"5 Minutes Daily" Practice Challenge August 2017

[todgot]

August 8th:  Taking a little break from Golf the last couple days and getting caught up in the office.  Worked for 5 minutes today with the Impact Snap.  Tonight took some easy swings with the Orange Whip and just felt the weight swing.  Usually on Tuesdays I go to the course after work... not today.   

[Shindig]

On 8/7/2017 at 8:44 PM, todgot said:

Thinking about re-reading Bob Rotella's "Golf is not a Game of Perfect".  Also need to re-read LSW and get the putting drills started.  Bought a metal yard stick for practice at home. 

Re: Rotella, I recently re-read it and have mixed feelings about it.  I should write up my thoughts for the thread about the book.

The metal yardstick drills have been amazing from LSW.  Speaking of which, you should ask for your book trophy.

As for me:

August 8 - evening chipping.  There is a par-3 course near me that is night lit, and I spent about 45 minutes at the chipping area playing 50 (the game from LSW drills).  I got to practice a variety, some from good lies and some from bad.  I also hit a good number over a bunker (and two ... into it).  I missed the green a few times short, ran over it a few times, but I also chipped in once and got a good number of chips to within 13' (sadly, some were very close to "on the number," which won't do as my handicap drops).  But  I did get the practice in, and I'm excited to improve this aspect of my game.

I then spent 30 minutes on the putting green.  I hit a bunch of 5' putts and then did a 4' 8' 12' drill... first iteration, left both 8' attempts on the lip.  Second time, finished the drill successfully on the second 12' putt.  Nice!  Then made the third 12' just for the heck of it.  Then I went back to short putts.

Playing tomorrow, more short game cramming Thursday, and then club championship Fri-Sat-Sun.  Should be a great few days!

Month:  8 for 8 so far.

[onthehunt526]

8/9/17:

Continued work on shortening my swing. It had some success on the second nine yesterday hitting 5 of 9 GIR, I'd like to get that where I can hit that many on both nines.

[Shindig]

August 9.  Played 18 holes today;  my last round before the club championship starts on Friday.   Shot 47-39 = 86... SL: 2.83 / 3.84 / 3.58 / 3.23.   All were better than a 15 handicap except the short game, off by 1.2.  Considering I missed the green on hole 1 (from 35 yards;  got up and down from the result for bogey) and hit way way way too short on hole 3's fourth (ugh) shot from 75 yards (and three putted the result for double)... I'd say overall it was okay.  I also hit one putt fat.  Oy.  

Second nine today, hit four greens, near'd another 4 (putter in hand for two of them), and hit the sand once (great out, but the par attempt was when I hit a fat putt).

I'll probably sneak out later today for some short game / putting practice, and will swing by the competition course for some of the same tomorrow.

(August: 9 for 9 so far)

[iacas]

16 hours ago, Shindig said:

The metal yardstick drills have been amazing from LSW.  Speaking of which, you should ask for your book trophy.

I saw these comments and gave it to @todgot.

[todgot]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

I saw these comments and gave it to @todgot.

Thanks!  I did ask for it on the appropriate thread but you never responded.  I also shot 79 in a tournament over the weekend.  It was a Par 70 so not sure if that counts.  First sub 80 round of the year. 

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, todgot said:

Thanks!  I did ask for it on the appropriate thread but you never responded.  I also shot 79 in a tournament over the weekend.  It was a Par 70 so not sure if that counts.  First sub 80 round of the year. 

Well, I gave you the Broke 80 badge too. Way back in May, I see. If I miss something, just point it out to me again. Sometimes I load up a page and respond later, but miss a post in between when I load it and when I respond to it.

[dennyjones]

I played 18 today at Lakewood Shore - The Gales.  It is a links style course.   I made it my mission to stripe the fairway from the tee.    I missed 1 fairway today and only 2 yesterday.   Now the rest of the game....

[Rsuslow]

August 9, 2017

Made slow and deliberate practice swings working on keeping my head back yet getting my weight forward.  At the same time I'm keeping an eye on my shoulder tilt to make sure it's 90 degrees to my spine tilt.  Did this for a few minutes then hit about 20 balls into my impact screen.

