My Swing (b101)

[b101]

On 15/07/2017 at 1:09 PM, boogielicious said:

I like your transition from the top of the backswing. Looks good!

Thank you - it's one of the pieces that we've worked on and it's the thought of keeping the backswing slightly shorter that's tidied this bit up. I think we can do more though and Preston wants to see me shallow the club even more in the downswing, which ties in with the hand path work. Hopefully the two combined will lead to some even better results!

[b101]

Back from holiday and made it to the range this morning for some short game work. Luckily, the range near my parents has Protracer bays, so I did some really useful yardage gapping with the new wedges. I had planned to do more full swing practice, but I managed to pull a muscle in my right arm, which meant that I was dropping loads of speed compared to usual (I was losing about 10-15 yards with a 7 iron and 20-30 with the driver, which was just sad... I've never struggled to make a 210 carry with a driver before!). Whilst I wait for that to heal up, I'll just keep going with the short game work. 

Anyway, new yardages with the wedges. What was clear from this is that my technique and efficiency is definitely better. Whilst I couldn't swing hard with the longer clubs, my partial wedge swings are definitely travelling further as a result of much improved contact from the last time I did this. I would say I properly own three of the five swings that I practised, with the 1/4 soft - 'new' pivot pitch method and 1/2 swings requiring more work.

	¼ soft	¼ hard	½	¾	Full
Lob Wedge (60°)	28	42	52	68	82
Sand Wedge (56°)	34	50	66	82	99
Gap Wedge (52°)	40	*N/A	77	102	115
Pitching Wedge (49°)	48	*N/A	90	116	125

*I didn't bother with the 1/4 hard swings for my GW or PW as it's just a bump and run shot that I don't really need the yardage for. 

1/4 soft (pivot): A straightforward pitch shot feeling that the club gets to parallel with the ground (in reality, it goes a fair way past this. Downswing is very passive, leading to a really soft shot.

1/4 hard: Same length of shot, but more powered by shoulders and arms. Slightly lower, but this is pretty consistent.

1/2: New-ish addition, but I needed something to bridge the gap. This is left arm getting to parallel on the backswing then the same with the follow through. Not a lot of drive through the shot, but not totally passive either.

3/4: My favourite - if I can hit this, I will. Feel that the left arm gets to about 10 o'clock (it's a bit further in reality) and then swing through to about 2 o'clock. There is a fair bit of speed here, rather than making it dead handed, which helps with stopping the ball.

Full: self-explanatory.

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Pretty happy with these distances and it should really help. It's taken a while getting used to the new wedges before I felt comfortable enough to trust my swing with these clubs. The next stage is really dialing in the last two swings and 'owning' those - the 1/2 and 1/4 soft and then just putting them into practice. I'm going to try to do this on the course on Tuesday and try to drop a ball down at odd yardages on each hole to test my shot choices. Looking forward to a more informed decision of which trajectory to choose as well.

Edited July 28, 2017 by b101

[b101]

I had a decent range session this morning (post-holiday) to knock some of the rust off. I am really struggling with the new driver to not lose it right, so I took some videos of DTL and FO, which I haven't looked at in a while. I completely think that it's me, rather than the club, but I do need to sort it. What is good is that the distance is definitely better than the previous driver, even when it is drifting right by 20 yards or more, so that's good news. It's all still tied in with my hand path work that Preston has me working on and I'll be sending this his way for a check over. I haven't sugar coated it, particularly with the DTL view and that's as bad of a drive as you'll see me hit...

The 3 wood and hybrid were fades, but very controllable ones - it's the driver that can go off-the-planet right at the moment. And that needs to be sorted. Still lots of work to do with the other two clubs as well and getting back to that conscious control of my positions. Lots of stuff breaking down at the top of the backswing...

After that, I had a bit of a revelation with my pitching and chipping. Having seen a really interesting tweet of Jordan Spieth pitching, I had a look at feeling my head was rising up during the downswing. Instantly got much more height and softness of flight (my 56 was going higher than my 60 normally would!) and a far easier feel of activating the bounce. It also meant that I could go purely on feel and just do pretty much whatever I wanted with the wedge.

