"5 Minutes Daily" Practice Challenge (April 2016)

[boogielicious]

10 minutes mirror work before my workout. Same focus. I filmed yesterday's range session and saw some progress with my hip turn.

[Lihu]

3 hours ago, Lihu said:

More of the same. The issue is that I feel like my maximum power is still in behind the ball. I feel like I can get just a bit more power into the ball.

Pretty happy with my current distances, but there's that nagging feeling that I'm "forgetting something" somewhere in the swing. Basically, I feel like my arms are still getting ahead of my body at impact, and the problem seems to originate from the top of the back swing. Working on my timing sequence alternating between slow motion and full speed before every hit.

Taking some video, my waist appears to be losing some excess baggage.

Working on keeping my hands closer to my body. Not sure what the FO looks like yet. I'll try late this afternoon. In the mirror it appears that I am in line, but don't know about at full speed.

[Big Lex]

Chipping/pitching game on the practice green at my course on the way to work. About 20 minutes.

Hamstring stretches.

Putting on the aimline trainer thing.

Backswing drill

[MiddleTees]

Yoga stretches, worked on putting and chipping on practice green . Came home and did some backswing drill in net in barn.

[No Mulligans]

Today I've starting an experiment with over-speed swing training.  

I watched this video and am doing something similar.

 

I'm planning on doing the drills three times a week and keeping track of progress.  I'm using a speed radar, a matt and net, foam balls for driver swing speed tests, my driver, a shaft with 25g nut duck taped to the end, and another shaft with no weight added.

I'm tracking:

- Driver Swing Speed (SS) before the day's drills

- Max SS with shaft +25g of weight at end

- Approximate average SS with shaft +25g of weight at end

- Max SS right hand only drill, unweighted shaft

- Max SS left hand only drill, unweighted shaft

- Driver (SS) after the day's drills

Today, the first day, looks like this:

Well, today is about a 15 yard increase in driver distance... if I can take that improvement to the course and find the sweet spot.

[WUTiger]

Busy day, but got in some drills after work.

I did RadarPro's external rotation of the trailing arm drill, followed by the 5SK diagonal sweet spot video clip with Dave and Erik.

I had a three-step practice plan: review the video clip of the drill, do the drill inside by a mirror and then go out to the yard and do it. With the sun to my back, I could see the shadow of my swing in front of me.

I'm getting better elbow position, with lead elbow now above trailing elbow at top. Also, the trailing elbow feels less trapped.

Hopefully things will quiet down in late April so I can actually launch my golf season.

[Lihu]

8 hours ago, Lihu said:

Taking some video, my waist appears to be losing some excess baggage.

Working on keeping my hands closer to my body. Not sure what the FO looks like yet. I'll try late this afternoon. In the mirror it appears that I am in line, but don't know about at full speed.

Played a practice round today, and it was brutal. All the doubles and worse I should have gotten my previous rounds turned up in droves. I was pulling all my shots, brutal. Went to the range to work on it with limited success. I was able to push all my shots up to 8i after than it was pull or hook or both

One birdie and a few more birdie putts mixed with bogeys, triple and a quad on one hole. Didn't record the round and I lost the round in GG. For some reason my phone decided to do a SW update in the middle of my round. Scores were: 0,0,0,+1,-1,0,0,+3,0,0,+4,0,+1,0 for +8 on 14 holes. No stats. Yuck.

[Avalanche]

35 minutes at the practice green.  Practiced flop shots, and shots from above the hole.  Then spent 20 minutes doing my little 9-ball game.  I throw out 9 balls off the green in various lies and distances, and try to get each one next to one of the nine holes on the practice green.  Then I putt each one out.  (I can only do this when I have the whole green to myself--which was the case this morning.)  I did this three times from different spots around the green.  

[MiddleTees]

Yoga stretches, Steady head and weight forward drills from videos on 5sk

[Lihu]

Back swing transition drills. Tempted to purchase Dana's back swing videos, but there's a lot more work for me to do to get to the point where that will probably be useful.

[WUTiger]

Got in 10 minutes before going to work. Did mirror work on spinal tilt, checking shoulder position at A4. I sensed Thursday that my arms might be be a little lazy in my bid not to overswing.

With livelier arms, I have bit wider backswing arc, and end up with better elbow position at the top.

Tomorrow I can go outside and actually hit some balls!

[Lihu]

6 hours ago, Lihu said:

Back swing transition drills. Tempted to purchase Dana's back swing videos, but there's a lot more work for me to do to get to the point where that will probably be useful.

Went to the grass range again. Hit almost all of my balls before I realized that my tempo was off. Once my tempo was working, I was able to hit reasonably.

[Avalanche]

20 minutes at practice green.  Working on short pitches of various distances with 52 and 56 wedges.  Also putted them out. 

[Lihu]

Short game shots for over an hour. Bump and run, lob shots, flop shots, putting stroke, deep grass chips and pitches. From 40 yards and in. Only two flop shots got away from me. 

[MiddleTees]

Today I practiced a routine I call first hole routine in barn hitting into net. I hit a 5w from tee, 5i or 4h from mat and 9i from mat, all shots done with a PSR. I repeated this routine today 3 times in between gardening chores and a 2 mile walk. 

I'm working on a solid PSR I can take to the course. My PSR now is a modified Steady head and weight forward drill done in slow mo just befor stepping into to make actual shot.

[Lihu]

7 hours ago, Lihu said:

Short game shots for over an hour. Bump and run, lob shots, flop shots, putting stroke, deep grass chips and pitches. From 40 yards and in. Only two flop shots got away from me. 

Spent some time with my son working purely on contact with half swings.

[WUTiger]

Got in some serious practice time today.

• Started out with dynamic warm-up stretches.
• Practiced "up and down" drills for a half hour: used 8i to chip and 54* SW to pitch inside 25 yards, and then tried for one putts. Out of about 10 four-ball drills, I sank all 4 putts twice. (And, I had a couple where I didn't sink any).
• Took a half hour break.
• Practiced half swing punch shots with a 7i. I had the course pro's tall instructional mirror across from me, so I could check ball position, shoulder position, and watch my takeaway. I noticed I was tending to hunch my shoulders forward. I tried to relax more, and pulled the shoulders back at address, and started getting smoother takeaway. After that, most of the punches were solid hits - flat left wrist at impact - and had a slight push or preferred slight draw.
• Took another break.
• Hit a dozen full 7i shots at target green. Had a mix of shots including four nice high draws, and some skulls and pulls. Nice punch shots aren't completely transferring to full swing. 
• With four remaining balls, I decided to hit my new KickX Blast Driveway 12.5* driver. I had one bad pull, and three slight draws. On solid hits, Blast carries as far as my Callaway RazrFit 10.5* driver. (I had won the Blast at the Medicus reception in Orlando; @iacas had got me the invitation).

End of practice.

[Avalanche]

5 minutes practice putting, and 5 minutes of stretching and back exercises.  I'll probly hit the practice range later this afternoon too.