a new golfers journey through the first two months so far....... - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odogesq 

Hello Sir, and welcome to golf! I have been playing for just over one year and enjoyed your post. It brought back lots of great memories (good and bad, lol) of when I first started to play the game. Although learning on your own provides tremendous rewards and satisfaction as you slowly improve, I, like many people here, strongly recommend lessons form a good pro. You expressed some valid concerns about wanting to find someone that does not force you into a particular swing. This can be addressed quite simply by interviewing your prospective pro over the telephone. Just ask him what kind of methods he uses and whether he teaches a particular swing. Further, I suggest signing up for multiple lessons, that way you can stretch them out over time and really make a lot of progress. I was able to sign up for 6 lessons and after 3 lessons (and lots of range time) over two months my handicap has dropped 4 points and I have never hit the ball more solidly. The real benefit of a pro is to have someone who knows what they are doing watching you swing and giving you immediate feedback. Also, it sounds like you do a lot of experimenting and are constantly tweaking things. If so, you can bounce all those different ideas off your pro and get some really good advice. It's a shame that most people will invest hundreds of dollars in equipment hoping to improve but won't get a single lesson. Just spend the $200 on a lesson package and consider it an investment in your game.
Again, welcome and I hope this helps! And good luck!

Thank You!  I am definitely going to get lessons at some point and I'm thinking that come the spring/summer that is when I will do that.  In the meantime I'm just happy to be able to play on the weekends and hope that the weather stays like this so I can continue to play.  As long as there is no snow, that's fine with me. 

Has anyone ever become a member at ClubGolf?  I think it's a chain.  There is one very close to where I live and according to their website, they have a Trackman and practice facilities indoors!  I sent a contact request but was wondering if anyone has been there or become a member?  What is the cost?  I have never had my swing analyzed by anything and from what I hear Trackman is the best of the analyzers out there.  If membership is not too expensive then it may be a good investment to become a member.  I'm sure it's going to snow at some point this winter and once that happens I will not be able to play or go to the range much at all. 

After reading the Tour Spoon Blog and thoroughly enjoying it, I figured that I would keep this thread updated with my progress, or lack thereof......

Since I live and play in Maryland, we are still out of handicap season which runs from March 15 - November 15.  As such, my official Maryland Golf Association/USGA handicap is "frozen" at 15.5.  My "unofficial" handicap which I keep at fairwayfiles.com is 14.6 though. 

After several weeks of posting some not so good scores (the weather has been cold/windy and while we have been able to play just about every weekend, when we do play the temperature is usually between 35-40 degrees), my confidence was low.  I know that during this time of year I should be happy just to be playing golf and not to worry about my scores.  I cannot do this though because I am probably weak mentally and also because I have not been playing for too long.  Confidence has a huge impact on my game.  Thus I was not feeling good at all about my golf game for a while.  Finally though on 1/20/13, I had that round that restores confidence and makes you feel great about the status of where your game is at.......It was just below 50 degrees that day and cloudy/misty but the temperature felt great because it was cold for a while before that.  Thus the 50 degrees felt closer to 70!  I ended up tying my best score ever at my country club by shooting an 86.  It was not my best score ever (best score ever is an 84 but that was shot in November at a municipal course that is just at 6k yards and has a slope of 120 while my country club course plays almost 6400 yards and has a slope of 128) but statistically it is.  The 86 at my club would equal an 80 or 81 at the municipal course that I shot 84 at.  So basically it was as good of golf as I have ever played.

On 1/19/13 I played and had a pretty decent round going too.  On the second to last hole I blew up though.  It is a par 4 that is 375 yards and uphill.  Usually it's not that bad of a hole but my approach shot ended up in a greenside bunker.  Because the temperature was below 40 degrees, the sand was very hard.  It took me 3 shots to get out of the bunker and I tripled the hole.  That combined with a few missed putts that I should have made turned what could have been a great round into a so/so round of 93.  It was the first round that I used my new putter (Cameron Select Newport 2), the first time I had ever used a blade.  I could tell that I putted much better although the numbers would not necessarily show that as I had 35 putts. 

On 1/20/13 the weather was pretty good again.  Windy but with temperatures in the mid to upper 40's, I was happy.  I got my first birdie with the new putter which felt great.  What was changing was how I was striking my irons.  I noticed a huge improvement recently.  It showed up on the par 3's as between the round on the 19th and the round on the 20th I played a total of 8 par 3's (there are 4 per round).  Out of those 8 I par'd 6 of them, birdied one, and bogeyed the other.  Thus I averaged even par for all those par 3's that I played on the weekend.  I have never ever done that before or come close to doing that either.  While my irons were going well my driver was a bit erratic and I was battling a slice still.  I ended up having a great putting day but I just ended up making too many double bogeys......I carded an 87 with just 31 putts.  Had 6 pars, 1 birdie, 5 double bogeys, and 6 bogeys. 

I think I finally found a putter that I can keep though.  One of my issues is that I buy way too many putters and do not commit to them.  I've had something like 15 different putters since I started playing in June of 2012.  I have always favored mallets for some reason, mostly because I did not like the look of a blade.  I finally forced myself to try a blade and keep putting with it for more than just a few putts.  After a while I realized that I was making just as many if not more putts versus that mallets.  The blade grew on me through the week and for the first time in months I used the same putter for back to back rounds of golf on 1/19 and 1/20.  Even my playing partner commented that I was putting better with this new blade.  Since I had 5 putters laying around, I decided to consolidate and traded in all but two of them.  I am now left with the new Cameron Select Newport 2 and I also kept the Cameron Select Golo as well.  I liked the Golo and kept it in the event that I wanted to change things up a bit and go back to a mallet.  I really hope that this is it and I do not end up buying another putter for a long time.  I have said this so many times before though......

