barooo

Today had the day off and some coworkers decided to hit a basic quick public course, so I kept true score and shot +28 (par 66; shot 94). Played ice cold without even stretching so the first couple holes were 8s and 7s, but I settled in and played the back 9 feeling like I could make every shot. Ended up chipping in for par on 9 then "breaking bogey" by 2 on the back 9 (par 34, I shot a 42, ), and had legit birdie opportunities on 4 holes. My 7i 2nd shot on the last hole stuck center green probably the best iron shot I've ever hit. Putting was a mess but I'm super rusty and it did that thing where the greens go from wet and slow and to dry and fast. Other than a couple early half-duffs you could describe my short game as "crisp". I've never walked away from a round feeling this happy with things, so that's the uplift. No 6s for 10 holes. I've felt for the last 5 rounds or so like I have a shot at breaking 90 going into every outing so it was good to get confirmation on that. Also only lost one ball (short on a water hazard early on). I'll get to play 4 or 5 days in the mountains in August and then hopefully a few more here in the fall, and I'm looking forward to it, I need to get a lesson or two in now that I've got the rust off.

Lol guess what I did when I played about a month ago... I left my 56° at the course. Just noticed today when packing up for a lesson, the first since playing... So I guess my more immediate problem is getting another 56° to replace the missing one. The really funny part is the last time I played this course (Harborside near Chicago) I left the same club behind, but realized it and went back the next day. Extra mad because it was the first club I bought (my initial set was a gift) myself.

I think the main "gap" in my clubs I'm feeling is something I'm confident doing wedge things with (half shots, chips, etc.) that has a consistent half-shot distance over about 50-55. Inside about 55 or so I feel pretty confident and 90-115 I feel pretty confident. I could also work on a second partial swing that's a little more than arms to parallel so I have 3 stock shots (including full-ish swing) instead of just two. I'm not sure if my PW is 46° or 48°, I just googled the specs for MP-25 PW. Maybe my issue more with the grind/bounce aspect. Or maybe it just has really dull grooves, the face isn't in great shape (got the set used a few years ago and that was the only club with any real wear when I got them). Also I'm in no real rush here I'm just sort of thinking about what I should get next.

That's a good point, I should just replace the pitching wedge, I treat it like an extra-short iron, not a wedge and I feel like I could use something longer than the 52° that I'm confident playing with a wedge swing. I don't think I have the attack for a 60° which would be the other way I could go. Also "wedge" no longer looks like a real word after all this repetition.

I'm currently playing with my Mizuno MP-25 PW which I don't hit much unless I need a full swing around 110 yards or have a really specific short chip. It's got a decent amount of wear on the face and I don't hit it consistently with partial swings so I usually reach for my 52° Vokey SM7 instead. I also have a repeatable 50-60 yard shot with it. My other wedge is a 56° cleveland tour something-or-other from about 2001 that I love. I'm eying a 50° to somewhat replace the PW and also be more consistent with partial swings and more useful for chipping, but I'm also wondering how much difference there really is in a 48° PW and a 50°. If there's some sort of article/guide that can help me, that would also be appreciated.

I wanted to give an update here. Almost immediately after this lesson I hurt my foot like I mentioned above. Turned out it was a broken toe and took about 6 weeks to fully heal. Played a round or two (shot a 127 on a really hard links course and did not have a good time) on it but didn't practice or see my instructor again since I didn't want to waste time compensating for a temporary injury. Finally got fully healthy about a week ago, played 3 rounds last week on vacation. I think just getting a reminder of the basics and remembering to keep it square and stop when I'm at full extension instead of wrapping around my head was 80% of it. I was inconsistent as expected without more time, with a few chunks and skulls and whatnot, but not as many as expected and I also hit some great shots, and only sliced one ball unintentionally. I was even shaping the driver, other than one brain fart where I hit a skyball because I teed it too high and a couple of hooks I was thrilled with my driver play. Best score was a 102, but since I hadn't touched a putter for almost 2 months I'm happy with that, had several 4 putts and a bunch of 3 putts. I was also swinging a lot more in tempo instead of trying to murder every single ball, I actually hit the range after 18 every day and I never have the energy for that, usually I need advil and a nap immediately. I think what happened was I saw that swing speed number and tried to maximize it and gave myself the yips for a bit, I feel like I'm back where I was at this time last year when I was pretty content with my swing given the time I've had for it. Have another lesson scheduled soon and am back to feeling like if I have a good day 90 is attainable.

