Pete's Programme (Single Digit to Tour Player)

[Nosevi]

[QUOTE name="Nosevi" url="/t/80287/petes-programme-single-digit-to-tour-player/288#post_1184070"] On a different note, my bedtime reading has now changed......   [SPOILER=Pics] [/SPOILER] What was a dawn to dusk programme is now a dawn till well after dusk one. Interesting read so far though.[/QUOTE] Let me know what you think.

Early on in the book but really liking it so far. Can't wait to get to the sections on planning your practice and planning your on course strategy but having just read chapter 5 I'm amazed at how closely it mirrors my own experience so far. I've been lucky in that I've been able to arrange to play and practice with some pretty good players (I'm meeting Brian Casey for a short game session tomorrow morning in fact and he'll be off to play a European Tour event in a few weeks) but the whole chapter on Separation Value is exactly what I've found to be true. Rather than accepting the old 'Drive for show, putt fot dough' thing I decided to see where I lagged most behind really good players and concentrate on that also taking into consideration how often I needed to execute a given shot. As a result I've concentrated a lot on driving and approach play for example. Putting wise by far and away the putts I practice most are the ones Brian, Jess, Rob and Sam get and I miss - 8 footers, 9 footers, 12 footers etc. We all get pretty much all the 2 or 3 footers and we all lag putts ok but the others drop those intermediate putts more often so that's been my focus on the green. Then reading the driving section which I've literally just done a few minutes ago it's interesting that it mirrors my post about how I increased my driving distance looking at optimal launch angles and spin numbers. Freaky that it even mentions using the Flightscope Trajectory Optimiser - the same online ball flight simulation I used!!! All in all it really reinforces my approach so far. Rather than statistical analysis I've done it through linking up with good players and having first hand experience of where I need to focus my efforts. The fact that the statistical analysis in the book seems to exactly mirror my own experience makes it a good backup and, in a way, a confirmation for me that my approach isn't too wide of the mark. I'd also suggest it's a great resource for others - I'm very much aware that everyone can't just go out and start practicing with budding young tour pros in order to see how their game stands up in different areas but so far I can confirm that the book pretty much allows you to do just that. At the end of the day its coming out with the same answers as I'm finding using the 'practice with tour pros' approach so each is really backing up the other.

[Nosevi]

Well, Saturday saw me take some swing changes to the course and although my swing is very much a work in progress I had a very good ball striking day which bodes well for the future. In fact I was playing matchplay against Brian, from the 'tips' obviously so CR of 73 (we call it SSS but amounts to the same thing). I finished the last few holes on my own as I had already lost and Brian needed to get going, but against a guy who was +4.3 directly prior to turning pro 18 months ago and has moved on from there, winning isn't really the target. We don't use handicaps, we just both play off scratch as I want to know how far behind I am with a level playing field so never use a handicap when playing the pros I practice with. What the target was in this case was not to utterly embarrass myself. Bit of a shaky start but after that I hit more GIR than I've previously hit from those tees. In fact after the 3rd hole the only GIR I missed was from having to come out sideways from behind a tree having missed the fairway on 17, I then hit the green on the shot when I was siming at it. As far as approach play goes, probably the best ball striking day I've had. As I said, it bodes well for the changes I'm making. Putting - my excuse is the greens were closed the day before for maintenance as they were spiked and sanded. Still no birdies from 15 GIR?!?!?! Report card reads 'Must try harder!' As far as the programme as a whole goes I'm just into the end of phase assessment for phase 3 of my first year. What that means is that I'll play a bunch of rounds collecting all my stats, scores etc as well as undergo some long game tests on the launch monitor. All of these have set targets so we'll see where I am compared to them. Gut feeling is I'll be pretty close. Moving forward I've got to look at ways to step up the programme in year 2 in order to maintain close to my target improvement curve. Essentially I want to keep pushing myself and not sit back just because I make the initial targets I set myself. I have several ideas that I'll report as they are incorporated into the programme but a big part of the step up for year 2 will be LSW. I've started reading the book cowritten by @iacas and am finding it really useful. As I said, many things in the early part of the book such as SV ring true just from my observation from practising with some very good players and as a result a quick glanse at my practice diary shows I have spent upwards of twice as much time on long game as I've spent on short game over the last year (having my own swing studio helps!). One area where my programme has lacked though is in the organisation of that time. I haven't always been specific for example and have at times been guilty of practising hard but without purpose. I'm now reading the chapters on building a practice programme and this will be the basis around which year 2 will be built. My hope and expectation is that this will give the programme as a whole more focus. The beginning of year 2's outline practice programme: That's me for now. Will let you know how the assessment goes. Now I have Randy's spreadsheet above with target curves etc it's pretty easy to see how things are progressing. Thanks again, Randy :-)

[rkim291968]

Are you going to start updating your HI, too?   I think it has been 5.1 forever.

[Nosevi]

Are you going to start updating your HI, too?   I think it has been 5.1 forever.   :-)

I will do when my official one changes :-) Like I've said, our handicap system is nuts. Since starting the programme my scoring average has dropped about 5 shots, I've played in a few club competitions during the week, played for my club against other clubs on several occasions at the weekend and played in numerous social and practice rounds. Not a one affects my handicap. My handicap will only drop when I play in one form of competition which is a stroke play qualifier, generally played once a month for 8 months a year. Any other time you play does not affect your handicap. It's barking mad. I made a decision to play matches for my club this year rather than prioritise playing the qualifiers as, getting into competition for the first time I thought it put my game under the most pressure having team mates watching and relying on your play, jump in with both feet if you like. Why didn't I do both? Matches are all on the weekend, qualfiers are only ever on the weekend. I golf all week Monday to Friday and have a young family at school during the week but obviously at home during the weekend. My wife is being pretty good allowing me to do this whole golf thing in the first place (understatement as going into civilian air traffic when I left the military would have come with a large salary increase, in fact starting this dropped our household income by about $60k per year as I left the military, a military pension is why it isn't larger) and saying that on top of that I wouldn't be around to see the kids on the weekends just wasn't an option. To give an idea though my stroke average (taking into consideration all rounds rather than best 10 of 20) is now about 4 over CR (SSS to us). Guessing my best 10 of 20 is about 2 over CR and Gamegolf (which I use for training rounds but not competition) estimates my handicap using the US system to be 0.8. I never intended to 'blog' or share my programme or progress, it just sort of happened when the moderating team here started this thread as comments I made on the Dan Plan thread sat better on their own thread, so most rounds on GG are set to private but in the stats but I could change that policy moving forward. There's one more qualifier this year which I hope to play in, if I can and do well my handicap will drop a fraction of one stroke. Then we're out of season and my handicap will not be able to change until next March or April. Next year I've decided to prioritise playing qualifiers when I have my 'weekend pass' which will mean I'll have to quit playing for the club. I think I've got as much out of that as I can though - I think it's been a good preparation for competition next year. So that's why my handicap hasn't dropped. I have been playing golf and improving, I've even been playing in competitions but none of it 'counts' under our system. We are in the process of changing to a system more closely aligned to yours and all courses are having a US style Course Rating calculated right now but that will take time. In the meantime I'm tracking my own progress using scoring average as that tells me where I am where as our system frankly doesn't. Edit: Just checked and Game Golf now has my handicap at equivalent to 0.3 under the US system after the last couple of rounds I inputted. Kinda scratch then....... almost? :-)

[Nosevi]

Game Golf's 'estimate' of my handicap: I've been trying to figure out a way to make sense of our handicap system for you guys over there and I guess try to explain why my handicap hasn't dropped even though I'm saying I'm getting better (which I am). I'll try this angle, I'll use an example. Some years back there was an aspiring young golfer who by all accounts was pretty good but his handicap didn't drop. Rather than because of prioritising juggling playing for his club and still having some weekends with family his reason was simple - his boss wouldn't give him the time off from working in the pro shop at weekends to play in the qualifiers which were the only times he could play which would lower his handicap. In fact, even though he was playing well his handicap didn't drop below 4. He gave up playing as an amateur and turned pro off his 4 handicap, initially doing the PGA course so he had something to fall back on but jumping on tour at the end of it. Since then he's won multiple times all round the world, more than a few times in the Ryder Cup. His name in case you didn't guess is Ian Poulter. His handicap as an amateur never dropped below 4 due simply to not being able to play on a weekend. He was no more a 4 handicap level than I'm a 5.1, as I say, Game Golf which is losely based on your system thinks I'm a 0.3 now. Our system is frankly daft. :-)

[MacDutch]

Funny stuff, this hcp system in England. You should play a couple of Stableford tournaments, they will call you a sandbagger :-) I was near to Pottergate last time I visited England a couple of week ago, should have tried to do a round together.

[Nosevi]

Funny stuff, this hcp system in England. You should play a couple of Stableford tournaments, they will call you a sandbagger :-) I was near to Pottergate last time I visited England a couple of week ago, should have tried to do a round together.

Give me a shout if you're ever passing again and I'd be happy to. Be better playing at my 'proper' course though - Blankney. Potter is just a small course 5 minutes from my house so I use it but Blankney is a bit of a different set up :-)

[Nosevi]

Just been watching an interview regarding Ian Poulter to make sure I had that all correct as it's a while since I read it - I did. The interview was actually given by David Feherty who said he turned pro off a handicap of 5, unlike Poulter I believe he went straight into playing tournament golf which would be barking mad if you were a 5 handicapper under the US system which pretty effectively shows your current ability Depending on your situation and when you can play, and particularly if you're rapidly improving, our system is pretty much useless as a demonstration of your ability. I think I've got the message across - ignore the handicap until our golf union stop living in the past and adopt one that works for a sport rather than a 'gentleman's past time' which is how some of them appear to view golf.

[Nosevi]

Well, after all that about how much I dislike our handicap system and wished we would crack on and adopt the US system, on to something a little more positive. I'm coming up to the end of the third Trimester of year 1 (year 1 phase 3) and as I said earlier that means an assessment to show how I'm getting on. It's broken into 2 parts - on course (where I shoot a bunch of rounds to assess my on course stats) and a 'test' on the launch monitor to assess my ball striking ability. When it's all complete and plugged into the spreadsheet Randy made I'll post that up as it'll show trends throughout the year, but for now I'll just share an idea of what that looks like. Before I do, I'd just like to explain the rationale behind doing things this way as it's a slightly different approach to what most will have seen with golf, at least at a lower level. Generally what you'll see is training (ie practice) very much mixed in with assessment (ie on course performance, scoring etc). You'll practice a bit then play a round, maybe practice some more, play a round etc. Having been an instructor in the military in both air traffic and an Officer Training Instructor I'd say we'd never do that - you have training phases or assessment phases but you're never training during an assessment and never assessing a student's actual ability during training. You may be assessing attitude or some other trait but never their ability to complete a task - you want them to learn and experiment durring the training phase and just be focused on the outcome in the assessment. In fact when training Air traffic controllers you'd never assess a student you taught - it's all about the performance on the day and an instructor who's trained a student will always go into assessing them with preconceptions about that particular student. Anyway, that's the rationale behind having set assessments at the end of training phases. I'm not saying you have to do it this way, only that I am. It works well for training in the military so I'm seeing if that transfers to golf. Personally I can't see why not. The assessment I do in the sim is just basically a ball striking exercise. I hit 10 pitching wedges, ten 8 irons, ten 6 irons and 8 Drivers (unless I miscount and just hit 7......... which is what I did, never mind.......). A little like a combine it's the best I can do that session (no one posts their worst score up to the leaderboard :-) ). Each set has to be consecutive shots but if I utterly mess one up I can start again. Why the 'get out clause' of being able to start again? Basically this is assessing what I am capable of at the end of the phase. If I hit the one shank I'm going to hit that month I don't want it to say that I've 'failed' the assessment and therefore the phase. You could argue it's an assessment of current ability rather than any form of average. So this is the assessment: You'll notice that I seem to be hitting everything left of centre. That's a function of how the sim is set up and how I play the game (and no, I don't mean I miss everything left!). I hit a bit of a draw as my prefered shot so aim at a point right of target and draw the ball onto the target. On the sim I change the aiming point on the screen (the tall pole) to be about where I start the ball then draw the ball onto the pin, hopefully. This is the set up from my pitching wedge shots (orange on the above picture) The snag is the ipad which records the data doesn't know that, it has the centreline being where ever the tall pole is. So in reality the 2 shots that are on the centreline on the top ipad image actually flew dead straight rather than my intended draw and landed in line with the tall aiming pole. The others drew more or less onto the pin. You'll see that the centre of the iron dispersions are consistently 4 or so yards left of the ipad centreline, this is why. Driver wise is similar, I aim down the right hand edge of the fairway and draw the ball in so the only one that missed is the one that flew dead straight and landed just right of the centreline by 0.3 yards (but a miss is a miss!). Here's some numbers on the driver now: I mishit one a bit but generally it's a pretty good result. The fact that the mishit was well past my old best is pretty satisfying bearing in mind the work I've put into my driver and strength training. What I really wanted to point out though was something I read in Lowest Score Wins (still really enjoying it) when it talks of high launch, low spin. I use a very low loft driver (G30 dialed down to 8.5 degrees loft) yet I now launch the ball at close to 15 degrees. Combining a proper strength building programme (which I'm only really starting, lots more work to do) with a technique that combines a reasonably high launch with low spin does give pretty amazing results. Obviously I'm using a GC2 so these are all in still air but with even a breath of wind behind you this kind of launch can give serious distance and the low spin stops the ball stalling into wind which is a good combo all round. Anyway, long game 'assessment' complete and, if I'm honest I'm further on than I expected to be at this point. A few more assessment rounds on the course and year 1 will be at an end. Looking forward to cranking a few things up going into year 2 - keep working on that swing, start working on power for the drive (not actually started that yet, all just basic strength stuff so far) and basic fitness levels, focus the practice programme and course management with LSW and see where that takes me a year from now :-)

[Gridiron]

It's the evaluation stuff that really interests me.  If, once this round is complete, you feel comfortable sharing how the evaluation then goes into shaping your next phase of training (the adjustments you are making, the reasoning behind it, how you think it will address your goal, etc.) I would be very interested in hearing more about this.  Overall, great stuff.  It inspires me to go out and work on my game.  Keep it up and good luck!

[Nosevi]

It's the evaluation stuff that really interests me.  If, once this round is complete, you feel comfortable sharing how the evaluation then goes into shaping your next phase of training (the adjustments you are making, the reasoning behind it, how you think it will address your goal, etc.) I would be very interested in hearing more about this.  Overall, great stuff.  It inspires me to go out and work on my game.  Keep it up and good luck!

Thanks. I'm almost through the assessment, just 2 more on course rounds to shoot, but can answer your question now and show you where I am. Essentially the assessment is only part of the equation when it comes to focusing the programme, the other part is comparing myself with players at or above the level I'm aiming at. Taking driving as a quick example, this guy competed successfully at the level I'm realistically aiming at (Europro) before moving to one level up from there on the Challenge Tour (one down from European Tour) as well as a few tournaments on the European Tour. He's known to be above average in length off the tee, these are his numbers from a launch monitor session recently: These are my numbers taken the day before yesterday: His were 4 shots he was happy with (ie 4 good strikes) taken during a gap testing session, mine obviously included a bit of a mishit which I left in as I have to hit consecutive shots during the assessment. Even with this mishit left in we're not in a totally different ball park, with it taken out (and we took out any off-centre strike for him) we're talking 3 yards difference in carry - he hits it with about 4mph more ball speed (probably 3mph faster swing speed?) I spin it a little less to all but make up for that. On top of the launch monitor comparisons out on the course I can compare driving distance and accuracy. When I played Brian about a week ago we were pretty close off the tee. We weren't in other areas but off the tee we were in both distance and accuracy. The reason I know this is 'good enough' is because of what Brian is capable of at the level I'm aiming at. This is his score card from yesterday where he picked up a cheque for $9,420. Not big bucks but at this level not bad for a week's work. I guess that's why I was a tad over defensive earlier when being told I didn't know how far a tour pro at the level I'm aiming at can drive the ball. I really do because I have all their launch data, I'm hitting drives side by side with them on the course and I'm seeing them compete successfully at the level I'm aiming at. None of this is guess work from watching the TV, I really do know what I'm talking about. So that's taking one aspect as an example - driving the golf ball. Getting the ball in play with an acceptable length off the tee was a priority for year one and, although I'm not going to take my foot off the gas too much going forward for year 2 I can focus my efforts elsewhere a bit more as I'm getting up towards where I need to be as a minimum in this area. That means I can dedicate more effort to areas such as long irons where I can see more of a gap between both my on course performance and launch monitor data. The assessment itself is really used as a check point to see where I am at that point in time. For each area on the course (GIR, fairways hit, scrambling etc) I have set targets which will always be above what I achieved in the previous assessment. If I see one area dropping back while other areas move forwards (say scrambling dropping back while fairways hit has improved) it acts as a trigger to change my practice priority towards the area where I'm not progressing. Scoring wise I have a target line which is basically a shallowing curve - as I progress the shots are going to be harder to drop. Year 1 so far and on the assessments I've pretty much hit the curve, slightly above it last time, so far bang on it this time but a couple more rounds to shoot. I'm aiming at these target scores throughout the phase and looking at where I'm dropping shots in practice rounds. If I'm simply not hitting enough greens I'll be spending more time in the sim, scrambling percentage just not cutting it and Jess will get a call and challenged to some short game 'tournaments', just not holing enough putts and that's where I'll focus. It's an ongoing process and the 'assessment' is really just a part of that. The fact I have to shoot 5 rounds as part of the assessment and they all count does bring a little pressure to it rather than just using a running total of scoring average for every round but that's not a bad thing in my eyes. Obviously have to finish the last assessment rounds but here's the front page so far: And here's the club launch data just for interest: So, in a really long winded way that's the answer to your question - the assessment is only really part of what I use to assess what needs to change. It's where I am at a given point in time but I'm also using my performance on the course, on the launch monitor and around the practice area against my 'practice partners' to continually fine tune what I'm focusing on. They all actually have their strengths so I know which one I'm really looking to work towards in each area.

[Nosevi]

It's the evaluation stuff that really interests me.  If, once this round is complete, you feel comfortable sharing how the evaluation then goes into shaping your next phase of training (the adjustments you are making, the reasoning behind it, how you think it will address your goal, etc.) I would be very interested in hearing more about this.  Overall, great stuff.  It inspires me to go out and work on my game.  Keep it up and good luck!

I just realised in all of that I didn't answer what adjustments I'm making based on the assessment once it's complete and the reasons behind them. Will finish up the last rounds at which point I'll be planning the outline programme for the next phase and get back to you :-)

[Nosevi]

It's the evaluation stuff that really interests me.  If, once this round is complete, you feel comfortable sharing how the evaluation then goes into shaping your next phase of training (the adjustments you are making, the reasoning behind it, how you think it will address your goal, etc.) I would be very interested in hearing more about this.  Overall, great stuff.  It inspires me to go out and work on my game.  Keep it up and good luck!

Right, I've finished the assessment so am in a slightly better position to answer this question. As I said before, the assessment is really broken into 2 main parts - launch monitor performance to assess my current long game potential and on course performance. Added to this there's a very much subjective assessment of how I think my fitness programme is going. These are represented by the 3 columns on the chart in the top right corner of the spreadsheet which Randy made up for me (Randy is @RandallT in case anyone hadn't twigged that one). So what is this telling me? Firstly I'm not quite maintaining the scoring improvement curve I've set myself. I'm not far off at averaging 4.5 over course rating (the dot above the line on that graph) but was hoping to hit 4. Looking at how I've faired in ball striking on the launch monitor (significant increase in distance together with pretty much maintaining a similar dispersion size (in essence a similar or smaller angular error) ) it's not that my ability to strike the ball hasn't improved but I'm not seeing that improvement on the course. This actually doesn't concern me all that much - I've been working on making changes to my swing as per the swing thread and while these changes are showing results in the swing studio they don't yet feel natural and so out on the course I feel a little trapped between my old swing and the new. As such my long game work is pretty much progressing as I'd like so I'm not going to make huge changes just yet in the way I'm going about it. Looking a bit deeper into the stats one thing that stands out to me is where I drop shots: I drop 1 shot in every 10 par 4s, 1 shot in every 10 par 5s but about 1 shot in every 3 par 3s. Two things stand out in that and they are both things I've been reading about in Lowest Score Wins - just finished reading it, highly recommend it, more on that in a mo. The first is that I'm not really taking par 3s 'seriously'. LSW describes them as the hardest holes on the course and my stats bear that out. But I'm not doing as LSW suggests and firing at the middle of the green all that often. Given that I don't 3 putt all that often I feel I'm leaving shots out there by playing par 3s in an overly aggressive way. That's something I can address straight a way. The second is that, given my relatively long length off the tee for the courses I'm currently playing you'd expect my par 5 average to be lower. Unless I've got a headwind the green is generally in range in 2 shots but I normally lay up and pitch into the green. LSW talks about the huge advantage you get from simply being closer to the hole so, bearing that in mind, it's statistically smarter for me to go for the green on par 5s a bit more often than I am doing. So these are 2 areas where I intend to change my on course decision making and hopefully see a benefit. Another way I hope to be able to make full use of LSW will be to fully chart my Shot Zones (for those who haven't read the book, essentially my dispersion patterns for each club. LSW suggests several ways to do this but with access to a launch monitor daily I'll obviously be going down this route. By charting my Shot Zones and encorporating Decision Maps I think that will enable me to play smarter on the course and save shots by doing so. I hope @iacas doesn't mind but year 2 will be all about incorporating LSW into the programme. As well as looking at 'course management' in the form of Shot Zones and Decision Maps I also want to add an aspect to the assessment itself to add to long game skill and on course performance - short game skills. What I'd like to do is have a short game assessment built around the 'tests' or exercises contained in LSW (ladder drills, 3 in a row etc) and using the ceiling scores as a final target. I'll talk to @RandallT about it as he's far better at this sort of thing than I am but it makes sense to have an off course short game assessment to drive that part of the plan and to mirror my off course long game assessment. The last area of the assessment is fitness and as I said before this is very much a subjective grade - it's how I think I'm doing. Originally I had myself down as another 1 in this area (a D or below expected improvement) but I was talked out of it. The way I see it fitness and strength in golf is really trying to achieve 3 things - allow you to feel fresh towards the end of a round, avoid injury in training and possibly the most obvious - increase distance off the tee. LSW repeatedly talks about the importance of getting as close to the hole as possible and of how distance is hugely important. While I've made what I consider less than ideal progress in the first 2 areas, in this last area my training programme has been a success. That said, in order to maintain progress my training programme will have to make a step up. The pros I practice with all have personal trainiers who specialise in sports science and development but I've yet to hear of them doing anything that I wouldn't have done with a background in high intensity, high workrate sports (namely rowing and Rugby). The jurry's still out on whether to go down the personal trainer route but for now I think it'll just be a case of stepping up the cardio work and encorporating some power work (high weight, low rep) into my routine. I'll keep you posted if that changes. On top of all of this next year will be very much about getting some local level competition in. This year touched on it with playing for my club etc but next year it will be a priority. So for now, looking at where I am, year 2 looks like this: keep working on the swing changes in the swing studio and start to see that migrating to the course; look at a more structured short game regime mirroring what I've done long game wise and adding an assessment for this area; looking at course management using Shot Zones and Decision Maps from LSW; increase the fitness regime to include increased cardio work and power circuits. Any other ideas are welcome though. I hope that more or less answers your question @Gridiron

[RandallT]

Good steady progress, Pete. Let's go shave a stroke and a half by December.

I'll dig up LSW and review the short game drills there.

When you do your assessments of Actual Score v. SSS, how many rounds do you take into account? (I'm sure you've told me this before) You have a 4.5 and a 5.3 as values, so obviously (and sensibly) it's more than just 1 or 2 rounds, as I believe SSS is rounded to the nearest stroke. I know for the long game assessment, it's 8 or 10 shots per club (or 7 on occasion! lol).

Obviously, we want a valid sample size for short game assessment to get an accurate assessment, but not something absurdly large.

Since most analyses break down golf into full swing, short game, putting- do you not see a need for a putting assessment? Is that just too much?  In the grand scheme, the only assessment that matters on the chart is Actual Score v. SSS. Without that going down, the goal will not be reached. The other assessments help you hone in on why the actual score isn't dropping perhaps.

As always, I'll be in touch to figure out what is needed.

One more thing:

Since reading LSW, I've been interested in finding out the best method for determining shot zones. For myself, I'm less scientific and know I hit short right as my miss most often and account for that in my targets.  There's a good thread here on TST somewhere about that, and it has been a while since I've read it. Perhaps with your sim, you could really get accurate dispersions with your clubs to chart them out to use effectively on the course for your strategy? We haven't explored that yet, but might be an effective use of time that leads to lowered scores.

Edit: Nevermind- I see you discuss shot zones above! We are on same page there.

[Gridiron]

Thanks for the long and detailed posts Pete.  That was great.  I appreciate you taking the time and enjoy the insight you are giving us into your journey.

[MacDutch]

Hi Pete, I would consider playing in multi-day strokeplay tournaments (amateurs). This helps to get used to compete in a way you will be competing in the future (Pro golf tour).

[Nosevi]

Thanks for the long and detailed posts Pete.  That was great.  I appreciate you taking the time and enjoy the insight you are giving us into your journey.

No problem :-)

Hi Pete,

I would consider playing in multi-day strokeplay tournaments (amateurs). This helps to get used to compete in a way you will be competing in the future (Pro golf tour).

That's not a bad idea and will certainly be in my 'progression'. This year was just about getting out there into a few matches to get a feel for it, next year I'll be looking at taking local competitions a bit more seriously but most of those are single rounds with only the odd two round competition thrown in. All being well year 3 and year 4 would see me going a little further a field and this is likely when I'd be looking at tournaments involving several rounds. That's the plan anyway........

Good steady progress, Pete. Let's go shave a stroke and a half by December.

I'll dig up LSW and review the short game drills there.

When you do your assessments of Actual Score v. SSS, how many rounds do you take into account? (I'm sure you've told me this before) You have a 4.5 and a 5.3 as values, so obviously (and sensibly) it's more than just 1 or 2 rounds, as I believe SSS is rounded to the nearest stroke. I know for the long game assessment, it's 8 or 10 shots per club (or 7 on occasion! lol).

Obviously, we want a valid sample size for short game assessment to get an accurate assessment, but not something absurdly large.

Since most analyses break down golf into full swing, short game, putting- do you not see a need for a putting assessment? Is that just too much?  In the grand scheme, the only assessment that matters on the chart is Actual Score v. SSS. Without that going down, the goal will not be reached. The other assessments help you hone in on why the actual score isn't dropping perhaps.

As always, I'll be in touch to figure out what is needed.

One more thing:

Since reading LSW, I've been interested in finding out the best method for determining shot zones. For myself, I'm less scientific and know I hit short right as my miss most often and account for that in my targets.  There's a good thread here on TST somewhere about that, and it has been a while since I've read it. Perhaps with your sim, you could really get accurate dispersions with your clubs to chart them out to use effectively on the course for your strategy? We haven't explored that yet, but might be an effective use of time that leads to lowered scores.

Edit: Nevermind- I see you discuss shot zones above! We are on same page there.

Hi Randy. We'll chat 'offline' about the short game assessment (video call next week perhaps if you have time?) but my initial thought would be to have it involving both putting and other short game aspects (pitching, chipping, bunkers etc) but set up in such a way that the putting can be looked at on its own as well. Sort of like having driver in the same overall assessment as hitting full Pitching Wedge shots but it still shows up if I'm missing the targets for putter and only making them with other short game aspects. If we divide it down too much the assessment page will start to look a little 'busy' I think. I have every confidence in your ability to come up with something clever :-)

Number of rounds taken into consideration in the assessment is five 18 hole rounds shot in the week of the assessment if possible. Have to say this time it was only 4 - the left elbow hasn't cleared up (because I've been playing on it) and although it's not getting any worse it's just a tad uncomfortable hitting shots. Nothing too serious, if I was still playing Rugby I'd just strap it and crack on without worrying too much but looking forwards to year 2, I think the smart thing to do is to give it a rest now before it gets to be a problem. Coming off the 4th round it was a bit uncomfortable so I made the call that 4 rounds would do this time out. There was nothing in there that really stood out as unusual stats wise anyway.

Shot Zones, yep I'll be using the launch monitor. It'll be pretty simple to do as you can take out the complete outliners and delete 10% to give the tightest dispersion oval as described in the LSW and the kit will give you the exact center of that dispersion relative to your target and the size is obviously the shots that are left in that are furthest from that center. I'll post up on here when I do it but as I said, plan is to try and have a good 2 weeks without hitting long shots. Looking back over the year I've not actually managed 2 consecutive days as yet so 2 weeks will be something of a challenge. Lots of chipping and putting ahead. That'll actually work well as I'll get less chance to do short game as the weather deteriorates (putting on ice achieves very little) and so more chance to do long game in the sim. In fact with the next assessment in December it may well be on Pebble Beach on the sim. And yes, I know that won't count :-)

Rest of this week then - chipping and putting for a couple of days (what joy) then I'm heading west to watch Brian in a tournament on Thursday and Friday. Beginning of next week there's a car display I organize each year at a local airshow with a dinner the evening before at a posh hotel (mostly Ferraris, but a few others like Mercedes SLS AMG, Porsche 918 Spyder, Audi R8, Ford GT, Lamborghini Huracan to name a few). By the time I get through all that the elbow will probably be well on the way to being back to normal ready for a winter with lots of long game work.

[Nosevi]

Interesting day walking the fairway with Brian during a tournament. It's day 2 of a 4 day tournament but he's leading the field of 170 odd pros having shot 7 under today. Could so easily have been more, he had 3 other putts that finished within an inch or two of the hole. It's hardly Your average 'muni' or country club set up either, this is the shot into one of the par 5s, I'm standing on the end of the fairway, only the brave are going for this in 2: Not really about my golf as such but it's all part of my 'training' and I may as well be doing something constructive with my time as I give my elbow a few days off (it's feeling better already, just needed to back off on the intensity of training, I think). I know where I want to be and how good I need to be in order to get there. Walking a tournament round or 2 with Brian (probably going out with him for the final round on Saturday) and playing him 'one on one' back home tells me what I'm aiming at. In my opinion that's invaluable.