I spent about 20 minutes working on this feel and then went to the putting green. Spent an hour there working on pressure drills from inside 10 feet before sneaking in some chips from just off the green. With that little tweak to my head motion, I never put one outside of 4 feet from just off the fringe with my lob wedge (these are 10 yard or so chips) and holed 9, including holing three balls in a row to one position. This is a completely new weapon and I'm really excited to actually feel like I'm not trying to just up-and-down, but there's an opportunity to hole out from off the green.

I'm going to my course tomorrow morning and spend some time on the range - I'm only playing the 9 hole course, so I'll really make the most of the putting green and wedge areas. Our 9 holer is a great practice facility - tiny, fast greens and tight landing spots on the fairways mean that you have to be accurate. A full 18 is possible on Thursday, but I really need the driver working before I hit the Championship course. 

[b101]

Had a really fun morning at the course - played 9 on the Channel course, which is the really tight one with tiny greens and did a lot of practice on short game and work on the range. By the end of the range session, I was starting to get to grips with the driver, getting most shots to a 10 yard fade and a few turning over right to left, which is good news! I really need to continue working on the hand path, as this is definitely the main thing with the driver, but I worked on tidying up the top of the backswing as well, which had an effect. A short summary of today's work:

9 holes - 2 over (Channel)

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1751451

Not bad, considering that my driving was very haphazard at the start of the round! Actually, one of my best tee shots was the one that was the most punished - I just chose the wrong line with my hybrid on the 6th. The flight was brilliant and it stayed dead straight on the left edge of the fairway. Problem is that there's a massive drop off from that spot down to a bush and I could only stab it 5 yards out into another really tough lie. Did brilliantly to get it just short for 3, but the up and down attempt was a bit crap. 

Overall though, I putted well and hit some nice shots. I had time, so occasionally hit two balls off the tee, but obviously only scored the first one. It got a bit windy coming back in, so to see me still picking up 235 yards with the driver on the 9th into wind is pleasing. There's more to come there, but pretty happy with this scoring. The second hole was an awesome three shots as well - not one of them was easy, but planned each one out and whilst the 9 iron into the green was a push, the fact that I wanted it to start on the left edge (knowing a draw was unlikely if I wasn't intending it) meant that it worked out beautifully.

I also filmed my 8th hole - (a couple of you will definitely appreciate this: @RandallT, @billchao, @dennyjones). It's our Postage Stamp: the green is tiny and the tee is very exposed to wind.

I need to work on my knock-down shots (I was attempting a knock-down 8 that flew 135 and still went pretty high...). I was trying to land it 10 yards shorter, but both were pretty dead on line, just went over the back.

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Practice - bullet pointed for speed:

• 1 hour on the range, working mostly on the driver but switching back to a 7 iron pretty regularly to keep the feels going - I find it easier to get the hand path feel with a 7 and get the draw going, then switch back to the driver. Swing looks better, if not anywhere near where I want it to be.

• Spent a lot of time pitching, particularly working on low point in the bunkers. I'm intending to do more with this as I can't control distance well. On the plus side, at least I can get out of the bunkers every time now!

• Finished up spending half an hour on my putting, checking AimPoint reads and doing some pressure drills. I found another one from my pack that I liked with the aim of adding consequence to putting. Basically, each putt is a situation (different hole, distance and break) and you work out your score at the end. My overall score is after each situation:

1. 8ft birdie: -1
2. 15ft birdie: -1 (a 6 foot return putt masked a crap first putt)
3. 20ft birdie: -1
4. 10ft par putt: level
5. 6ft par putt: +1
6. 18ft par putt: +1 (putt of the day)
7. 9ft birdie putt: +1
8. 5ft par putt: +2
9. 12ft birdie putt: +1
10. 3ft par putt: +1

This is one I'll keep working on, as it really did work for me. I then spent a lot of time on 9 footers with different breaks. I'm now burning the lip on pretty much all of the ones that don't go in and whilst I didn't track the number I holed, it's improving.

[RandallT]

1 hour ago, b101 said:

It's our Postage Stamp: the green is tiny and the tee is very exposed to wind.

Lemme guess, the wind was blowing right to left!!!! Wow. 

