"5 Minutes Daily" Practice Challenge May 2016

[Lihu]

12 hours ago, Lihu said:

Hit a few good balls. Tried the PIng i25 PWR55-S again, but all my shots were low flying long rolling shots. Not sure why. I'll have to experiment. Hit some decent 5i shots and terrible 4i shots. Getting better at the longer irons, but still have a ways to go.

Practiced the slow swings every time I changed clubs and it helped me hit good shots. I might try to use this as a pre-shot routine. Slooooow motion swings sure to drive any opponent crazy.

More aligned half swings and back swing transition work. Taking the club to A3, pausing long enough for all the muscles to settle out and taking it back down again through impact.

[RandallT]

Brief range work. No video due to rain, so just me getting wet. Slow motion getting to the top. Left shoulder under chin. Then slow motion to A5, letting club drop to shallower plan. Worked on that over and over with just slight forearm rotation and flat left wrist.

Then down to A6, checked alignments of club, hips, shoulders.  Pumped the club up a bit and finished with hip and shoulder rotation, letting club drop onto ball with wrist staying flat. 

No full swings. Again. Looking forward to next video work to see if any of this flatting work is going to stick with me.

[onthehunt526]

5/13/16

Worked on my putting strike today trying to keep my right wrist flat.

[MiddleTees]

Range doing My tee shot drill and newly found pitching technique. Back home in barn using net just tp pinch myself to see if I was dreaming or not. So excited finding the Quckie Pitching Video on TST. Such an effortless swing and using it with multiple swing lengths produces solid hits time after time. 

 

[krupa]

Went to a Ping demo day and hit a 7-iron for about 30 minutes.  I focused on tempo and not trying to kill the ball.  

[WUTiger]

Hit a bucket of balls late afternoon at my home course.

Had a mix of 6i punches, full 6i shots, a dozen driver shots and partial GWs with remaining balls.

It all seems to be about balance. I'm standing a bit taller to ball, but need to make sure I don't crowd ball in stance. On irons, with taller stance I'm making contact more to center rather than toward toe.

[sirhacksalot]

Pitching in the backyard again.  Struggled then started keeping firmer left grip through the swing and that helped with direction and height.

[Rainmaker]

I practiced for an hour this evening working on 2 things from my lesson today.  I'm trying to get a better right elbow position and also trying to make a better, more full turn in my backswing. I worked pretty hard on those 2 things.  Really trying to feel a decent coil in my backswing, making sure my weight stays inside my feet.  Trying to really tuck my right elbow in before I start down. 

It felt good - but at the end I took a video and it's not doing what I want.  I'm bumping my hips way too far forward to "make room" for my right elbow.  I took some more swings and I think I realized that I need to tuck the elbow sooner - while I'm still more turned away . .so it doesn't shove me forwards.  But I was done for the day - more tomorrow. 

[onthehunt526]

5/14/16:

Worked on a few things without a club or balls this morning.

First, I worked on feeling getting my weight over to the left side... I noticed my right knee dropped below my left a bit.

Second, I worked on keeping my right arm at 90 degrees at the top of the backswing and my left elbow at 90 degrees at the finish.

Third, tempo my new swing thought on tempo is "one-and-roll".

The big focus was a head steady though keeping my head in one place from the time I take the Club back till the time I can't see my hands in the follow-through. That is going to be My big key. If I can get SK1 and 2 down pat... 3, 4 and 5 will come...

[krupa]

chipping and putting at home today.

[Lihu]

23 hours ago, Lihu said:

More aligned half swings and back swing transition work. Taking the club to A3, pausing long enough for all the muscles to settle out and taking it back down again through impact.

Trying to relax more with the aligned half swings.

[WUTiger]

Got in a half hour of short-game practice before the crowd arrived for a noon golf scramble. 

Rainy the past few days, with rain predicted for next week. So, I practiced chopping out of greenside rough with 54* and 58*. Chip and run with 58* from close-in often more reliable than 10-foot lob shot. Main thing: turn through with body to get smooth momentum on downswing.

[RandallT]

Mirror work. Laying club down from the top, keeping flat left wrist. Mainly using forearm rotation. Right elbow tucked in front of shirt seam. Used alignment rod extended from butt of club to verify where butt is pointing.  Starting to feel natural. 

Easier to lay down a driver flatter than a pitching wedge, it seems (just from slow motion mapping- not real swing!)

[Dinoma]

Played today, not a great round in terms of ballstriking etc, but actually scored ok, so the short game work i've been putting in seems to be doing the job for now. Now to get the long game going on the same day!

[MiddleTees]

Did My tee shot drill and chipping in barn using net, then same drills on range at course, then played 18. 

[Lihu]

Played a round at Santa Anita Golf Course with my son who kept score for me on an actual scorecard instead of GG. But I did post it to GHIN. Played from the blue SCGA markers or farther back as dictated by the tees whichever was longer. Guessing 6389 yards (70.4/122) or so. He shot 79 with a few bad approaches, I shot 84 with 3 bladed chips in the first 5 holes and one bad approach (not a near green), we didn't warm up at all and the ground was especially hard and we were not used to chipping off hard ground like that until we warmed up a bit by the 5th hole. The person we were partnered with felt sorry for me as I was <20 yards from the pin and 10 yards in one case and offered to let us play on ahead, which actually helped as my chipping improved after the 5th hole. I hit one tee shot OB. My son was averaging 290 yards off the tee. He was less than 40 to 60 yards from the pin on a few of the 340 to 360 yard holes. He got a 3 putt par on the 17th.

My long irons were behaving at long last after a year of terrible 5i and 4i shots. These half swing drills and alignment drills helped a lot.

[sirhacksalot]

Played in the blitz , felt off , was -4 for the round. I feel like most of my swings were good just bad results. Struggled everywhere but on different places. One hole may be pulled/ sliced drive. The it was a thinned s word straight right. Or a chip that didn't get past the fringe. Lots of tap in doubles for no point's. 

So now I'm going back over the round in my head. My driver gets me in trouble, at least a third of the time , shorter than my three wood the other third.  So I think that its not for me to use it on my home course anymore til its sorted.

Most of the greens are elevated or protected. Longer shots in would be better suited for hybrids and I should drop my 3 and 4 iron for a 19 and 22 hybrid. 

I lost a few approach shots to toppy shanks, if I swing through the ball, not at,  I don't do that. 

I left 3/4 of my chips short, demanding at best a 2 putt. I need to practice better distance control on chips.

I'm going to work these things in to my practice.

[RandallT]

10 minutes on this. Undoing the vertical arm movement from the top, and ensuring and left arm rotation is clockwise to get the club inside the hands at A6. Looking forward to range work to take video to validate I can do this with a ball at slightly faster speed than slow motion.