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Time to pick back up in this thread a bit and be a bit more active on the site in general.

Last summer/season in general was pretty much just "play" mode and not much practice in terms of working to improve my swing. I'll recap the full season later in this post, but I was really happy with how I was striking the ball for pretty much the whole season so I didnt want to make any drastic changes and just wanted to enjoy playing the game. I'm going to review my 2021 season first, then talk about general plans for the 2022 season. 

Before I do that, a couple pretty big life changes to note. 

  • I'm going to be a dad! Baby boy arriving May 2022.
  • Building a new house, going to be done around May-June 2022. (With a 3 car garage and room for a garage simulator!)

Now onto recapping 2021

Have 20 counted rounds in MyRoundPro, probably played closer to 30-35, but I played a number of scrambles, outings or other shared ball formats, and had a stretch towards the end of the season where the app wasn't working with my watch. Handicap ended the season at the lowest it's ever been, a 1.7

In the 20 rounds that I have stats for, I averaged shooting 75.4

These strokes gained stats are average per round compared to a scratch golfer

I hit 43% of fairways and 56% GIR while averaging 270yds off the tee

Putting +0.67

Short ( Everything <100 yds) -0.97

Approach -0.43

Driving +0.57

My biggest issue by far was short game, specifically 75 yds and in. I spent quite a bit of time making some adjustments in my putting and while I did putt very well, I simply didn't give my short game the attention it needed to stay sharp.

Ball striking outside 100yds was solid, from 100-200yds I was -0.01 strokes gained per round compared to scratch.

Driving was solid too, was very comfortable with both driver and 3 wood off the tee, only 16% of my tee shots missed the fairway to the left, with 84% being in the fairway or right of the fairway, so that made game planning super easy knowing my ball was pretty much always going to be dead straight or sliding to the right.

Overall happy with my play in 2021. I had a ton of fun, with a reliable and steady golf game.

Now onto 2022. I havent picked up a club since early November, but after a nice break I'm ready to pick them back up and start practicing again for the 2022 season.

A lot of unknowns for 2022, especially in regards to how many rounds I'll be able to play since I'll have a newborn, but most of the rounds I do play are weekends and first thing in the morning so I think I'll still be able to play a decent amount.

The big change is that once we move I will be getting the Mevo+ and doing a simulator setup in the garage of the new house, so I do plan on spending a lot more time practicing and working on the swing while at home. I will post in the 2022 goals thread, but I do think that reaching a 0.0 handicap is realistic. I'd also like to add a little clubhead/ball speed this year as well.

No serious plans for any tournaments as of now, but that could change as the season progresses.

As far as a coach/improvement, leaning towards signing back up with Evolvr once I move and get the practice space set up, the new house is quite a bit further from the local instructor I've worked with previously, plus his rates have increased and he is super busy, so Evolvr just seems to make more sense this year and going forward. 

After a session or two at the range to knock the rust off I'll start filming some swings and posting them in here over the next few months leading into the season.

  • Thumbs Up 2

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

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Congratulations on the impending fatherhood!! On top of that new home, possible scratch level? Wow, way to go making all our lives look mediocre.. 😁:beer:.

Vishal S.

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  • 2 months later...
(edited)

Update time here.

Have been going to the range pretty much weekly for most of 2022 thus far and the swing feels like it's in a really good spot, by far the best I've ever hit it this early in the season.

Irons are very consistent throughout the bag, dead straight to a slight fall to the right, quality of strike has been excellent. Main swing feels are to feel like I'm initiating the swing by hinging the club almost straight up, and then feeling like my lead arm doesn't go higher than parallel in the backswing. In reality it goes much higher than that and the takeaway looks much more connected, but those are the feelings I've been using.

Driver has been incredibly accurate too, by far the least amount of big misses compared to years prior. Increasing the tee height a little has resulted in a much higher ball flight and hopefully some additional carry, although I haven't been on a launch monitor yet to confirm that. My main swing feel is that during my backswing my head actually moves diagonally back towards my back foot, doing so helps me get a full turn and really load my weight into my right heel, something my instructor had been wanting me to feel for a while now, but for some reason seemed to click more when using this feeling, because before when I just tried to feel weight into my right foot, I think I still cheated then shoulder/back turn on some driver swings but now that feeling of the slight head movement is resulting in very straight drives. Excited to see how that swing and feeling translates to the course. 