I've only used Evolvr thus far for a "standard" swing. Have you ever asked for instruction on how to hit specialty shots? On these courses you play, I'd imagine a knock-down is more than just a theoretical bit of knowledge, but something that you use constantly- directly impacting your scores. Just curious how you utilize your "instruction dollars"- just the basic swing or tailored to your conditions.

As always, love the pics. Sorry there's no compensation for your photography services, just the satisfaction of watching us on this side of the Atlantic drool in envy.

 

[b101]

4 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Lemme guess, the wind was blowing right to left!!!! Wow. 

I've only used Evolvr thus far for a "standard" swing. Have you ever asked for instruction on how to hit specialty shots? On these courses you play, I'd imagine a knock-down is more than just a theoretical bit of knowledge, but something that you use constantly- directly impacting your scores. Just curious how you utilize your "instruction dollars"- just the basic swing or tailored to your conditions.

As always, love the pics. Sorry there's no compensation for your photography services, just the satisfaction of watching us on this side of the Atlantic drool in envy.

 

Actually, the wind was ok on this one, just a bit into (maybe 1-2 clubs?). To be honest, I've stuck with the standard swing for pretty much everything bar one check on my pitching and uploading the tee shots yesterday. Even then, that was just to give Preston an idea of how my swing was working with the longer clubs. I will probably do more of this sort of stuff and ask on the knock-down in particular.

Don't worry, I'll keep the pics and videos coming!

[billchao]

2 hours ago, b101 said:

I also filmed my 8th hole - (a couple of you will definitely appreciate this: @RandallT, @billchao, @dennyjones). It's our Postage Stamp: the green is tiny and the tee is very exposed to wind.

 

Yea that's an awesome looking course. Totes jelly.

 

2 hours ago, b101 said:

I need to work on my knock-down shots (I was attempting a knock-down 8 that flew 135 and still went pretty high...). I was trying to land it 10 yards shorter, but both were pretty dead on line, just went over the back.

Less turn and choking down a hair might help. It looks like you made a full backswing and just sawed off the finish.

 

[b101]

The last couple of days have seen more range time and trying to really get that hand path more outward through impact. It's not easy, but definitely seeing improvements. What's quite nice is that (unlike with some other pieces), I feel like I can try to tidy up other pieces whilst I'm working on this, such as the top of the backswing and takeaway that I know I haven't got perfect. My top of the backswing when unconscious is definitely better than where it has been for a long time and it's nice to see the club not creeping across the line as much as it used to. 

I've also been trying to work on my check and run pitch shot, which is a shot I really feel I need around the greens. I'm fine when short-sided, or just need to drop and stop, but releasing the ball up the green to a back pin is a shot I just can't play at the moment and would certainly be useful given the slopes on some of the greens at my course! 

Latest round was an interesting case study and proof of golf sometimes being a mystifying game. I didn't drive particularly well, hit great approaches or putt well (and my scrambling regularly left me six footers that I couldn't drain). Yet, I managed +10, mostly thanks to two birdies on the outward par fives, which are pretty straightforward provided I get my drive away. It was really windy (25mph gusting 45mph) and that wind properly hit around holes 10-12. So, what was good?

• Distance with driver - the new club does go much further. Even on scabby hits (4 was awful, bottom heel - 245 yards, 7 wasn't great and faded quite a lot - 276, 13 was hideous into wind and still ate up 225 yards), it's meaning one or two clubs less into most greens. Top hit today of 297 meant I had a 7 iron into a par five - even I can't mess that up!
• nGIR helps. I may not have hit that many greens today, but I was usually greenside in two. When I'm not (hole 12 was just abysmal) is when I make a really poor score. 
• Putting was ok, even if I still feel I left a lot out there. I still need to get better inside 10 feet, but who doesn't? 

My takeaways from this were that I need to be firmer with my expectations in practice. I have to start imagining 'no-go' zones on the range or going through more pressure drills or up-and-down games when pitching or putting rather than putting three to 'get the feel'. I also want to try to practice more in the wind, holding the ball against it or playing knockdown shots. Interestingly, I drove the ball best when I was playing wind off the left (I've found it tough to stop losing the ball right recently) as it made me really focus on my swing thought. When it was off the right, I started losing the bal right again. I guess I thought the wind would bat it back more. Good lesson to learn though!

