My Swing (tristanhilton85)

[tristanhilton85]

Been in a bit of a funk lately where I've seen my handicap rise from a low of 12.4 about a year ago to 14.5 now. I know that the reason is I just haven't been putting in enough practice time and on top of that I mentally shut down when I have a bad hole. I've played a couple of nine hole rounds the past few days and have found a good feeling with the driver and that continued today where I hit 9 of 14 fairways with the misses (other than on one hole) still being very playable. I ended up shooting a solid 83 today and that was with 3 doubles on the card and a lot of pars. Hopefully this trend will continue and I'll see that handicap start moving back in the right direction. With this round I'm trending at 13.8.

Also, I'm going to start using this thread to post my rounds and will post every round into scorecard. I have an idea of what my weaknesses are on the course, but it'll help reinforce things and may reveal something that I am unaware of. I'll never know if I don't do it.

Here is todays round:

[tristanhilton85]

Overall I hit the ball pretty well today and really messed up on just two holes... on the 6th I hit my tee shot OB right. Hit a good second shot from the tee box and my 4 wood approach found a bunker. I hit a thin PW from there that flew the green into some junk and couldn't put it on the green from there. Ended up with a 9. On the par 3 15th the tee shot called for an 8 iron and I duffed it into the water, re teed and it made it across but it hit the bank and also got wet. Third shot from the tee found the green and a two put led to a beautiful 7. Between those two holes I cost myself 8 strokes.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

Overall I hit the ball pretty well today and really messed up on just two holes... on the 6th I hit my tee shot OB right. Hit a good second shot from the tee box and my 4 wood approach found a bunker. I hit a thin PW from there that flew the green into some junk and couldn't put it on the green from there. Ended up with a 9. On the par 3 15th the tee shot called for an 8 iron and I duffed it into the water, re teed and it made it across but it hit the bank and also got wet. Third shot from the tee found the green and a two put led to a beautiful 7. Between those two holes I cost myself 8 strokes.

Tristan, please tell me there's a typo there on your eighth hole?  As it looks, you 3-putted from 2 feet.  I know that's not right!! ;)

[stb5089]

Your amount of fairways hit in a round is real solid and your number of putts isn't bad either. Iron play seems to be problem area?

[Hacker James]

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

You have a lot of good things going on here. Just to add to what the others have suggested:

Shorten your swing. You may have to feel like you're swinging half swings just to keep the club from going past parallel.

Your arms need to be fully extended here. Try to feel that with some slow motion swings.

I sure do recognize that bottom photo!.......I had a heck of a time trying to stop that left arm from folding too soon.  One thing that seems to work for me is to really bring my elbows in close together at address so that the elbow pockets are facing straight up. It also helped me maintain flatter left wrist. I noticed in my earlier videos, the left arm fold was such that it looked as though I was pulling it in behind my body after impact. Its fairly straight now, but I have to stay aware of the tendency.

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Quote:

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

Overall I hit the ball pretty well today and really messed up on just two holes... on the 6th I hit my tee shot OB right. Hit a good second shot from the tee box and my 4 wood approach found a bunker. I hit a thin PW from there that flew the green into some junk and couldn't put it on the green from there. Ended up with a 9. On the par 3 15th the tee shot called for an 8 iron and I duffed it into the water, re teed and it made it across but it hit the bank and also got wet. Third shot from the tee found the green and a two put led to a beautiful 7. Between those two holes I cost myself 8 strokes.

Tristan, please tell me there's a typo there on your eighth hole?  As it looks, you 3-putted from 2 feet.  I know that's not right!! ;)

Yeah, typo... but the actual result isn't much better. 3 putt from 7 feet. I blew it by the hole about 4 feet and was so pissed about it that I missed the putt coming back.

Originally Posted by Hacker James

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetFan1983

You have a lot of good things going on here. Just to add to what the others have suggested:

Shorten your swing. You may have to feel like you're swinging half swings just to keep the club from going past parallel.

Your arms need to be fully extended here. Try to feel that with some slow motion swings.

I sure do recognize that bottom photo!.......I had a heck of a time trying to stop that left arm from folding too soon.  One thing that seems to work for me is to really bring my elbows in close together at address so that the elbow pockets are facing straight up. It also helped me maintain flatter left wrist. I noticed in my earlier videos, the left arm fold was such that it looked as though I was pulling it in behind my body after impact. Its fairly straight now, but I have to stay aware of the tendency.

While I appreciate the advice, you are referencing a video that is over 2 1/2 years old. Those are issues I addressed long ago and I've made significant progress since that time.

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by stb5089

Your amount of fairways hit in a round is real solid and your number of putts isn't bad either. Iron play seems to be problem area?

Short game is a pretty big issue right now. If I don't hit the green I'm not usually able to get the ball close enough for a one putt. Today was better than most for that but it's still an issue. Iron play was actually pretty solid; while I only hit 5 of 18 greens, I could have had 4 more if the greens were slightly larger (the balls finished on the fringe). It's no coincidence that my 3 up and downs came out of those holes.

The biggest problem today, as I said before, were the two blow up holes. I need to learn how to minimize the damage. Things are headed in the right direction though, playing again tomorrow at my favorite course (Oak Valley) and usually the second day in a row that I play is a good score so I have high hopes for tomorrow.

[Hacker James]

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

Yeah, typo... but the actual result isn't much better. 3 putt from 7 feet. I blew it by the hole about 4 feet and was so pissed about it that I missed the putt coming back.

While I appreciate the advice, you are referencing a video that is over 2 1/2 years old. Those are issues I addressed long ago and I've made significant progress since that time.