Wedges are getting more and more comfortable at random yardages, especially as long as I remember to keep the back slightly back of center in my stance as I often have a tendency to let the ball slide too far forward, which for me results in contact higher on the face and less predictable ball flight/yardages.

No real plans for lessons or much swing changes right now,  just plan on continuing to practice with these feels and see how they translate when I start playing some rounds here hopefully in the next month or so.

Have not been hitting my 3 wood that well off the turf, but the hybrid has been great, even more accurate than it was last year. Have kinda fallen out of love with the current 3 wood, don't really care for the head shape anymore as it is quite big, so might be starting to think about a fitting for a smaller headed 3 wood that can give me a higher launch than I currently get as my current one is very penetrating and flat, which is fine off the tee but gives me no chance at holding a green on a par 5.

Edited by klineka
  • Thumbs Up 1

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

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  • Administrator
1 hour ago, klineka said:

Main swing feels are to feel like I'm initiating the swing by hinging the club almost straight up, and then feeling like my lead arm doesn't go higher than parallel in the backswing. In reality it goes much higher than that and the takeaway looks much more connected

👍🏼

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Brother I know exactly what you're saying here. 😄

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

Check Out: New Topics | TST Blog | Golf Terms | Instructional Content | Analyzr | LSW | Instructional Droplets

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  • 2 months later...

Figured I'd give an update here now that I'm a few months into the season.

Have played 5 rounds this year with really consistent scores of 72, 70, 72, 72, 74. Handicap currently sitting at a 1.5

Strokes gained compared to scratch over those 5 rounds are Driving +.70, Approach (100+ yds) +0.10, Short (< 100 yds) -0.10, Putting +1.10

Hitting 53% fairways (was only 43% last year) and 62% GIR (was 56% last year)

Driving and putting have been the biggest improvements from last year. Figured out a great swing thought for driver which has helped a ton with shrinking my dispersion, and the technique work with my putting stroke over the winter is paying off. Making more putts outside 10 feet this year, averaging 2.6 birdies per round over these 5 rounds.

Medium length wedges (40-80yds) still need a bit of work as that has been my weak point so far.

Mentioned it in March but finally got around to it, haven't used my 3 wood a single time this year in a round, just have 0 confidence with it, misses at the range have been both directions and strike all over the place. I went to my local PGA Superstore yesterday and started hitting a few. I wanted something that had a carry number right around 240 which is right between where I carry my 3H (220yds) and carry my driver (260+yds). I hit a few and liked the shape and performance of the Ping G425 Max 3 wood the best. It was perfect for me, ball speeds were higher than I expected, upper 140s to low 150s, launching high, carrying right around 240 and seemed very forgiving with some fairly poor mis hits still carrying out in the 225+ range. Shot shape was extremely consistent, every single shot was either straight or fading, not a single shot hooked or missed left. I tried the 5 wood as well but it carried a bit too close to my current hybrid. Have the 3wood on order and it should be here by the end of the week. 

No real plans to do any tournaments this year as I have a newborn at home and will be moving to a new house later this summer, just going to continue to keep playing occasionally when I can and a little practice here and there. I don't quite know if getting to a scratch handicap is realistic this year, but getting it under 1 could be achievable if I keep playing like this consistent and just get a touch better with wedges.

  • Thumbs Up 2

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

  • 6 months later...

Been a while since I've updated this so this will be kind of a season recap as well as what my plan is for the upcoming months.

Recap - Played some really solid golf overall considering how little I practiced since my son was born late spring. My short irons were very solid and was one area that remained quite consistent throughout the entire season. The one weak area was pitch/short wedge shots around the green, specifically 25-75yds. Everything else was solid/reliable, here are some of the stats over the 13 rounds I have tracked. Had a few more rounds that had upload issues or were scrambles/team events.