On the horizon, I have a round on Sunday at an easier course, hoopefully a couple more next week and I'm sticking to the daily practice. The trick will be to keep this up when term time hits again...

[b101]

Not a long post today, but I did some more drill work and we're starting to see some decent results at 70%, even at 100% (with no ball). Seeing the ball in front of me still sort of puts me off, but we'll work on that... I only managed to hit the alignment rod in front of me twice, so that's a good thing (both proves that it's in the right place and that I'm not making that many real cuts across the ball).

This is much needed - the round I played yesterday was really poor for recent standards. Just couldn't get out of hitting weak fades off the tee, hence the extra work this morning. Putted pretty well, but it wasn't in any way enough to compensate for a few awful holes. Three shockers to learn from:

2nd: Poor tee shot and tried to bite off too much when hacking out of the trees meaning that I had to hit a really high cut around them for my third shot. It stayed too straight, missing left in an unplayable. The mistakes were partly off the tee but mostly the overly ambitious hack out. 

10th: **** knows. Honestly, just dreadful. A pitiful tee shot found a bunker I should clear all day long. Could only hack out of the bunker and then proceeded to cold top two three woods. The wedge in was decent but with frustration I hit it too long. Just one of those dreadful holes, but I really need to sort my 3 wood from the deck out - this has been happening too much recently.

14th: An easy hole, but I snap-hooked a hybrid that I'd been fading all day for a lost ball. Frustrated, the next one slid way right, leaving another punch out. Couldn't make the up-and-down.

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1763882

Can only get better...

---

Finally, I thought I'd share my work with my 56* wedge recently. All shots with that one club, but really working on high, low and mid shots, thanks to @iacas' awesome chip/pitch shots thread. Pretty happy, but the low one still needs a bit of work before I feel confident putting it into play. I also still cut across my partial wedge shots a bit, but not my biggest concern at this point.

If you haven't read, give it a look - the first video is brilliant:

 

[b101]

I've spent most of this week just trying to consolidate that last upload - the good news is that Preston loved the work on the hand path, so we're getting there! I struggled to recreate the feels at full speed until today, when a feel of really trying to use the hips earlier to create that secondary axis tilt did the trick. Suddenly, we had a slight draw or slight fade with the driver (about 5 yards either way at most) and every other club drawing nicely, including the 3 wood, which I don't think I've ever been able to do. 

As proscribed, the vast majority of my practice has been on the long game and trying to control the driver. Other than that, I've spent about an hour a day with the sand wedge around the greens and trying to build up my confidence with the various trajectories. I can hit low, low-mid, mid and mid-high pretty easily, but the control of distance with the high and mid-high shots has been difficult - this is the last option really at the moment. I love the low and low-mid shots and have really enjoyed learning to either keep spin on or take it off these shots by standing the handle up. I'm also finally able to play that low checking shot that I love watching, which is brilliant for running the ball up the greens. The acid test will still be whether I can put them in play and commit to the shots, but it's been a great learning experience so far and I feel is really developing my skillset. For what it's worth, this has been using James Ridyard's Short Game Secrets videos and I can't recommend the 'Scrambling' videos enough!

Finally, I've done some work on my putting and have used an upload to Preston to get him to look at my stroke. From what I've seen, I think my issues stem from two things:

1) Path - I still cut across the ball slightly
2) Alignment - I roll it really well on the mat at home, because I know I'm aligned correctly.

I spent some time on the putting green today using a gate to try to check path and routinely putting a club down along the line of my feet to check my alignment. It took about 10 minutes to fine-tune, but I think this is better now - I just need to check it more often. I'll be interested to see what Preston comes back with though. 

[b101]

Went to the range with Protracer today which was really useful. I particularly wanted to look at my launch angle with the driver and it was clearly an issue - I was hitting it at about 7/8 degrees at the start. This was the result by the end, which is just great to see:

Not the easiest to see, but managed to get launch up to 11.3, meaning a carry of 250, rolling to 271. The added bonus is the straightening of the shot and the curve of 2R was pretty typical.

The other carry distances look like this currently:

Driver: 235 (average)
3 wood: 210
3 hybrid: 200
4 iron: 185
5 iron: 175
6 iron: 166
7 iron: 157
8 iron: 148
9 iron: 137
PW: 129
GW: 120
SW: 99 
LW: 82

Pretty well-spaced, but quality of strike remains the real determiner - I can get a 7 iron to 164 or 149 depending on contact at the moment, which needs to be tighter. I will pretty much never hit a full SW or LW though.

Playing three rounds in the fnext three days - a nice, relatively easy course with friends tomorrow, before links tests with Formby and Open host Royal Lytham and St Annes on Monday and Tuesday. Will keep you all updated!

[b101]

It's been a fun week! For more updates from Lytham and Formby, please see this thread: 

Royal Lytham & St Annes is the best course I have ever played and was simply brilliant from start to finish - highly recommended!

For this post, I wanted to do a bit of analysis on the last few rounds using Game Golf and see what I could glean as well as whether my thoughts are actually based in reality. I also had a short game lesson yesterday, which worked on reducing my hinge (my feeling of neutral was as far hinged as possible), meaning that I can hit down far more effectively. I then went and played 9 holes in the evening and it made an immediate difference. More on that in a bit.

Putting-wise, I had a great response from Preston, which explained quite a few aspects of the left-hand low approach that I should look at, as well as the need to commit to the pendulum, no acceleration stroke. I'm still working on that (I got the video just before the round at Lytham) and the immediate story is that it's much better for long putts, but I'm pulling short ones slightly left. More work to do, for sure.

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Formby (6400 yards) - 10 over.

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1785870

Started really well and drove the ball nicely until about the eleventh, when I started losing it right a bit more. The main issue was that, on the back nine, I couldn't control my low point with my irons and even though I was putting myself in scoring positions off the tee, I was just not hitting enough GIR on the back nine. Front nine was as good as I've played in a while though. Didn't feel I putted particularly well, but it wasn't bad - didn't make any that made me feel I was gaining shots. What was nice was that there were no blow up holes. There was a chance on 7, but the best recovery shot I've ever hit actually gave me a very makeable par putt. My sentiments are borne out entirely by the GG statistics:

Royal Lytham & St Annes (6700 yards) - 10 over:

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1785846

A long, seriously bunkered course with tricky shots whenever you missed the fairway. It was fairly windy, but nothing too severe. I felt I drove it brilliantly, with the couple of average strikes still pretty safe (apart from the awful shot on 8 that caused the double and finding a bunker on 18 - although, look at the tee shot you have to hit! Finding a bunker is about 50% probability!). Approach play was a bit better, but can still improve further, particularly with partial wedges, which I just didn't feel I had under control at all. Putting was ok, but I didn't hole many of my putts in the 6ft-10ft range. I also could have scrambled much better, which was why I was leaving those shots. I can visualise the shot, but just wasn't managing to hit my lines or see the release I wanted.

This interests me as I thought my putting wasn't great... I guess we all do! I wonder whether this calculation is quite on the money, as I don't feel I was gaining strokes doing it. The numbers for short game and approaches don't surprise me and off the tee was good, bar those two shots.

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Yesterday - some four days later - I had a short game lesson with Matt, who had fitted my Edel wedges. We spent 45 minutes on the range, when he worked on changing my release pattern. Essentially, I was hinging hard immediately, which was impacting my ability to hit down with the club and properly engage the bounce. He had me hit loads of shots to about 50 yards, trying to get the feeling of a more extended, vertical takeaway (my words, not his) and then syncing my body with the arms better, to feel I was really rotating through the ball and hitting down and left. What we saw was that the more I felt confident in hitting down and knowing that the club wouldn't stick in the ground, the more the ball flew high, straight and stopped nicely. We also found a bit of extra distance in doing so, not that it was the primary objective.