Agreed. I think my major regression happened over the winter. I'd been focusing on some weight shift / rotation drills, and I think whatever I was doing made me start rotating my wrists in the backswing. Post-lesson practice feels like this is something I fixed long ago then regressed. But 100%, previously the release "just happened" and suddenly I found myself struggling to make it happen and fixed it the worst way possible. Sadly I've badly strained my right extensor tendon (top of the foot) and am sidelined for a few weeks, just when I'd started to correct this.

I know, I know... This was a full unedited rundown of the whole lesson and analysis of my swing. Most of these were also sort of dismissed as not great but also not terrible. Grip was more of a "maybe it can be tweaked a little, but it's fine for now", same with being over my toes. And most of the other faults other than overly rolling my wrists and opening the club are after I'd hit full rotation and tried to get a little extra, so if I shorten my backswing most of that stays out of play. I'm 45 and don't play a ton so I don't expect perfection, just repeatable and reasonably sound as a goal. Like I said, mostly positive with some things to work on, most importantly trying to keep the clubface square in the backswing and not trying for 125% of a swing, so I can get my weight shifted forcefully before impact. A lot of these things are also old tendencies I've worked on in past lessons so maybe the rust in my game brought some of them back out. I wonder if maybe not mentioning most of the other stuff would have been better and less overwhelming, but I left feeling pretty good, but a little mixed up since I never really managed to completely integrate things into a full swing, but the hook I was hitting plays better than a slice for sure.

Update. I had my first lesson with the new instructor today. The good news, my fundamentals are mostly okay, may need to tweak grip a bit, my left hand is stronger than my right instead of parallel, but reasonable, decent posture at address maybe leaning a little too far in front of my toes, takeaway starts out almost ideal, and I'm finishing in reasonable balance even if with an exaggerated closed clubface. Also I'm getting a full shoulder turn plus a few degrees and plenty of rotation. The bad is that I'm way exaggerating the rolling wrists so I'm opening the club up far too much too early in the backswing then having to do a bunch of movement to get it back square. That feeling of turning it over that I've been practicing is leading to exaggerating the rolling both ways leading to hooks. I couldn't even slice the driver today when I tried, everything was a low 200 yard hook, instead of a high hard slice. Also, while I have good shoulder rotation I have a tendency to try and get about 20% more at the top leading to bending my elbows and wrapping the club around my body, and sliding a bit to the outside of my right foot at the top of the backswing. This means I have to fix a bunch of things on the downswing. I don't need "more", the level of mobility I have and the amount of rotation I'm doing is plenty, so I need to work on shortening it a bit and not wrapping myself up at the top. Main takeaways, work on keeping the clubface more square in the backswing instead of trying to open then close, and shorten up my backswing so my arms are straight and my weight is still on the inside of my foot, then make sure I get my weight onto my left foot early; most of the bad stuff is happening very late in the backswing making me have to do a bunch of stuff to fix it. I kinda wish I'd waited a week; I'm playing a fairly expensive round Saturday morning and I feel all messed up 🙂

I'm not sure, I didn't think to ask, I just was looking at the trackman display while doing a driver demo, it was saying 4-5° open for the club face and generally 1 or 2 open for the swing path, I'm not sure if there's a default setting or it can report either measurement. But like you said, either way it's obvious why it's slicing hard 🙂 Thanks for the videos, I'll take a look. I've also booked a lesson for Thursday with a new instructor, fingers crossed he is a good fit. I feel like grooving the feeling of turning over and releasing the longer clubs is the next big improvement in my swing, if I can square it up I ought to be able to get my drive to carry 235+. I also leak a lot of putting and chipping strokes, but I accept that given how infrequently I get to play or practice around real greens.

I haven't found this exact question so I'll just ask it here. I really struggle to get the club turned over and released with my driver or longer irons. My theory is that with the shorter clubs I swing more steeply and gravity makes the release move intuitive. With my driver I get to a post-impact position where the butt of the shaft is pointing down and my left hand (I'm a righty) is still on top. If I consciously think about it I can make a nice smooth practice swing, but put a ball there and it turns into a low snap hook or way off the center. Based on trackman numbers, my swing path is consistently about 2° in to out, and I'm getting around 93-94 mph clubhead speed, but my face is consistently 4-5 degrees open. Any drills to help with this? Like I said, I'm able to do it without a ball teed up, or at least it feels like I am, but put a ball there and I over-correct into a low snap hook. That part could be mostly mental, it usually takes me a while to translate a drill or feel into an actual swing improvement even if I completely get it during the drill.

