What Are You Working On? - Page 53

1) Pitching. 30 yards and in is what I have in my yard and I practice shots almost every day. It's already paying off, but I want to get better at them and get up and down more times than I don't.

2) More on plane backswing. I was way too steep last year and recently have got a bit too flat on my backswing. I'm practicing backswings in a mirror at home and the feeling of straight back is getting me into a good position at the top.

3) Not getting too tense on the way back and not trying to kill the ball on the way through. I believe these two are related.

1. Dialing in my distance control with the wedges from 100 yards and in. 

2. Tempo, tempo, tempo. Seems like I'm always trying slow down my transition and downswing. Tick-Tock is my usual swing thought.

3. Pre-shot routine. I've never really had one. I stand behind the ball, pick my spot for alignment, but once I set up to the ball, it's almost different every time. Might waggle, might not. Might look at the target, might not. Might adjust grip, might not. So on and so on. So at the range, I've been trying to get into the habit of making the same routine before every shot. (Did it with free-throws in basketball, no clue why I never thought to develop one for my golf swing)

I'm working on Driver

After years of frustration with all sorts of big dogs holding back my ability to cash in on solid irons and decent putting I finally went and

got custom fitted and now brandishing a Cleveland Classic XL custom.Its a matrix stiff shaft 10.5 loft which i have set at 12deg.

reason being I'm a "delofter" so need the loft to offset my aggressive downward strike tendencies!!.great for my irons and length but not so good for staying in play off the tee with the big dog.

So I'm working on getting to know my new club,focusing on rhythm and standing a little taller in my posture to get out of my own way as felt to much knee flex was creating inconsistency as well when I went after it and too many things were moving.

Its staring to feel right and in its first competitive start in club comp on Sat I took driver at every opportunity,played well and had handicap shaved 0.3 so a nice little boost,particularly as my scoring was definitely helped by being in play a bit more often off the tee!! particularly on the back 9 where we have 4 par 4's all well over 400yds so a good drive is really important.

So that's me,my short game has always got me out of trouble so I'm reversing it and trying to stay out of trouble in the first instance and hope my putting now doesn't go out the window!

• Chiping/Pitching distance control.
• Putting stroke/path on <10', and distance control beyond that.
• Balanced finish with my Driver. I slide too much sometimes.

The biggest point of emphasis for me right now is dialing in my distance control with my irons. I need to start hitting more GIRs in order to get my scores lower.