Strokes gained vs scratch

Driving +1.10     

  • Overall 47% Fairways hit and 275yd average     
  • Driver 40.9% Fairways hit and 280yd average     
  • 3wood 59.5% Fairways hit and 250yd average   
  • Other (mostly 3H) 61.1% Fairways hit and 230yd average

Approach (Outside 100yds) +0.30

  • Overall 66% GIR
  • 100-150yds 71.6% Greens hit and 31.9' avg proximity
  • 150-200yds 40% Greens hit and 44.3' avg proximity - Looking at my dispersion plot for this distance nearly all my misses were short and right so I need to remember for next season to take a half club more and aim a bit further left.

Short (Inside 100yds) -0.10

  • Inside 25 yds was fine, no issues there
  • 25-50 and 50-75 are where I need the most work, I averaged the same green % and proximity from 50-75 as I did from 75-100 (73% and 25')

Putting +0.70

  • Inside 6 feet I was really solid, but 6-15 needs work, only holed 36.5% from 6-9 feet and only 25.6% from 9-15 feet.

 

2023 Plan - The past few days I've been thinking about the direction I want to take my golf game in 2023. I recently moved to a new house and installed a retractable impact screen/simulator setup in my garage and now have a Mevo+. In addition to the Mevo+ this past fall we joined a country club that's just a few minutes away so I have access to a great driving range and short game area when the weather is decent. 

I'm not currently taking any lessons, and I think for the near future I don't plan on it. I don't necessarily love how my swing looks on camera, but I am pretty much always hitting double digit GIRs per round, am happy with the level that my ball-striking is at and quite honestly don't think I have the desire to put in the amount of time and effort that would be needed to make significant swing changes to try and squeeze out a little more here or there. I'm sure at some point I will have the time and desire to work with a coach/instructor again, I just don't at the moment.

I do think I have some room to improve my scores a bit without making any major swing changes, mainly by getting better with partial wedges, putting, and a bit better decision making off the tee. Plus I do want to hit it a bit further, I'd really like to be cruising in the 170+ mph ball speed range with driver next season (right now I'm averaging 167mph ball speed and 115mph clubhead)

I think the majority of my time this winter on the Mevo+ will be spent with wedges, speed training, and just enjoying simulator golf rounds. 

Then once I can get back outside I plan on spending a decent amount of time on putting and pitch shots.

I'll probably make a separate post in the 2023 Goals thread but I think getting to scratch, getting my average ball speed to 170+ mph, and tightening wedge proximities especially on 50-100 yd shots are going to be my primary goals for 2023. 

I think as of right now my tentative plan is to play in some of the events at my club to scratch the competitive itch and then maybe look into entering some of the local USGA events either in 2023 or gear up for doing a couple in 2024 depending on what kind of shape my game is in once we get into 2023.

  • Thumbs Up 1

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

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  • 5 months later...

Realized with how much I'm practicing lately I should probably start posting in here again. I've signed back up with Evolvr and we've mainly been focusing on irons and driver so far.

Here are some of the specifics around each part of my game right now.

Driver - All over the place. Some days are really good, some days are massive push cuts off the planet right. Main focus with driver right now is that I adjusted my stance so my arms hang more straight down and my torso is more bent over towards the ball at address. These feeling incredibly uncomfortable at first but slowly I am getting more used to them and severely overexaggerating them in my block practice sessions has helped make the proper positioning feel more normal in my "game mode" sections of practice. Secondary piece with driver that is slowly progressing to is a steeper shoulder turn, during the backswing, feeling like my left shoulder dips down and gets closer to the ball during the backswing. 

I would say right now the full speed driver swing is around halfway to where it needs to be for those two priority pieces.

3 wood and hybrid responded really well and really quickly with the new setup positioning, felt natural and have a ton of confidence with both of those clubs right now.

Irons - Main focus has been around minimizing leg movement, not rolling onto the outside of my right foot, not letting the left knee dive down and in towards the right excessively. The feeling is that my legs don't move/rotate at all and the swing is all arms. In reality that feeling gives me the proper amount of hip turn which is wild because to me it feels like I'm not moving my legs at all. I touched up the address position too like driver, but my iron address was already in a better spot than driver so it wasn't nearly as drastic of a change. The leg piece has gotten significantly better since starting back with Evolvr and so has the ball striking with irons.

