My overriding goal is, of course, to lower my scoring and the unstated goal is to move from the B Flight to the A Flight in my league.  I am not going to repeat my initial 2021 goals here but you can see them here if you like.  There is a fair amount of detail on my game from last year.

It would be arrogant of me to think that my initial plan is so perfect that it should be carved in stone and never allowed to change.  The plan has barely begun and thanks to TST that plan is already evolving.

Near the end of January, I realized that my golf clothes from last year were going to be a little tight (Ok, VERY Tight) thanks to my added poundage over the last 6 months.  This led me to add “Lose Weight” to my goals as I do believe physical fitness can help one’s golf game.  I set a goal to lose 33 pounds over 11 weeks.  That would get me to my goal prior to the start of my golf league on April 20^th.  I started on Jan. 31^st and to date I am down 10 pounds and well on track.  This is requiring a lot of time on the treadmill and spinning bike as well as no beer, pizza, pasta and many other things I enjoy (enjoy too much that is) but I am OK with that. I know those will be added back into the menu once golf starts and we head out for dinner & drinks after the round to celebrate or commiserate and thus they are only a short-term restriction.

I was reading the “Have You Ever Carried a ‘Gimmick’ Club in Your Bag?” thread and realized my putter, an old “Heavy Putter” was considered a Gimmick Club and that led me to a review of the Heavy Putter by @iacas from 2005. (https://thesandtrap.com/b/clubs/b3_heavy_putter_review).  While reading his review I noticed some of Erik's negative points about the club were issues I was experiencing with my own putting. I am not one to avoid self-criticism but I am also open to blaming inanimate objects, such as a putter, for my problems.  This made me begin to look at a new putter and a couple of weeks ago I stopped in a local Golf Galaxy to look at putters.  Before I got to the putters, I saw a few Clicgear carts on display.  I have been looking at Clicgear since last March and have not seen them on display in the past year and those on the web have been heavily marked up.  Given my new goal to lose weight I decided to add “Walk More Rounds” to my list of goals as a way to achieve and maintain the weight loss.  I’m now the proud owner of a Clicgear 4.0 and eager to get out and use it. 

Back to the Putter and the “Gimmick Club” thread.  @dennyjones planted the seed for a Putter Fitting and he used the word “Investment” and I like Investments.  So the next day I contacted Carl’s Golfland and scheduled the fitting for Feb. 28^th.  I’m confident that will be the topic of a future blog post….and also may result in a new putter😊.  Added “Get Putter Fitting” to the list of goals.  I will get this done prior to my Aimpoint Express lessons which were in the initial goal list so I can learn & practice with the new putter (assuming I get a new putter….if that is even an assumption)

A short time ago Erik asked if I had read LSW and I admitted I had not.  I have read many reviews on LSW and read many posts discussing LSW but I’ve never actually read LSW.  Just like reading reviews on restaurants, eventually you need to stop reading the reviews and go eat the food.  Thus, I added “Read LSW” to my goals and ordered my copy which arrived this past Friday.  I currently have no idea what a “Cone” is (I’m confident he is not referring to an Ice Cream Cone) but expect learning about “Cones” and other concepts will result in further evolution of my Golf Transformation Plan.

I scheduled my 4 lessons as per my initial goals and they had a special "buy 4 get 1 lesson free" so now that is 5 lessons.  The only catch was I have to complete all 5 by April 1^st.  Thus my first lesson (driver) will be this Tuesday and my 5^th lesson will be March 31^st.  The hard part will be making time to practice in between the lessons while also fitting in my AimPoint lessons.  Erik also reminded me of my dormant “My Swing” thread so adding “Post to My Swing” to my goals.  This will be tough initially since my home does not have space to swing freely inside but I will figure it out.  I plan on asking my teaching pro if he minds me posting the video recaps of our lessons he sends me and may post those to My Swing.

With my first lesson on Feb. 23 and my Putter Fitting on Feb. 28 I figure my next post will be something like “The Journey Begins" or "Time for Action".