My Swing (saevel25)

[saevel25]

Since bowling season is starting soon. I'm going to transition into off-season golf stuff. I plan on trying to play a few more times this year.

1. Going to set up a hitting are in my house to actually hit some "foam" balls. Got to not let the winter make me rusty and set me back for next year. 

2. I got to get into my post season workout. Got to lose some weight and start strength training again. This past year was the best physically I felt playing golf. I did about 4 months of strength training before hand. Specifically, squats and deadlifts. 

 

[iacas]

42 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

1. Going to set up a hitting are in my house to actually hit some "foam" balls. Got to not let the winter make me rusty and set me back for next year. 

Yes. I think this is one of the best year's worth of progress you made.

[saevel25]

Took some time off from golf and what not (including working out). I also went to FL for vacation, so I wanted to be a lazy bum for 9 days 😉. Now that I am back and getting back into work and day to day stuff. I decided to sit down and work out a plan for the off-season.

Here is my tentative plan to get things geared up for the start of the season. I want to get off to a hot start next year. 

 

[saevel25]

So, I got burned out on golf last year. Lots of practice, culminating in a less than stellar results at the end of the year. I lost a lot of motivation towards this sport.

Then bowling season, it, and it was refreshing to work on something else. I also started working out again. Bad health values in January did kick me in the pants. Also note, never get blood work done 3-4 days after the holiday season, lol. You can trick your blood work. I did 2 months of healthy eating, lots of veggies, low carb, and it dropped my triglycerides and LDL. For me, they are very responsive to what I heat. Which is good. I gave up drinking in February to cut out drinking my calories. I finally feel like I've lost weight in my gut. I know the feeling of when I get to my upper weight range, and when I start losing weight. It's like if I drop below 225, I can feel it around my midsection more that I am losing weight. If I got up to 235-ish range, then I feel bigger. 

Anyways, back to working out. Doing a couch to 5K to get some endurance up. Up to running 6-minute Intervals times. Which is good since I started at like 2-minute intervals. Lots of upper body weightlifting to help protect the shoulder area. My shoulders were really weak. Like, shoulder muscles were getting fatigued on pushups versus my chest. 

Yesterday, I got notified that I was not selected for the supervisor position I applied for. Being a bit upset about it, the first thought was, "I really want to go hit some golf balls at the range"! 🤣.

So... 

Going to be sitting down and planning out some stuff for 2024! 

[iacas]

I think your swing changes out-paced the results. You had fewer of the "off the planet" type tee shots and approaches. We both played poorly at Brook…whatever, but you did better than me relative to what we could expect.

Bummer to hear about the job.

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I think your swing changes out-paced the results. You had fewer of the "off the planet" type tee shots and approaches. 

Yea, I saw that to. Less right and left misses. Distance control was more of an issue.

Putting was just bad. Going to be working that out this year. 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Bummer to hear about the job.

Yea, our HR requires a certain method for answering questions. It seems I am just not good at that way of answering questions. They have to "standardize" it. My opinion on standardized testing is that it can benefit good test takers not necessarily the smartest person. Whatever is what it is. I will try to do better next time. 

 

[saevel25]

So, I’m nearly one week away from golf league starting and two weeks till my golf vacation. I wanted to set down some basic principles this year. 

1. Play more golf
2. Missed shots doesn't mean I need to search for a fix
3. Move onto the next shot
4. Get less frustrated, enjoy the game
5. play the game, stop searching for swing feels while playing. 

 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Missed shots doesn't mean I need to search for a fix

Yep. I put two sub-points below this:

• One, two, sometimes even three or four shots (depending on how spread out the four shots are) are not necessarily a pattern.
• No "fixing" things on the golf course. Switch to your "B" swing if you have to, but… don't try to change things on the course as you won't have anywhere near enough of a sample size to know if you "did it" or not.