Wedges - Continues to be a strength of mine, spent quite a bit of time this past winter dialing in the tweener yardages which has resulted in a ton of confidence and quality shots with wedges. Pitching and chipping have been solid too, especially since I changed up the motion a bit and am more focused on letting the weight of the club strike the ball on the downswing instead of me trying to "hit" at it.

Putting - Was putting ok with my Scotty Cameron, decided to try out my old Odyssey one day just for fun and discovered that my start line control was significantly better with the Odyssey so switched back to that and have been using that exclusively for the past few weeks and have been pleased with the results especially inside 10 feet it feels like everything is going in center cup.

 

Overall I still cringe when I see my swing on video especially looking at my hand path, positioning in both the backswing and downswing, swing is way too long, hands too high, way too steep on downswing, etc but the ball striking has been solid enough lately that I can still shoot decent scores even with an ugly looking swing so I'm just going to continue to work on the pieces from Evolvr knowing that eventually we will get to the pieces that will make the swing look decent on camera. 

  • Thumbs Up 1

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

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Think I finally figured a couple things out with driver. 

Main thoughts are to swing it just like my 3 wood. I was trying to manipulate driver so much when in reality it should be basically the same swing as 3wood or even an iron. (Needed that reminder from Erik)

To actually accomplish swinging it like any other club I've moved the tee height down to where none of the ball is above the crown of the club. To my surprise I still get plenty of height and lost no distance at all on the course. In addition to the tee height is something I noticed I do with my 3wood and hybrid but realized today I didnt do with driver. I feel like I'm "releasing" or just being a bit more active with my hands through the downswing/impact. I realized that with driver I kinda like held back a bit at impact with my arms/hands probably in an effort to hit up on the ball, but all it did was leave the face open resulting in my massive push slices. Even though I feel like I'm releasing or more like "flipping" through impact I think all it is doing is squaring the clubfac. I don't think I'm actually massively flipping it at impact, it just feels like I am.

As soon as I started having that feeling I hit 13 out of 15 drives within a 50yd wide dispersion and they were very neutral ball flights with minimal curve and definitely no push slices. The other two weren't bad either, everything was within 75yd dispersion which is kinda my goal/benchmark right now. With that feeling I felt like I could be very aggressive through the ball and everything still came out of the window I want, slightly left with a gentle fade back onto the target. Once I had the feeling I definitely realized it was something I did without thinking about it in the 3wood and hybrid swings, and I hadn't been doing it in driver.

I am significantly more accurate with my 3 wood than my driver (73% fairways with 3 wood vs 30% with driver over last 5 rounds) so hopefully that feeling can help the accuracy and get rid of the massive push slices. 

 

Spent some time today charting out my partial wedge yardages too because I had been neglecting my wedges lately and it showed during my round yesterday.

Here are my yardages: None of this was too surprising, I already knew a couple of these yardages even without doing the full test but it was good to confirm them again. I had never really explored 1/4 and 1/2 swing shots with the 50 degree before but I really liked the control and lower flight that it had for a 100-110yd shot. Definitely need to keep that in mind as it feels much more repeatable compared to a pretty full swing with the 54 degree for the same yardage.

image.png

 

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Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

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1 hour ago, klineka said:

I had never really explored 1/4 and 1/2 swing shots with the 50 degree before but I really liked the control and lower flight that it had for a 100-110yd shot. Definitely need to keep that in mind as it feels much more repeatable compared to a pretty full swing with the 54 degree for the same yardage.

Unless I have to hit a ball higher, I will always go for a 3/4 or less shot when I am with in 120 yards. I should explore this for all my clubs. You can mess around with hitting these like pitch shots as well. A lot of creativity here.

Matt Dougherty, P.E.
 fasdfa dfdsaf 

What's in My Bag
Driver; :pxg: 0311 Gen 5,  3-Wood: 
:titleist: 917h3 ,  Hybrid:  :titleist: 915 2-Hybrid,  Irons: Sub 70 TAIII Fordged
Wedges: :edel: (52, 56, 60),  Putter: :edel:,  Ball: :snell: MTB,  Shoe: :true_linkswear:,  Rangfinder: :leupold:
Bag: :ping:

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10 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Unless I have to hit a ball higher, I will always go for a 3/4 or less shot when I am with in 120 yards. 