For me two come to mind. 1: Years ago before I'd ever taken any lessons, playing with friends and a borrowed set of clubs from the 70's. Something I've fought for years is a tendency to get completely tilted and unreasonably angry (especially unreasonable given my skill level...). After whiffing twice then skulling 30 yards with like a 8i, getting back in the cart I whacked the tire with the club, not that hard, and snapped the shaft. I felt horrible since the clubs were actually my friend's grandfathers' old clubs... (related: this is something I seem to have finally made progress on, I haven't gotten mad on the course in a couple of years beyond maybe a muttered swear word or two) 2: Last round I played actually, was playing extremely well for me since +22 is still my best round ever, and was only like 3 over through 5. Had a little fringey chip to try and get up and down for par, and decided to play a bump and run. Grabbed a 6i and hit the ball to exactly the spot I picked, and it rolled about a foot or two more. Realized I had a PW not a 6i... Then managed to drag my putter on the next shot and it went another foot, still leaving me about 10 feet. At this point I overcompenste and send it 15 feet the other way and then 3 putt from there for a good old snowman. This was my standard approach to chipping and putting until a few years ago... Amazingly I was able to just laugh it off and still wound up with a decent-for-me score of +25.

It's been a trip, but definitely yes on the first question and probably the second. On the first, a year ago I was just starting to see some progress with a centered pivot and not sliding my hips instead and also fixing some plane issues with my backswing. A month or so later I shot my first < 100 score. I took the winter off, then I had a C6/C7 spinal fusion in my neck back in february so I had an extended forced layoff. When I got cleared to play again in June, my driving range was closed due to COVID, so when I did get a chance to play last month, I was rusty and treated the first round as a practice opportunity, didn't keep score played extra balls or shots, but felt like I was swinging pretty good, and was moving my body a lot better than before. Next two rounds were also in the 90's and the round I played a couple days ago was easily the best ballstriking of my life, so it feels like I've turned a corner. I didn't have any neck symptoms until the winter, but I bet it was affecting me before that, or maybe PT just helped with my mobility in ways that pay off in the swing. I had 46 putts in that last round, so many 3- putts and even a 4-putt. Didn't make a single one-putt and only had a couple two-putts and I think both were birdie opportunities, so I'm going to focus on putting for a bit, it's easy to practice at home, and I should be able to shave 5+ strokes off pretty quickly and that gets me close to the 80's if I can keep swinging like I have been.

This was Saturday, but I shot a 91 (on a par 66 course). I was happy, played nice and relaxed and struck the ball well. Highlight was a 1st hole 2 putt par (4); I've literally never made par on the 1st hole, and I hit a 165 yard 7 iron 2nd shot to about 8 feet. That's my 2nd round in a row in the 90's and 4 of my last 5. Something has clicked. I had 46 putts, so that seems like where the most SV can be found. I'm thinking it's time to buy some sort of putting mat and get some living room reps in. My issue is almost totally speed; I'm usually 50% off, probably 70% too hot 30% too slow. I bet if I practice putting for a few months I can start challenging breaking 90.

This was from last week, but I shot a 94 (from the senior tees, playing with my FIL, but that's probably about the right distance for my game anyway) on a beautiful course in Colorado (Keystone, River Course). I've never broken 100 before. Interestingly, I wasn't hitting full shots well at all, lots of pushes about 30 degrees right, and I found 7 greenside bunkers. But most of the bunkers were easy to get out of, nothing made its way into the woods, and I did a great job with speed on putts. Only made one par and didn't have a single putt for birdie, but also only made one triple, so just a lot of boring bogeys and a few doubles. Shot another round on a very wet muni course (from the tips, but actually very similar yardage to the senior tees on the longer course) on Sunday and shot a 119; full shots were much better (I found my draw again and even managed a few intentional fades) but a lot fell 10 yards short and I hit a few fat enough to find hazards, and my wedges and putting were atrocious. Every variation on stubbed/skulled/chunked/whiffed you can imagine and lots of 3 and 4 putts. Part of the difference was conditions; Colorado course was perfect with fluffy bunkers and nice firm fairways, and the fringes were easy to get cute with little flop shots and such. The second course the sand in the bunkers was like a cart path (didn't even leave footprints walking in it), it was too short and squishy around the greens for the way I hit a flop to work and I dug a lot of holes trying, and I just couldn't find distance control with my putter.