My Swing (Killa)

[Killa]

34 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

Be careful with this.

 

This is to what I am referring.  I call it "reasonably well-struck shots."  Don't base things off your maxes; go with a reasonable average.  Truth is, you don't always hit, in your case, the 152 mph ball speed with driver or a 118 mph 7i.  Often, you will get the 143 mph driver.  Of course, you should always strive to get the 152 (and higher).  However, don't base your expectations or yardage book on your perfect shots--that's a good way to disappoint yourself and shoot higher scores.  Nothing like standing over a par 3 tee shot over water and you know you can hit 118 mph ball speed with a 7i to get your 165 yard carry.  After a reasonably well struck shot, you come up short and blow up the hole.  It's just not reasonable to approach the game basing expectations off your perfect shots.  On TV, you'll hear even the pros base their yardages on reasonable shots--their level of reasonableness is just higher because they are pros.  You'll hear a pro talk about how they got around the course and only hit a couple of shots, if that, perfectly--where they absolutely flushed it.  I heard Tiger tell Joey as soon as he hit an approach shot something to the effect of "oh no, Joey, I flushed it--it's over the back."  

No I know that I’m not basing that for my game. I usually take my 7 iron for shots that are 145 meters out even though I might hit it 165 when I flush it. 
 

The point I’m trying to make is that with the Skytrack my fastest driver was 99mph. With the Trackman my slowest was still over 100. That makes me believe that my driver numbers were off on the Skytrack especially considering the 7 iron numbers were much closer. 

[ncates00]

2 minutes ago, Killa said:

No I know that I’m not basing that for my game. I usually take my 7 iron for shots that are 145 meters out even though I might hit it 165 when I flush it. 
 

The point I’m trying to make is that with the Skytrack my fastest driver was 99mph. With the Trackman my slowest was still over 100. That makes me believe that my driver numbers were off on the Skytrack especially considering the 7 iron numbers were much closer. 

Ok? I’ve already addressed that. You could’ve been off that day. Or maybe you’re right and the sky trak is off. But what did you expect? Those monitors aren’t exactly apples to apples haha. 

Measure ball speed. Quit worrying about SS. There shouldn’t be much of a difference with ballspeed from unit to unit. SS can be measured differently even based on the amount and speed of rotation of the club. That’s why I go with ball speed instead. 

[iacas]

9 hours ago, Killa said:

Here is a video. Can’t get a better framing at the house but will probably(hopefully) be able to get me fully into the frame on Monday if this isn’t good enough. @iacas

 

I have the backswing starting at 1.08 (out of 29 frames) and ending at 2.06. That's 27/29 seconds, or 64 bpm.

[Killa]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

I have the backswing starting at 1.08 (out of 29 frames) and ending at 2.06. That's 27/29 seconds, or 64 bpm.

Thinking about this and I might have messed up by setting the drum machine and that I start on the first beat then start the downswing on the third and impact on the fourth. So that means basically 3 beats for the backswing and one for the downswing. I assumed that if I start back on 1 and then start down on 3 that would be it, but I obviously take full three beats and that is exactly what you measured 2/3 of 200 bpm or 66ish bpm, but that also means that my downswing is probably too slow. I might over analyze all of this but such practice facilities are limited over here, might need to drive 200 miles to the nearest one. 

That’s why “78” bpm felt so slow to me as I was actually doing 50ish. 

[iacas]

Just set a free app in 2/4 time. Swing a putter back and forth until you find a BPM that works for you. Should probably end up between 66 and 88.

[Killa]

On 2/17/2020 at 12:49 AM, iacas said:

Just set a free app in 2/4 time. Swing a putter back and forth until you find a BPM that works for you. Should probably end up between 66 and 88.

Yeah will do that. I think it will be closer to 66 than 88. 
 

Today I was on the skytrack simulator again, I have 2 hours of use remaining. 
 

The numbers were right today. At least the carry, ball speed and clubhead speed. Driver was between 100 and 106 so the same as the trackman. 
 

I did 12 swings with the 7 iron and driver just to see if it’s the same as Trackman when set up correctly. After seeing that it is I started the wedge matrix app and got these numbers (3 best of 5 shots with each distance and club) I think this is the best way to get my numbers down as soon as possible. I’ll work on the feel of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full swings at home just to get it ingrained and then next time I’ll do 10 swings of each to get the numbers as accurate as possible so I can stick them on my wedges. 

[Killa]

So I got a chance to play 18 this weekend. My first time hitting balls outside since December. We also had no reservation so when we got there we had a chance to go to 10 immediately or wait 2 hours. So no warm up except a mulligan on the first tee. 
 

I must report that all the putting work I put in over the past two months has had an effect. I started with 4 putts on hole 10 and 11 🤪 and proceeded to have 25 putts on my first 9 holes. Luckily I picked it up after that and had 17 putts on the back 9 where I had 3 single putts, 2 from about 6-7” out. So short putts were improved from last season but lag putts were horrible. But that was to be expected as I was very limited in practice areas the past two months. 
 

Rest of the game was all over the place. I hit some nice 3 woods of the tee with about 250yards total distance but my driver was all over the place. The distance increase of all my clubs was visible. I added about 10 yards to each club in carry distance. But since I didn’t exactly improve in accuracy the result was pretty much disastrous. 
 

Shot 109 🤯 and that was with 3 or 4 OB shots. So now I won’t be playing for another month now, I got my next round planned for the 26th of March. I am really considering taking a regular lesson with my pro and just handing my swing over to him, but I don’t know if I got enough time to do that...

 

Another “ brilliant “ idea was to next time only go out with my 7 iron and down and see how I score without the big missing clubs. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Killa

[Killa]

Ok so I got a bit of my motivation back so I went to the indoor facility for 1,5 hours today. I only did about 20-30 full swings but I did the alignment stick through the belt loops drill that Russel Herritage showed in his last two videos. They basically talk about separation and so this is what it looked like on video after the drills and a lot of putting. 
 

I’m dying for the driving ranges to open so I can work on target practice again, but I doubt it will be in less than a months time. There are also two pretty good videos on driving range practicing by Peter Finch and Rich Shiels that I will be following as soon as I get outdoor  - basically it’s a few warm up pitches and chips, then 30 shots working on your technique, and then different target practices alternating a lot of clubs. I got into a bad habit of only doing technique the last 1,5 seasons and I usually got stuck with either my 7 iron or my driver. I will definitely change that this year, because right now I want to shift my focus from getting a better swing to getting a better score (while not forgetting about the swing either)

 

[Killa]

So due to the Coronavirus epidemic I have not had a lot of free time to practice and play. I was scheduled to play this Friday (still might as it will probably be only 2 of us in the flight and we will be coming with separate cars) but we’ll see. 
 

On the other side I bought a new putting mat which is 98” long and has two green speeds and two hole sizes. One has about half the diameter so it’s 4 times smaller but it also has a straight alignment line leading up to it. 10 putts in a row from 8’ is much harder than from 5-6’. 
 

I also went to the outdoor practice facility for the first time this year (their driving range is still closed for renovations). I took my 60,56,52 wedges, 8 iron and putter. 
 

There were 2 things I noticed - the first one is that my lag putting is much improved. That’s because of the much better tempo and rhythm. Hopefully that will be visible the next time I’m playing. The 2nd thing was more surprising. Since the last time I was on the Skytrack I thought about the 1/4,1/2 and 3/4 shots a bit. And today I was hitting 1/2 56° wedge shots into the practice green from about 60-70 yards out. I had my pro v1s to practice with me as I didn’t want to touch or use the range ones for such practice regardless. The balls came out super low, flighted, like under 5 yards of height, but stopped really quick. And that’s on fake greens where a backspin is almost impossible to get. There was almost no release. So I imagine on real grass and softer greens these balls will check up even faster. 
 

These flighted shots felt much more controlled than the 3/4-full 60° that I would use in the past from these distances, where blading one comes into play and the wind has a much larger effect as the ball goes about 30 yards in the air. 

 

 

[Killa]

Limited progression but I continue to work on my putting. Also chipping about 10 yards in my backyard. The key to these chips seems to be that I set up a bit open to the target, weight forward, no shaft lean so that the bounce actually has a chance to have some effect and loose wrists just imagining I’m throwing the ball to the target opening up with the swing. 
 

And also doing the handy speed stick drills 3 times a week. My driver swing speed was 103-105 on average before and they advertise 10-15 mph gain in a month. If that will be true I’d be ecstatic. But anything above 5 mph in gain would be great. 

[Killa]

I continue my chipping drills. I’ve really struggled at the beginning with the chipping but now I’m confident my scores will drop around the greens. So it’s a bit of the Phil Mickelson hinge and hold and a bit of the Russel Heritage video on chipping snd a bit of the Kisner video on chipping. 
 

The most important thing is to keep the body rotating in the same speed as the shaft. And for me I want to feel the club head in my right index finger. That gives me distance control as I were throwing the ball with my hand towards the target. 
 

Hopefully the golf courses will reopen next week - my full swing will suck but we’ll get to that when we are able to practice again  

 

[Killa]

So it’s been 6 days since we are allowed to play courses that are inside the municipality of residence. I’ve played 2 9 hole rounds. The last 7 holes were 1 over par. And while my full swing shots were expectantly not on point, they did get much better with the progression of the second round. 
 

I also played 9 holes of the local par 3 course playing two balls finishing 8 or 10 over par. Not great but  3 greens are only about 8 yards deep so “dead center” is hard to do. 
 

Also managed to hit about 20 balls into a net after the round. So this current swing is giving me hope 😁

 

Don’t know why the video isn’t slow motion again...

 

[saevel25]

Looks like you need to work on your turning a bit more. You probably need to get your hands down sooner in the downswing so you can open up your shoulders and hips. At impact your shoulders are slightly closed. They should be slightly open. It's tough to do when your arms are behind your body at that point in the swing. 

[Killa]

On 4/25/2020 at 10:46 PM, saevel25 said:

Looks like you need to work on your turning a bit more. You probably need to get your hands down sooner in the downswing so you can open up your shoulders and hips. At impact your shoulders are slightly closed. They should be slightly open. It's tough to do when your arms are behind your body at that point in the swing. 

Yes that’s my priority with the hips but you made a great point of something that didn’t cross my mind. I was so focused on opening my hips I never paid attention to the shoulders. 

That’s also the reason I struggle to get a good amount of forward shaft lean. I’m not flopping anymore but I’d like more.

This is an 8 iron at about 80%

 

And this is the impact position when I do a 1/2 swing. 
 

 

[Killa]

Played 27 holes today on two courses. On the first course I played 9 holes and shot a 7 over 41. That meant I shot 82 over consecutive 18 holes I played on a 68 par course. Of course I don’t count it as such but I had high hopes playing 18 in the afternoon. Let’s just say it went downhill really fast. Shot 104 with an excellent start of 13 over after 5 holes. 
 

Did manage to scrape and claw for 5 pars and two bogeys but the rest of the round was to be forgotten soon. 
 

Now the good thing is that even though I did 3 putt twice, my total putt number was 33. I did have a chip in for par from about 30 feet. But both the 3 putts were on really long first putts where the first putt actually wasn’t that bad but I did miss the comeback putts. 
 

Hopefully I’ll be able to play more in the coming weeks. 

[Killa]

So after that I managed to play 2 full rounds. One on the same course that I shot 104 before and I ended with 95. It's really hard to break 90 when you are 8 over after 4 holes, and that was with 1 par... That meant I only had 9 shots to give on the remaining 14 holes. I did putt exceptionally well that round again, with only 31 putts. One was from the fringe that I didn't count but it was only a foot or so on the fringe. But even with 31 putts I still had 2 3 putts for the round. I'd like to get that down to 0 and it might be possible in the future on this course, where the greens are nice but not extremely fast. I need to eliminate the blow up holes if I want to break 90. Thing is I shot 95 and I had two triple bogeys and two quadruple bogeys so that's 14 strokes on 4 holes. It's impossible to score only +3/+4 on the remaining 14 holes to finish with under 90.

 

Yesterday I played the second day in a row on a course that has a reputation of being the fastest in the country or at least top 2 (one is a private course that I haven't played yet, due to a very high green fee). And the greens were ridiculous. Most of them are very large, most of them are not flat and multiple have many tiers, a couple of them are extreme. On some holes if you were above the hole you were either 1 or 3 putting. There was just no way you could stop the ball near the hole if you were above the hole. On two of those holes I was on the fringe in regulation or regulation +1 and I decided to chip rather than putt on both of them, just to take some of the slope out of play. But on both I failed. On the first one I chipped 1 foot below the end of the slope and the ball rolled almost back to my feet. On the second one I hit my chip about 1 yard too short and the ball took the slope and rolled 3 yards below the hole. So after starting the season quite high on my putting the first 9 holes took a lot of confidence out of me. It didn't help that some idiot yelled fore when we were putting out on a green, because he though we were too slow... 

I shot a 104, but that was with a horrendous 58 on the front 9 and I pulled myself together for the back 9 and finished with a 46, even though I started the back 9 with 4 double bogeys I finished the round with +10 on the back 9. I had 38 putts and that was with two 4 and 3 putts. But at least 2 of those were putts where no one in the world can 2 putt unless they hit the comeback from 10 feet. 

There were some bright points to the round however. Somewhere in the back 9 I relaxed and started to swing fluidly, without power, just flow, and it resulted in some great strikes. I also had 3 or 4 very good putts and I don't know if the greens slowed down a bit as the day passed or I got accustomed to them, but on the last 6 holes I only had 10 putts.  

And on the 18th hole which is a 500 yard par 5 a bit downhill I hit my first ever 300 yard drive. No wind help but downhill certainly helped. And it was in the fairway. So that left me with a 4 iron into the green and I was pin high on a hill next to the green about 20 yards to the pin. But the awkward lie made me blade the chip to the other side of the green and I couldn't hit a putt from there because the line was directly over a sprinkler head - long story short, chipping for eagle ended up with a bogey 🙂

 

But hey, I could really get used to 300 yard drives 🙂 but I guess I won't be hitting a lot of those for the foreseeable future 🙂

[Killa]

So no practice for quite a long time until now, had 2 weeks vacation and a lot of post lockdown work. 
 

Now my main focus is going to eliminate my early extension. I think that’s the project for the rest of this season and probably in the next as well. 
 

I did get my second hole in one today playing with my wife for the first time. It was on the same hole as the first one but it’s a par 3 course and the shot was only 65 yards so it has an asterisk with it. 

[Killa]

So I have been focused now almost exclusively on making a turn and stoping the early extension. This was todays 45 min practice session and at about 40-50% speed. 
 

I am making progress but this will be a key point till the end of this season on every practice