Yeah I'm going to start incorporating this more especially with partial 50 degree wedges. I have been doing a pretty good job of hitting partial 54s instead of a full 58 but hadn't really ever measured what partial 50s looked like. Since I've added a bit more speed I'm starting to see more spin on full wedges and have had multiple fairly full 54 degree wedges rip back a good 20 feet in my last round so it definitely feels like the right time to commit to more partial wedges. 

I should probably measure my 1/4 and 1/2 PW too since they're probably in that 110-130 range too.

10 hours ago, saevel25 said:

You can mess around with hitting these like pitch shots as well. A lot of creativity here.

Yeah that's basically the feeling I had yesterday, more of just letting the backswing length determine the distance but then trying to let the club "fall" on the downswing at the same speed like a pitch shot. My clubhead speed was very consistent within each swing length so I definitely will be keeping that feeling going forward.

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

28 minutes ago, klineka said:

Yeah that's basically the feeling I had yesterday, more of just letting the backswing length determine the distance but then trying to let the club "fall" on the downswing at the same speed like a pitch shot. My clubhead speed was very consistent within each swing length so I definitely will be keeping that feeling going forward.

That is the feel I get with my pitches. Make them lazy feeling with out being lazy. 

Matt Dougherty, P.E.
 fasdfa dfdsaf 

What's in My Bag
Driver; :pxg: 0311 Gen 5,  3-Wood: 
:titleist: 917h3 ,  Hybrid:  :titleist: 915 2-Hybrid,  Irons: Sub 70 TAIII Fordged
Wedges: :edel: (52, 56, 60),  Putter: :edel:,  Ball: :snell: MTB,  Shoe: :true_linkswear:,  Rangfinder: :leupold:
Bag: :ping:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Couple things worth noting.

  • Keeping front foot flared out has helped quite a bit with stopping my knee from diving in. Couple range sessions in and it already feels far more normal than it did at first. Keep doing this. 
  • Main priority piece is a steeper angle of the shoulders on the backswing, main feeling is that the left shoulder goes straight down and the mental image I have in my head of the feeling I want is "Dustin Johnson". Not with the wrists and everything, but just how his shoulders are steep and has some left side bend.
  • Driver is getting better. When I have the feeling of hitting it like my 3 wood the results are really good. Where I align the face at address plays a HUGE role for me in where the ball starts. What feels "straight" is actually quite a bit right of the target, so the push slices aren't a surprise. When I line the face up directly on the target, good things happen.
  • Also don't be so hard on myself for my driver dispersion. Today I felt like I had an off day with a few more push slices than I had been having and my overall dispersion was still within 75yds which is completely playable.
  • Along those lines, you are a really good 3 wood player, hitting 70% of your fairways with an average distance of 246 yds so far this season, don't be afraid to lay back a little when there is trouble down the right. Being in play and having 1 or 2 clubs longer into the green is far better than trying to force driver and making a bad swing.
  • Thumbs Up 1

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

On 6/11/2023 at 5:49 PM, klineka said:

Here are my yardages: None of this was too surprising, I already knew a couple of these yardages even without doing the full test but it was good to confirm them again. I had never really explored 1/4 and 1/2 swing shots with the 50 degree before but I really liked the control and lower flight that it had for a 100-110yd shot. Definitely need to keep that in mind as it feels much more repeatable compared to a pretty full swing with the 54 degree for the same yardage.

image.png

 

I did this same exercise (though my checkpoints were different) but it never took much on the course except for giving me some check points with my 60˚ beyond my "feel range" which is about 40 yards. But...

On 6/11/2023 at 7:12 PM, saevel25 said:

Unless I have to hit a ball higher, I will always go for a 3/4 or less shot when I am with in 120 yards. I should explore this for all my clubs. You can mess around with hitting these like pitch shots as well. A lot of creativity here.

Right after getting my new irons I ended up chatting with a father and son next to me at the range. Later they were competing hitting targets. I happened to be holding my new gap wedge and lined one up for fun and hit the bulls eye at 75yd. Now I'm totally in love with partial swing shots! I'm hitting what feel like pitch shots out to 100 yards now!

Matt

Mid-Weight Heavy Putter
Cleveland Tour Action 60˚
Cleveland CG15 54˚
Nike Vapor Pro Combo, 4i-GW
Titleist 585h 19˚
Tour Edge Exotics XCG 15˚ 3 Wood
Taylormade R7 Quad 9.5˚

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Made some big adjustments with driver last week.

In an effort to adjust my severe out to in swing path (talking double digits out to in) I started trying to hit massive hooks on the range. Talking lining up well right with the face super closed and trying to see how far left I could get it to go. Took me a while but eventually I started getting it and getting the feeling down. Kept working at it almost every day last week and finally got to a spot where I line up with my feet a couple yards right of my target, the face a touch closed to my feet, and then just swing as hard as I can along the feet line. Results in a nice tight draw with significantly better ball speed, launch, spin, etc numbers because I'm hitting up on it from a better position instead of swiping down and across. The huge push slice is completely gone, ball flight and quality of strike have both been incredibly consistent. I've never been able to swing this hard and have the flight be this consistent before.

I put the new swing into play over the weekend and had the best driving day of my life, hitting 10/13 fairways averaging 280+ in soft wet conditions with almost no roll on a fairly narrow/tree line course. Super encouraging to see and made such a difference in my scoring as I ended up having 4 birdies through my first 10 holes. 

Took a couple days off from the range, went back tonight and was seeing the same exact thing, very straight balls or maybe a slight draw, no push slices, no over draws, just a very consistent ball flight. The ball was carrying far. Averaged 285 carry with range balls, topped out at 303 and had 4 out of 10 that carried 295+

 

Also I started realizing on Saturday during the round and confirmed tonight on my Mevo+ that all my clubs in the bag are carrying 10yds further than they have been, likely because of combination of my swing mechanics improving and speed gains from TheStack. Basically everything is going 1 club more than what it used to. So need to keep that in mind and adjust for that when I'm on the course. 

 

Had developed a habit too on my wedges of pushing everything slightly to the right. Tonight when I made sure I rotated fully through the shot with my body that made the start line straighter and no more pushes. Need some more practice with those but like the progress there. 

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

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  • Administrator

Kevin, please be careful about adding things while working on other things.

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

Check Out: New Topics | TST Blog | Golf Terms | Instructional Content | Analyzr | LSW | Instructional Droplets

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44 minutes ago, iacas said:

Kevin, please be careful about adding things while working on other things.

Will do. Thanks for the reminder.

Shoulder tilt priority piece is still my primary focus and it's my swing thought. I'm trying to find some balance between the playing/scoring aspect and the improving the golf swing aspect especially as I have a big golf trip coming up in a couple weeks.

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

  • 4 weeks later...

Played 4 rounds in 3 days in Pinehurst and overall it was pretty good. I started off quite poorly but improved every round we played and ended the trip with a 72 at Mid Pines and between the round at Mid Pines and my back 9 of the round the evening before at Talamore, I made 6 birdies in my last 27 holes of the trip.

Now I'm back into proper practice mode with Evolvr, working on standing taller at address and hand path/forearm rotation during the backswing, making sure my left forearm doesn't rotate inward towards me during the backswing. Feeling like my hands go out away from my body and then straight up from there during the backswing seems to have me on the right path so far. Hard to describe but doing that hand path makes everything feel synced up, like my arms and body are working together.

I'm also making sure to exaggerate (some of the exaggerations look Matthew Wolff-esque) and am spending most of my time on slow partial swings.

Mixed in a couple full swings tonight with those same feelings to see where I was at and man they felt good. I felt for the first time what the announcers mean on TV when they say a PGA player hits a "heavy" ball. A lot of my full speed swings tonight were exactly that. Super crisp contact, a different but good sound, very consistent and neutral divot, and a much more penetrating ball flight where the ball just kept going forever. PW were consistently hitting a green at 150yds and 6i were landing on a hill at 195.

  • Thumbs Up 2

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

  • 5 months later...

Time to recap 2023 and start posting more regularly in this thread.

Didn't plan any goals for 2023 since we had just moved into the new house and wasn't quite sure how much time I'd have to play/practice. Turns out I had plenty. 

