Putting Lesson 1

Had a lesson with TW this morning and we started to address putting.
Before we even considered the putting stroke, Tim was able to see that my putter is the incorrect length for me.  I had it cut down to 33 inches a couple of years back.  As a result, I am crouched over way too much and my eyes are not directly over the ball.  In fact my eyes are a couple of inches outside the ball.
TW tells me that my eyes must be either directly over the ball OR a tad to the inside.  Outside is an absolute no-no.  
Since it's not physically possible for me to get my eyes in this position with my putter as is, I am going to switch temporarily to my old Scotty Cameron with a 35 inch shaft.    I will get the shaft on the other lengthened to 35 also and see which one I am most comfortable with.

We also took a look at why I struggle so much with my 3 wood and yet am so comfortable with my 5 wood (both TaylorMade V Steels).  TW is convinced it is because the shaft on the 3W is wrong for me (frequency is very different from the 5W).  I am going to see a clubmaker on Monday who will replicate my 5W shaft specs in the 3W.   Let's see if that makes the difference.

Flat stick woes

Had my first half decent 18 hole round of the year on Saturday at Druid Hills in the 2nd round of the Green Tour.   Shot 77 but left so much out there.  Tee to green I had two bad strokes all day.  One I got away with, however a pulled drive cost me a triple on number 12.  I blame that on a failure to stick to  my game plan.  That's a tight fairway - only 352 yards and I had planned to hit hybrid to about 140.    Instead I got off plan and hit driver.   That aside, my main issue was putting.  I had probably 8 makeable birdie putts and didn't threaten the hole on a single one of them.   In addition I had two 3 putts.   I will be seeing TW next week and intend to start working on putting.   I need to develop a repeatable routine.
On a positive note, the driver investment is really starting to pay off.  Still not totally comfortable with it but when I catch it, I'm getting at least another 30 yards.

Finally, putting it all into perspective is Ken Green.  Less than 1 year after an accident that claimed the lives of his girlfriend, brother and dog AND resulted in the amputation of his right leg AND a mere 4 months after the accidental death of his young son, he finished far from last in a Champions Tour event in Alabama.  What an inspiration.  I salute you!!

TaylorMade Driver Fitting (Awesome)

Finally the time came for my driver fitting session at the TaylorMade fitting center (aka The Kingdom) at Reynolds Plantation.
It was an amazing experience and one I highly recommend.  Here is the low down.

USGA Handicap Revision

USGA Handicap hits 5.0 in today's revision.

Ball Fitting

Bridgestone were at the Golf Club of Georgia this evening for complimentary ball fitting sessions (Bridgestone Ball Fitting Challenge).
They had a launch monitor and had me hit a bunch of drives with some different balls.

Pivot and Hinge

When I had my first lesson with TW, I asked about his teaching philosophy. He told me that from a technical standpoint we would work on 5 main keys - Grip, Posture, Stance, Pivot and Hinge.
The Grip, Posture and Stance elements have been reasonably easy to consume (although I can't emphasize enough how important it is to have them spot on).
The 'dynamic' elements of the swing - pivot and hinge, have been much more of a challenge. Essentially the body (torso and hips) make a pivot (backswing and downswing) while the elbow and wrist hinge and unhinge.
I feel that I have consumed the hinge quite well. However, to this point, I am still struggling with the pivot. I have this tendency to drop the right shoulder on the downswing and for some reason, I am having an incredibly difficult time eradicating this move. By all accounts it is a killer. Without getting too technical, I think I have always done it because I am conscious at the top of the backswing that the club has to move along way downwards to get to strike the ball. Incorrectly, I have been accomplishing this by dropping my right shoulder and throwing the hands down at the club.
This downward motion of the clubhead needs to be achieved by unhinging the right elbow and uncocking of the wrists at impact while making a level turn/pivot.
This is something that I need to work on a lot over the next couple of weeks.

On a side note, I got my hands on a copy of Homer Kelley's The Golfing Machine. Seems interesting but an extremely difficult read, so much so that I had to order another book that breaks it down into more simple terms.

Opposite Direction

In the interests of full disclosure, I need to admit that I had my first handicap change since I started this project.
I am now a 5.3 index, an increase of 0.2!!
Oh well, I can only say that I feel I am hitting it much better however my putting needs drastic improvement.