I think you misunderstood me. I replied directly after the post with the photos and the only reason I said "I sure recognize that bottom one" was that I recognized that as one of MY flaws and what I did about it.  I was not giving advice at all. I merely saw the photo that was posted without even caring when it was taken or by whom. But glad you found out what you needed to at the time. I never would have known I had that flaw had I not did a video and in the past it really did not have any effect on the results, but having seen it, I know it was something that I needed to fix.

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by Hacker James

Quote:

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

Yeah, typo... but the actual result isn't much better. 3 putt from 7 feet. I blew it by the hole about 4 feet and was so pissed about it that I missed the putt coming back.

While I appreciate the advice, you are referencing a video that is over 2 1/2 years old. Those are issues I addressed long ago and I've made significant progress since that time.

I think you misunderstood me. I replied directly after the post with the photos and the only reason I said "I sure recognize that bottom one" was that I recognized that as one of MY flaws and what I did about it.  I was not giving advice at all. I merely saw the photo that was posted without even caring when it was taken or by whom. But glad you found out what you needed to at the time. I never would have known I had that flaw had I not did a video and in the past it really did not have any effect on the results, but having seen it, I know it was something that I needed to fix.

No misunderstanding on my part. The photos that you are talking about are over 2 1/2 years old and are in post 22 of a thread that is over 130 posts long. No big deal, I'm just saying that it's old.

[Hacker James]

oh Okay, I guess I was on the wrong page. and again, I was only saying that I recognized the flaw as one of my own. My bad, I don't know how I got that early of a page.

[tristanhilton85]

Played again today, this time at Oak Valley and overall I hit the ball very well. I played with a buddy and we decided to play the back tees (7003 yards) which is a bit further than I normally play from but I'd been hitting the ball well so I figured what the hell. Off the tee I hit the ball great, hitting all 7 fairways on the front and missing only 3 on the back (and all of those barely missed). Of those holes, I hit driver 12 times and 4 wood once.

Obviously the 11th was not a good hole for me... Fairly long par 3 (199 yards) and I hit a poor tee shot and left myself a quite simple pitch to the green. I then proceeded to shank 3 straight shots into the water, then left the next short of the green. Finally got up and was so frustrated that I didn't take my time and hit the putt way to hard, which hit the back of the hole and went past about 6 feet. I lipped out coming back up and had my only 3 putt of the day. I ddi rebound quite nicely after that going par, bogey, par, par, par for the next four holes. I was very pleased with myself for pulling my head back into the round and not really letting it get to me. I did have a triple on a par 3 on the front, once again due to a poor tee shot and then trying to be too fine with the pitch, which led to putting it in the bunker. Oh well. Overall I hit the ball well and with ESC I'll post a 87 which gives me a differential of 10.7. I can't complain too much about that.

I'm playing again tomorrow so hopefully the good ball striking will continue and I'll avoid the big numbers all together.

[iacas]

It's rare that you see a 92 that could have actually been an 84, but that's one of them.

[tristanhilton85]

Played again yesterday and had another very solid round. Ended up shooting 87 and that was with a 12 on the Par 5 9th. I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to avoid the freakin' blow up holes. Once again though, I rebounded nicely and had a bunch of pars after that. The only other "bad" score was a double bogey 7 which was the result of a drive that hit a palm tree on the left side of the hole. I'm not sure if the ball bounced off the tree and OB or if it just got caught up there but I never found it and had to re hit. Oh well.

The one thing that was great in the round was the putting. 29 putts for the round was great. My only three putt of the day came from 60 feet and by the time I had made it to the green on that hole I had kind of checked out mentally. My short game was also better. For whatever reason I've been struggling a lot with it lately and decided to use my PW a bit more around the green giving me much closer putts than usual. I'll play again on Friday, so we'll see how that goes.

Here's the scorecard:

[Golfingdad]

To Parrot Erik ... it's also rare to see an 87 that could have easily been an 81, but that's one of them.  Great back nine Tristan!!!

[theworldengine]

One thing I notice in your most recent vids is your hands releasing way too soon. To initiate the downswing the shoulders start to rotate before the hands. Your hands are leading the shoulders.

[tristanhilton85]

Here's my score card from today's round... The last few times out I've been hitting my irons really well and that has continued here. With this round included my index is now trending at 12.4, which is the lowest I've ever been. I only had one hole where I made a big mental mistake and that was the 17th (my 8th hole of the day). The drive found the fairway bunker, but I had a really good lie in the sand and not much of a lip to clear and decided to hit 4 wood from there. It came out really low and managed to hit the lip and bounce to the right and OB. I had to replay the shot from the bunker (took a different club that time) and barely got it out. Looking back on it, there was no reason not to hit 5 iron out of there to begin with; I was never going to get to the green in 2 from that positon and it would have taken the lip completely out of play and left an 8 iron or so to the green. Oh well. I also took penalties on the 2nd (unplayable, but then proceeded to stuff a 6 iron to 5 feet and saved par), 9 (water off the tee), and 18 (unplayable). All of those were from less than stellar tee shots, but other than those, I hit driver pretty well and think I have a good handle on it now.

Playing again tomorrow morning, if I can manage an 84, I'd be down to an 11.9. Hopefully all goes well.

[mvmac]

With this round included my index is now trending at 12.4, which is the lowest I've ever been.

[tristanhilton85]

Quote:

Playing again tomorrow morning, if I can manage an 84, I'd be down to an 11.9. Hopefully all goes well.

Everything did go well. I played solid golf on the front but my putter was off and ended up shooting a 44 (1 par, 8 bogies). The back side however was great with 7 pars and 2 bogies giving me a 38 and an total score of 82. With that round, my index is now trending at 11.7! I was very happy that I managed to keep doubles or worse off the card. I feel like I played really smart golf today and did what I needed to ensure that big numbers stayed off the card. I probably won't be able to play again until next week, although there is a chance I can get out on Saturday morning. We'll see.

Here's the card from today.