I also purchased new irons last week and they should arrive any day.  I have been playing with the Taylormade Burner Plus irons that I bought new in early June of 2012.  They are steel regular flex.  They have worked okay I guess, it took a while before I could hit them solidly.  I decided to get new irons because my game is improving and I wanted irons that were not super game improvement irons.  I also needed a stiff flex as while I do not know my exact swing speed, it's most likely quick enough for stiff flex.  My swing also continues to get quicker and quicker as the months go by and I continue to hit more and more balls.  So I found a great deal online for a used set in good condition of the Taylormade Tour Preferred CB irons.  They are forged and while considered almost a "players iron" still have CB which is what I wanted.  I know that getting MB's at this point would likely not help my game at all. 

So that brings this up to date.  I will continue to try to update it as time goes by. 

Here are my stats since I started:

Update - I have not posted in almost three months so I figured that I would provide an update.  Sorry if it is boring for some people but I know that for others it is a great resource as I've been told as much.  While there are a lot of stories of how people started, most of them are never finished or they just stop after a few months.  I am going to keep updating this as long as I am playing golf. 

On June 2, 2013, it will have been one year since I first played golf.  Thus we are between 10 and 11 months in as of now.  I continue to play as much as I can and this means that I play every Saturday and every Sunday.  As the weather gets nicer I will also try to play once during the week as well.  Officially I have golfed 80 rounds since I started.  I've golfed more rounds than this but those were part of a few tournaments/scrambles that I was a part of and thus did not keep track of my own score/stats. 

Officially my handicap with the USGA/Maryland Golf Association is 14.2 as of the most recent revision on 4/15.  My "unofficial" handicap is 14.0.  The reason for the difference is because of the scores that I posted in the off season in Maryland (Nov 15 - Mar 15) did not count officially but counted unofficially.  Statistically I am improving.  In 2012 I averaged 4.24 FIR, 3.73 GIR, and 34.98 putts per round.  Since I count all of my putts (even ones from fringe/off green), my actual putts per round was probably about 2 strokes lower.  In 2013 so far, I am averaging 5.44 FIR, 4.77 GIR, and 35.09 putts per round.  Now, my average score for all rounds I played in 2012 was 93.33.  Since I had 35 putts per round in 2012, this meant that I averaged 58.35 strokes per round that were NOT putts. 

I knew/know that this is the biggest area of opportunity in my game; ball-striking and consistency with ball striking.  I was throwing so many shots per round away by topping the ball, duffing it, etc.  In 2013 so far, my average score is 88.96 with 35.09 putts per round.  Thus I am averaging 53.87 stokes per round that are not putts.  So my ball-striking continues to improve over time as I practice and play more.  I still have a long ways to go as while I'm not giving as many shots away per round, there is still room for lots of improvement.  I consider a round where I have 52 strokes other than putts a good ball striking round for me. 

Drilling even deeper into the data, I am making a lot more birdies than I was last year.  I'm also making some more pars per round.  What I am working on currently is getting rid of the doubles from my round.  I am averaging just as many doubles per round as I was last year.  While I have cut out triples from my rounds this year compared to last, I am disappointed that I am averaging just as many double bogeys per round as I was last year.  There is no one specific kind of hole that this happens with either, it just seems to happen on any kind of hole.  Statistically I am playing par 3's, 4's, and 5's much lower than I was last year (see stats below), but yet the double bogeys per round is the same. 

My ultimate goal for 2013 is to get to a single digit handicap.  Aside from that goal, the most important stat for me to get to that goal is GIR.  There is a direct correlation to my score and how many GIR I have.  Who ever came up with the formula of 95 - (2 x GIR) = your score is almost dead on just about every time.  It's amazing how accurate that formula is!  While I have increased my GIR more than 1 green per round (I'm hitting 28% more greens in 2013 versus 2012), I realistically have to get that number up to 7 by the end of the year.  Considering I average 4.77 GIR/round now, that would mean improving an additional 67%!

All greens in regulation are not equal however as I am understanding.  I am noticing that while I may not be on the green in regulation, I am more frequently getting close to being on the green in regulation and in many ways this is almost as good as being on in regulation.  Last year I was not around the green in regulation as often whereas this year I am around much more often.  So while it sounds impossible to improve that much, I do not think it's as intimidating as the numbers say it is and am confident that I can get to single digits by the end of the year.

Recently I have been hitting more balls during the week which is helping.  It was hard to do that during the week in the winter due to the weather and darkness.  I continue to practice about 7 to 10 hours per week with my putting (I try to get to the practice green as much as I can but I also putt alot in my basement where I have a synthetic bent grass green).  While my putting numbers are worse than they were last year, this does not bother me because I know that I am much better than last year.  The putting numbers so far in 2013 have been throughout the winter with rock hard greens that were not in good shape.  Thus I am confident that as the weather gets better that this number will go down.  Also I am using my putter more than I was last  year.  Any time I can use my putter I use it.  Sometimes this means hitting through a few inches of rough or fairway but I still think it's better than chipping at this point. 

So that's the update.  I'll continue to post every once in a while with updates.  Here are my statistics: