tempo today in order to straighten out the driver. It worked.
PUTTER: The 3 putts were all caused by speed - I was hitting the ball 6'-8' past the hole. Thanks to a reminder from Mike, I went back to measuring the length of my backswing against the distance that the ball travels. I found my 10', 20', and 30' backswing distances and used those to guage all other putts. It worked wonderfully. Shame on my for getting away from that habit on the course!
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simpleswing
951 Posts |
Posted - September 08 2009 : 5:02:58 PM
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Hi jclenden,
I'm impressed with your analysis.
None of us are ever going to become "perfect" ball strikers. However if you can accurately diagnosis what's going wrong when you have a bad shot and get back on track quickly you're going to salvage a lot of "so-so" rounds. Bad shots won't turn into bad holes and bad holes won't turn into bad rounds.
Now it is hard to really focus mentally "on-course" and figure out what you are doing wrong. At least with Symple Swing you can often (not always) figure out what's going wrong right after that shot and most of the time correct it pretty quickly. However, because we all sometimes go "brain dead" on the course you won't always figure out what's going wrong until after the round. Most Symple Swingers should be able to figure out what's going on most of the time and if you can't that's what support (e-mail, phone and forum) is here for.
Keep up the good work. It seems like your developing a really good understanding of your swing.
Joe Davidson
Simple Golf
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - September 13 2009 : 10:10:52 AM
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On Friday I had a chance to take the corrections listed in my previous post to the course. I was playing in a 4 person scramble format on a good course.
I played rather well even though my team didn't. I hit 11/14 fairways, with 2 others very playable. So 13/14 good drives. I personally hit 11/18 GIR, and 5 of my iron shots gave us birdie opportunities inside 15'. As a team we missed 5 GIR, but my chip shots got us up and down on 3/5 and left us with putts inside 10' on the other 2 (the team didn't putt very well  ).
So, my game was pretty good in every respect except for putting alignment. Because of my last outing I focused heavily on speed this time, and I don't think I missed a putt by more than 3', which means my speed was great compared to last time. I just haven't mastered the combination of perfect mechanics with proper speed. However I wasn't too disappointed about it - I can't fix everything at once! Today my goals were to resolve the iron play problem, stabilize the erratic drives that had crept into my game, and get the right speed on my putts on these fast greens. I was successful at all 3 so it was a good round on a beautiful day. |
Edited by - jclenden on September 13 2009 10:16:58 AM |
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - October 08 2009 : 1:16:03 PM
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I had a chance to play a few days ago. It’s only the 2nd time in 2 months, and I haven’t practiced in 6-8 weeks. After 9 holes I was on target to shoot 80, but I ended up with an 87 instead as I found lots of trouble on the back 9. My game was rusty and it showed, especially when there was lots of sand and water and trees in play. It raised the question, “how do you prepare to play when you are rusty?” I’ve considered my play, especially on the back 9, and made a couple of observations.
1) It’s harder to tell what isn’t going right when you haven’t swung a club in a long time, so it’s near impossible to make any adjustments.
2) I put myself in serious trouble way more often than usual. I was in sand or water or in the midst of trees 8x. Normally that would happen 2-4x per round.
3) My chipping and putting suffered the least. In other words, they seem to be the most reliable part of my game when I’m rusty.
So how should I prepare in the future? I’m not certain, but a couple of ideas come to mind.
1) Don’t play fearful. I must continue to hit every shot with confidence. Therefore...
2) Play more cautious. Normally I won’t hit a shot unless I think I can pull it off 80% of the time. Granted, comparatively speaking that may be pretty cautious, but it’s one of my keys to success. However, when I’m rusty I need to dial that way back and only play shots that I think I can pull off 95% of the time, because it is more important for scoring purposes to avoid the water/sand/trees than it is to hit a green in regulation or get a birdie.
3) Aim at larger targets. Where I would normally go for the pin, I should aim for the safest landing spot instead, and trust my putting to get the job done.
Had I followed this approach I could have avoided sand several times, I could have hit 3 or 4 more greens in regulation, and ultimately I could have made a big dent in my score.
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simpleswing
951 Posts |
Posted - October 12 2009 : 3:03:43 PM
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Hi jclenden,
Great observations. Playing the "percentage golf" is really the way to have a much more enjoyable round especially when you haven't played much.
Unfortunately a lot of us often suffer "testosterone poisoning" getting all macho and then try to pull off the hero shots even when we're not fully prepared.
Joe Davidson
Simple Golf |
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jclenden
USA
206 Posts |
Posted - October 19 2009 : 9:27:04 PM
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| Joe, I had a chance to go out again and put these things to the test. It was about 45 degrees, the ground was soft, but the sky and trees were beautiful. I still felt very rusty, but the results were much better: I went from 2 GIR last time to 8 GIR this time and had nothing worse than bogey. If I can hit 8 GIR when I'm rusty I'll be happy, because that will at least keep me in the low 80s, and that's where I want to be on a "bad" day. So, lesson learned: play extremely conservative when you're rusty or when something is awry with the swing. |
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simpleswing
951 Posts |
Posted - October 20 2009 : 1:00:13 PM
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Hi jclenden,
Thanks for the report.
Playing conservative when things are going bad can mean the difference between a bad hole and a bad round.
So often I see golfers have a bad shot or a bad hole and get totally frustrated and completely lose their concentration and just fall to pieces. Throwing of clubs and swearing usually follows.
I also know a couple of guys that pretty much don't ever have a bad round. They may not have their A game or even their B game on a certain day but they still manage to always "stay in the game" by playing smart and not letting their emotions cloud their judgment. They may hit a bunch of "bad shots" but those bad shots seldom wind up in the woods because they play high percentage, wide margin for error type shots.
Joe Davidson
Simple Golf LLC
www.SimpleGolf.com
203-798-8489
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How I Practice - 2009