After that first 45 minutes, we went onto the course and around 5 different greens, just trying to hit certain shots. He was really clear that the range was technical and the course was hitting the shot and trusting the technique. By the end, I was back to that awesome turf interaction that I'd first had on my Edel fitting and had moved away from and was hitting all the shots I wanted, including the nice mid low flight that will serve me well on windier days. The main difference is that I can now see a landing spot and hit it, whereas I had been seeing and missing them beforehand. I've come away with a new training aid as well (the Yes V-Easy) to really feel that path - I was using it for the first 45 minutes and still had the feel 2 hours later, so it's worth the money for me.

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Farleigh (4 over - 9 holes): 

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1795260

The final round was just after my lesson. Did everything brilliantly apart from putt, missing a couple of sitters and having an abysmal three putt on the 3rd hole. (The first putt on the 4th was very downhill and whilst I'm annoyed, I'm not too heartbroken about missing the return). Irons were better; I actually hit the 3/4 PW on the first about 10 yards further than I normally would due to the better synced swing Matt and I had worked on and the driver was flying well. The greens were also really hard, making some approaches (1st, 9th) tough to stick. I made two nice up and downs that I wouldn't have done before the lesson and gave myself chances where I hadn't been at Lytham or Formby, most notably the pitch from the back of the 9th, bunker shot on 5 and the second pitch on the 6th. I had a horrible lie and was short-sided, green running away on 6, so that was never going to go close.

Also worth mentioning the hybrid on 9, which was a worldie - I'll never hit a better shot with that club. Under a tree, with a restricted follow through, I had to hit a draw to avoid the branches and found the perfect line over the bunker

Yep, these are about right... Approach shots lost would include the 9 iron that was destroyed into the wind on 5, the hard bounce for the PW on 1 which threw it over the back and the poor first pitch on 6.

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So, what to work on? Well, a few images expand on the story - all from the last three rounds:

Off the tee:

Approaches inside 150, split into three categories:

Approaches outside 150, split into three categories:

Strokes Gained overall:

Plan of action:

• Nail the putting motion and setup changes and eliminate the pulls from inside 10 feet. I need to keep practising, using a start gate and work out what my tendencies are. I'll also post a response to Preston to check the new setup.
• Keep doing what I'm doing with driver and wedges. 0.47 strokes lost against a scratch golfer is awesome and I just need to keep taking driver and hitting it as well as I am currently doing.
• Really work on contact with 7 iron and up - outside 150 can be so much better. This really includes hybrid and 3 wood, although what I was doing in the lesson with Matt has also cleared that up.

All in all though, I'm pretty happy with this and really seeing progress - +10 on two tough courses is good enough for me right now and I feel like my ceiling is much higher/lower than that. 

[b101]

So, it's been a while - a really hectic term of work and an arm injury sustained whilst doing my Insanity workouts has really meant that golf time has been limited. The good news is that it's half term and I've got a bit of time. It's all a bit rusty, but I'm getting back to it tomorrow starting with a round at Burnham, just to shake the rust off. I'm also going to really commit to at least one range session per week over the next six weeks and see where we are then. Should mean I spend a bit more time back on the forum as well. Looking forward to getting back to it and will get some video up soon.

[b101]

Annoyingly, it wasn't great - mostly from a fitness point of view. I went out pretty early, played the first five and kept feeling the arm ache, so I cut across to the 13th and played the last five as well. I wasn't really keeping score, but I was making par or bogey on pretty much every hole, with more bogeys than pars as my speed on the greens was so far out... It's an odd injury in that it's the top-inside of my right bicep and I don't feel it all that often. However, if I raise my arm so that it's parallel with the floor, I'd say I feel a small tweak about 20% of the time. I don't know much about injuries or how best to deal with them, but playing golf isn't helping that at the moment and it was definitely worse about 3 hours after the round. I'll try to take a bit more time off and just go running or do short game work until it's back to where it should be. The good news is that my swing wasn't miles off, at least in terms of the results. I wasn't hitting it anywhere near as far as I was before the injury, unsurprisingly, but there weren't that many poor shots. 

Frustrating, but I'll keep at it - I reckon two weeks or so off should do it.