Kingdom Come

I tried out the driver that the Pro put together for me last week. For 9 holes, I hit my own driver and the new one once on each hole (except the par 3s of course). The outcome was pretty telling - when I made solid contact with both, I hit the new one 20 yards past mine!!
However, I still felt that I was hitting it too high, therefore I decided to bite the bullet and have made an appointment at The Kingdom at Reynolds Plantation for the full driver fitting on the real outdoor launch monitor. (May 6th was the first available slot)
Seemingly, the deal is we will start in the MATT room and then move to the outdoor range using the launch monitor.
Based on their findings, they will then build my driver for me to take home. It's all included in the package price. This looks, to borrow an Americanism 'way cool' and I'm very excited about it.

Driver Fitting - Part I

Over the last couple of weeks, I painfully experienced being outdriven by numerous playing partners of all ages and builds. I'm convinced there is no way I can get to scratch driving it 240/250 yards. I think I'm fairly athletic and of at least medium body strength level for a thirty something male. So why am I hitting it so relatively short? Well, first of all, my current driver (R7 425) which I love the feel of has only a 43 inch shaft (no innuendo please!!). The standard is 45 these days. That accounts for a loss of club head speed. Then there is my launch angle and spin. I launch it way too high with too much spin. As a result, the ball pretty much comes to an immediate stop as soon as it hits the ground instead of getting 20/30 yards of roll.
Therefore I started the process yesterday of finding the right driver so that I can optimize my driving distance. The goal is to find a driver that I like the feel of that will give me a better launch angle and spin (hopefully about 14 degrees with about 2500 rpm).
One of the pros at the GC of Georgia came to the range with me to try a plethora of the current drivers with the goal of identifying which I like the feel of. From there we will start to optimize loft, shaft, lie angles etc.
Here is a list of the drivers I tried and what I thought of them:

• TaylorMade R9 Super Tri - tried with two different shafts one stiff and one premium stiff (sorry can't remember the exact shaft spec but have it written down somewhere) Didn't like it so much with the first shaft but with the premium shaft (Motore i think) I started to like the feel. The ball seems to come off the clubface verly lively and not too loud of a ping.
• TaylorMade r9 460 - Liked this one. Doesn't have as many configuration options but I liked the sound and feel and it seemed to launch a little lower and take off when it hit the ground.
• TaylorMade Burner Superfast - Hit this one out of the stratosphere. Could not keep it down. Also, its quite a gimmicky head shape to me so this one is not a runner.
• Ping i15 - Classy look but it seemed to come off the clubface very dead. Just didn't really like the feel to be honest.
• Ping G15 - Opposite of the i15, this one came off with an enormous 'ping' (forgive the pun). The sound is just a little off putting for me.
• Callaway FT Tour - I seemed to hit this one quite well. Again, came out lower with lots of run. However, for me the feel is awful. It felt like hitting a block of wood with a block of wood. Don't think I could get past that.

So out of that, we built a driver ( TM Super Tri 9.5 with a stiff shaft Motore) that I am going to try after work today for 9 holes. Will hit one with my old driver and one with the new on each hold for comparison. If that goes well, we will go to the TaylorMade lab and see what we can do about reducing the spin rate and whatever else the computer spits out.

Qualifier (NOT)

Well, I played in a qualifier for the Georgia State Mid Am at Brickyard Riverside in Macon today. Pretty sure I did not qualify (didn't stick round til everyone finished). I shot 86!! No way to sugar coat it - I did not play well. Hit it well on the range beforehand but could not take it to the course. Course was so long! 4 times I had 5 wood and 3 times hybrids to par 4s after well hit drives. I struggled with the pace of the bermuda greens. Very slow especially compared to the GC of Georgia. Main weakness was iron play. Can't say I hit one good iron all day.
Positives? Hmm - lets see. Chipping and pitching was better and I got up and down from sand twice.
Had 29 putts.
Hit (only) 4 greens.
Hit 8 fairways.

Disappointed with how I struck it to be honest. Just not comfortable with the swing changes. Was way too mechanical trying to experiment with every swing instead of just hitting it. Of the greens I did hit 1 was with a 5 wood and 2 with hybrids. That tells a story.

Need to go back to working on ingraining the swing so that I can do it without so much concentrating on mechanics.

Elbow Fold

One of the many misconceptions I had about a proper efficent golf swing has always been how the hands and arms should move in the swing relative to the torso/trunk. In fact I would go so far as to say that I initially believed that a golf swing was driven by the hand pulling the club up and behind and then back down to the ball. I'm guessing this is a very common misconception for recreational golfers especially those who teach themselves based on what they see the pros do on TV.
Well, this couldn't be further from the truth. As my ball striking has improved, I think this is the biggest 'Eureka' moment I have had (Thanks Tim).
Rather than try to explain it myself, here is a good article that describes the move.


P.S. Had a very good bunker lesson yesterday which I will describe a little later.

State of Play

(Incidentally that's the name of a good movie I saw last weekend - if your into political thrillers)
Anyhow, I'm about about a month into this venture so I figure its time to take stock of my progress.

• USGA Handicap is still 5.1.
• Have had a few lessons and ball striking is improving drastically however I am struggling to take it from the range to the course a little.
• Equipment wise, I will be going to Reynolds Plantation sometime next month to get fit (on a launch monitor ) for a new driver - I feel sure I am giving up about 20 yards by not being optimized. My launch angle is way too high as is my initial spin rate.
• I have started to address physical conditioning - will continue to update on that. (P90X)
• I have NOT yet put together a practice plan. I need to do that starting from Monday next. I need to emphasize pitching, chipping and putting.

Oh and I have a lesson on the sand game tomorrow.
Hopefully by next month I will have started to make some progress in terms of scoring and thus handicap.

Pitching solved??

Last time, I mentioned my 'pitching crisis'.
Well, I had a lesson with Tim and I think he has set me right. I haven't fully got it down yet but I think its going to come good.
Basically, I had many flaws.
First of all I need to drastically open the club face. A little closed does not work for pitching.
Secondly, I have to eliminate the hip slide on the back swing. In fact I need to lock that right hip in the back swing. Tim describes it as pre-setting the impact position.
Perhaps, most importantly is how I start the downswing. Like in the full swing, the downswing must begin by a 'falling' straight down of the club. To me this has a feeling of dropping the club behind me onto the ground along my toe line - however in reality because of pivot/rotation the club should make nice impact with this technique.
Had a good session with it at the range today. Had a good degree of success hitting high soft pitches - something I have never been able to do.
So, lets see if I can take it to the course now over the weekend!!

Proper Physical Shape

One of the tasks I identified as part of getting to scratch was to get in proper physical shape.
To that end, I started P90X on Monday. Its a fairly popular 90 day program that involves an eating plan and daily exercise regimen. Obviously it should help my golf game if I can strengthen my core and also have some more energy at the end of my rounds. Aside from that I really need to do something for the sake of health. My weigh in (part of the program) had me at 190lbs and 31% body fat!! A fit male would have a body fat of not much more than 15%. (Elite athletes can be 5% apparently). The eating plan has 3 phases, the first of which involves a high protein diet.

The first workout I did on Monday Chest & Back still has me sore. I could only manage a measly 5 pullups. In any case, hopefully this program will be a success for me. I'll keep track of my measurements here as I go.

One Step Up.......

Hit the range a couple of times this week focusing on the two things I took from last weekends lesson - getting more width in the backswing and unhinging the elbow as the first move of the downswing.
For the most part I seemed to be hitting it pretty good so I was looking forward to playing in the Tradition today. Started well - level par after 5 on Creekside (which was playing notoriously difficult). Fell to pieces after that. It all started when I hit a pitch fat on number 5 (after two great shots to get to the edge in 2). I totally lost confidence from there on - every time I was faced with a pitch I was somewhat terrorized - the club felt like a hose or a snake or something to that effect. This is not that much of a surprise - pitching is not something I have addressed with Tim and I have never been comfortable with anything less than a full shot.
In any case, I ended up shooting 89 - our best ball was 78. Thats my worst score in quite some time - years. Putting was a real issue but the greens were so fast on Creekside that I won't focus too much on that.
Got to start working on pitching with Tim as soon as I can get a lesson scheduled.
As for ballstriking - well, there were some positives - hit a few great drives. I would say I'm just not comfortable with the changes I am making yet when out on the course.
Has a feeling right now that its always (to quote Springsteen) 'one step up and two steps back'.