Handicap increased to 3.1 despite having the best ball striking season of my life. Sloppy short game was the main thing that turned what should have been (ball striking wise) 71-73s into 75-77s. I did break par a few times and shot my new personal best tournament round of 75. 

For some stats, I played 25-30 rounds (not quite sure of the exact number since my app stopped working for some of the rounds and had some partner rounds in there too).

Fairways - 45%

GIR - 60%

Putts per round - 31

Strokes gained vs Scratch

Driving +2.3

Approach +0.20

Shortgame (TaylorMade MyRoundPro defines this as 100yds and in) -1.80

Putting -0.60

As you can see in the strokes gained number, I struck the ball really well, especially towards the latter half of the year after I got fit for a driver shaft which lowered my spin by nearly 1,000rpm and smooth swings were out in the 290-320 range. Irons were solid, had a great handle on how far each club was going and was confident in having ways to take distance off when in between clubs. Direction with irons was solid all year too, dead straight with a slight fall to the right. 

Weakness was in the short game, mainly 50yds and in. Far too often I would (unsuccessfully) try and pull off the hero shot around the green when I was in trouble instead of taking my medicine and leaving myself 10 feet for par. I plan on spending quite a bit of time in the spring working on short game shots from less than ideal lies and practice the boring but safe shots. Aka don't try to hit a soft hit flop shot off a severe downslope in thick rough when you could have just chopped it out and let it release to 10 feet maybe even closer. I don't think it's necessarily my technique(s) as much as it is choosing the right/easiest shot for the situation. 

I didn't putt that great in the beginning of the year, switched back to my Odyssey putter which is an inch longer than my Scotty Cameron was and had a couple Evolvr lessons around putting and that started improving towards the end of the year. Spending quite a bit of time indoors this winter with a variety of drills too, mainly start line stuff as my green reading is good with Aimpoint and my speed has always been a strength. 

Here is how far on average I hit each club last year (Total distance)

Driver - 279yds (I expect this to increase significantly in 2024 since I only had the new shaft for about 2 months in 2023)

3wood - 253yds (Got fit for new 3wood and 3hybrid as part of my fitting, haven't purchase yet but will likely have new ones in the bag for 2024. I don't need them to go much further, but directionally the Cobras I was fit for were significantly straighter and just as far) 

3H - 227yds

4i - 215yds (Considering switching to a P790 4iron this year for additional help off the turf as I rarely hit this off the turf, pretty much was only off the tee if 3H was too much club or for punch shots. If Collin Morikawa is gaming a P770 4iron I have no business gaming one.)

5i - 198yds

6i - 185yds

7i - 179yds

8i - 167yds

9i - 157yds

PW - 145yds

GW - 138yds

SW and LW I never hit full (Might replace these this year simply due to groove wear)

Pretty happy with this gapping, nothing immediately jumps out at me other than the gap between my 6i and 7i being smaller than the others, but not overly concerned with that. This covered the entire year too and towards the second half of the year I started hitting my mid/long irons a bit further than these yardages so I think the 6/7 gap should spread out a bit more in 2024.

 

Now onto 2024. I'll post my goals separately in the goals topic and probably again here once I write them but a couple high level things that I'm already working on right now include The Stack system with the goal to cruise at 120mph clubhead speed, diligently work on improving my swing through Evolvr, nailing my start line and being confident on short putts. I'm like 99% sure I will be switching to the ShotScope watch for my stat tracking this year, MyRoundPro is no longer free and they pretty much stopped supporting the watch version of the app.

I'll get a swing video soon but my main focus/priority piece at the moment is having a more upright torso at address with more knee bend, learning how to turn my hips properly, and making sure my left knee doesn't excessively dive in towards the ball. It's some similar stuff that I worked on in mid 2023 but now really committing to it and getting it nailed down over the next 2-3 months before the season starts. 

  • Thumbs Up 2

Driver: :callaway: Rogue Max ST LS
Woods:  :cobra: Darkspeed LS 3Wood
Irons: :titleist: U505 (3)  :tmade: P770 (4-PW)
Wedges: :callaway: MD3 50   :titleist: SM9 54/58  
Putter: :tmade: Spider X

Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

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  • Posts

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