[saevel25]

Ok, got a range session in. The results were either shank (like 3 shots) or flushed shots. 🤣🤣🤣

The goals were…

1. Swing easily, it’s been a while
2. Focus on the pause and hands stuff.
3. Just swing, don’t stand over the ball forever. 

Shanks were from not doing the hands stuff right. 

I think focusing on hands down faster, is going to save my back. I don’t need to shallow with the body, which is spine crunching for me. 

Ball flight was neutral really. Either a slight push to slight draw. 

Also, shallow divots! 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I think focusing on hands down faster, is going to save my back. I don’t need to shallow with the body, which is spine crunching for me. 

Yes. See also: Will Zalatoris, etc.

You can stay in left tilt much longer.

[saevel25]

I might have to work on the putting arc and face control. The putter feels closed on the way back and opening the face and pushing putts right. Lots of misses to the heel of the putter.

I do think I’m going to stand over the ball less. One glance and the hole then pull the trigger. 

[saevel25]

Some thoughts after the 1st 9 holes of the year.

The driver was pretty good, nothing crazy. My miss seems to be just a push. The start line is a bit too far right for my taste, but they are drawing back at least. Hitting middle-ish of the face to slightly toe. Part of the right miss is a bit of open face and off the toe slightly. 

Irons, some really good strikes, others were not so good. I am feeling a few things, when I am being mindful of the swing I made. 

1) Got to get the pause down again, and keep things shorter (as usual). One of the best iron shots was when I tried to mimic Rahm's swing length, lol. I caught a flier and hit an 8-iron like 190 yards into an area of no return for that golf ball. The swing felt great 😉 
2) I got to stay taller in transition, feel like I gain tons of space between my hands and my chest. The bad swing is the old swing, bad right elbow, tilt to lower the club. This was too much shallowing, and hitting the ball fat. I just think of it this way, you are bent over, and you can reach the ball at address. So, you can reach the ball at impact by getting your hands down. 
3) The final thing is the timing. It might take some time to get some flow into the swing. Timing up hands down and the turn is a bit off. Focusing on the hands down kind of stalls everything for me, at least it feels like my hips do not turn. I end up hitting a decent strike, just feels meh athletically, lol. 

Short game was Ok, which means pretty good for not practicing it. Not short, but not round destroying. 

Putting, doing much better now that I quickened up my routine. Line up, looking at my target. Glance down at the ball to get into my stance. Glance up at my target spot again, then hit the ball with in like 1-2 seconds after looking back down at the ball. Trying not to get to static over the ball while putting. 

 

[saevel25]

Hitting some good shots on my golf trip. It's good I can tell when I hit better shots the way I want to swing the ball versus when I use an older swing. Shockingly, the short game has been at worst, not harmful to my game. I am using similar feels to the full swing, in that I try to get my hands down. I've been nipping the ball clean off the turf. 

[saevel25]

So the biggest issue right now is marrying the hands down with an athletic turn. I can get stuck not turning. Things get interesting from there. 

[saevel25]

Wish I could have spent 5 minutes in the middle of the morning round to hit some balls at the range. Just did much more of right side through with keeping the shoulders feeling level (not dipping), and I was flushing them. Lol. Maybe too much focus on hands stuff while playing.

[saevel25]

This is why you should never have any expectations when you play golf even when you think things are starting to click together. In end golf will just curb stump you. 
 

 

[iacas]

Got your hopes up a bit too high only to have them dashed today? A feel "expired"?

[saevel25]

Live Updates from the range!

Open the club face at address, and trust that you’re gonna be able to get the face in a good position at impact.

I don’t have to feel like I have to keep the face open throughout the entire downswing. The swing feels much more free-flowing through impact.

Difference in ball flight is that previously it would be a low to mid trajectory that starts straight and draw left, or slight pulls. New ball flight are high push draws. 

It’s kind of stupid. I feel like it should slice off the planet. I look up and it’s maybe a slight push. 🤣

Some distant wedge feels. More weight on front foot. Keep weight on front foot.  Pivot around left knee. Solid contact all the time.