[b101]

After giving it a bit more of a break, I went out for 7 holes yesterday and thankfully all feels good. Usually after a long break from golf, I come back to a slice or hook, but this time, it’s pretty straight with just a few contact issues (thins, mostly) to sort. I’m also still trying to address some of the putting setup and backstroke changes Preston wants me to make and I’m finding I’m underhitting a lot of putts as a result. Still, yesterday’s stretch yielded 2 birdies (on a par five and a short par four), 2 bogeys (first hole - a par four, after overshooting the green when playing for a poor contact, and a long par three) and 3 pars. The birdie on the par five was especially nice as I hit both the shots I wanted, with a draw on the drive and then fading a 6i around a tree to make the green in two. Short game looking pretty good as well so I think I’m in a decent place for now. Just delighted to feel no pain though. Onwards and upwards!

 

edit: a couple of days left of half term, so I’ll get some video done and sent over to evolvr and here in the next couple

Edited November 3, 2017 by b101

[b101]

Burnham and Berrow (Channel Course) - 2 over - https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1915309

Camera died so no luck recording video. I was going to go for 18 holes today, but the winds were up in a big way and there was a comp in front, so I decided on a longer period of time on the practice greens and then just went on the 9 hole course. Played ok and drove the ball particularly well towards the end. This course sets up nicely for me as I'm relatively accurate with the driver (when it's on), meaning that I can get pretty close. Sounds obvious, but I score very well when I can hit driver - wedge repeatedly, so it makes sense for me to go for it on holes that are not normally driver holes. Case in point is the 6th; the fairway that I found is literally 6 paces wide at the point I ended up on, but with it being in a slight valley, it's worth going after. I actually went over the bunker (was always carrying downwind) and just rolled down sideways.

As a sidenote: @iacas will be proud in my change to trusting in 'The Rule' compared to a few years back 

Things changed at the 5th. I wasn't hitting it well for the first four holes into the wind, so suddenly being downwind was a bit of a shock - so much so that I almost drove the 5th green with people on it (just had no concept that it might happen given the tough drives on the previous few holes).

In short, wedge play decent, driving decent to good and putting average. I'm still getting used to the changes and I'm starting to see the benefits in removing the hit, but it's really hard for me to trust that on the course at the moment. I'm also not hitting my lines at the moment - probably due to focusing more on the simple back and through motion. About three times in this round, I'd miss a putt, drop another ball down and roll it into the cup, dead centre. Such is golf...

Hoping to get the video sorted tomorrow, but we'll see!

Edited November 4, 2017 by b101

[b101]

 

As promised, lots of video today from the range work. Did lots of stuff from wedges to full swing and the first time recording that in a while isn't pretty... Results are ok, but so much work remains to be done. I've gone with two uploads to evolvr for the putting - Preston has me working on more of a pendulum motion and a number of setup changes (ball forward, left arm having more bend, more forward shaft lean) and full swing and will run the wedges by the guy who gives me lessons for those. 

Videos below:

 

 

 

 

Good news is that ball flight is decent with most shots and the short game is more consistent. However, positionally, lots of things could be better. I'm finding the putting changes hard to get used to, but I'm sure it'll come with practice.

[b101]

Played my first round in a while yesterday (off the yellow tees as I was with friends who play, very loosely, off of 32/36) and went round pretty well! Driving was on point meaning that I had my usual wedges into greens and those were pretty damn good, too. Additionally, when I did have an iron in, I was striking it pretty nicely and there weren't any real disaster putts... It's quite a straightforward course if you get your tee shot away, with the damage coming (see holes 3, 8 and 13 - although I actually pulled off my best shot of the day (7i punch draw through a tiny gap in the tree) on 13) when you miss the fairway and get blocked out. 

https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/1945637

Strokes Gained looks nice and I had some really comfortable yardages for approach wedges - mainly 100-115. I know that, based on the rule, I should find 80 yards easier, but I still haven't got confidence in that shot with my SW compared to the GW/PW that work so well from slightly longer distances. One poor hole (3) where I caught a muddy lie and then just failed to get up and down after that.

Pretty positive though - the putting is improving and distance control getting miles better. Only drained one that I wouldn't have called a gimme, on the 5th, but it's getting there. It's the long par threes with anything over a 7i that I'm still unconfident on.

Progress though - I'll be trying to make time for more putting practice at home and I have another round in a couple of weeks to target.