[Mico]

5 min Sklz swing trainer. Was hunting the whoosh tonight. Set of regular swings and turned trainer around and made handle Whoosh on swing through

Felt good

[WUTiger]

Aug. 9

Played 18-hole practice round at Westborough GC. Shot 43 + 51 = 94.

It was a wild day: 2 birdies, 3 tripleBs, and no pars. Was hitting irons well (2 birdies). Put two provisionals within 12 feet, but ended up finding original balls. Also had a full iron shot hit green twice after punchouts from rough folowing drives.

Had 31 putts - with 2 three putts.

On several holes, the ball hit the green but spun back or rolled to side fringe. Fringe and close-cut fairway running up to green was smooth enough to putt, rather than hitting chip shot.

Course is tight, and I wish we could get spotters for some of the holes.

My goal is to break 90 both days. We'll see what happens.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

[mulv3959]

8/9 - Worked on chipping. Played the Par 18 chipping game. Where you create 9 different holes around the green and try to play them with a par 2 for each hole.

[todgot]

August 9:  worked with the speed stick my take away and then coming through without coming over the top.  Watched a video on pitching and worked on that with a few balls in my yard.  

[boogielicious]

August 10 - Well it's official, torn meniscus in the left knee (MRI). Radial tear and detached. So the only option is surgery to clean it up. I am planning on doing it in November so I can limp through the rest of the season.

That being said, I need to pace my practice and play so I don't do more damage. Yesterday I only did mirror work. Today I am playing my league nine. My swing thought will be getting the hips to open more from P5 to impact. I'm also adding a bit of palmar flexion from A4 to 6 per my Evolvr lesson. Driver flight has been push to push fade, so I may close the face a bit more to straighten the flight too.

For irons, the same approach had been slight fade to draw. Both of these are better than hooks. 

[dennyjones]

8/10:

20 minutes working on chipping

[onthehunt526]

8/10/17:

Continued work on shortening my swing a bit. I think I may have found the perfect spot. It feels about three quarters or so, my hands feel as if they are just a little past, my right shoulder. Now I just need the "Matsuyama" slight pause. I think it will help sync up my timing a bit. 

Also doing some down pressure drills at from the top of the swing just going straight down as a first move and not "around".

[Shindig]

August 10.  Had a 2.5-3 hour practice session today.  I went over to the course where my tournament this weekend (Fri-Sat-cut-Sun) is going to be, knowing full well I'd have bad traffic on the way home.  First, I did some short putts (3', 4').  Then I calibrated speed at 10' and 30', and I'm fairly comfortable with these now -- hopefully I will be tomorrow too.  As an aside, I think something went off in my head that I wish I could put to words about long putts -- I feel like those are putts I've hit fat (and left waaaaay short) in the past and today I felt like it couldn't happen.  Hopefully that's the case in future rounds.  Obviously this will require plenty of reinforcement, and I can't get down on myself if I hit a long putt fat, especially in the short term.

I then hit a small bucket (30 balls).  The first half dozen were just reinforcing my swings from last time -- again, haven't really added anything to my swing the past week in anticipation of this event (will start evolvr lesson that came in a few days ago on Monday... or Sunday if I miss the cut).  I've hit some bad 3-woods the past few rounds, so I hit a few of those and wasn't feeling it.  I brought my old 4-wood with me today -- I know I hit it further than my 5-wood, and I was hitting it great today.  I'll probably play it tomorrow (there are only three shots on my home course that I'd hit a 3-wood usually anyway:  second shot on all par-5s, assuming a good drive.  This may cost me 5 yards on a good shot, but probably has a much lower variance.  We'll see, and I'm open to putting the 3-wood back soon.  But when I've hit a number of sub-150 shots with it lately, I don't want to use it in a tournament until I can work that out.

Then I played 50 at the chipping area;  I managed to chip in once.  I would have hit bunker shots, too, but this was a thin strip of dirt over what was hard packed ... soil?  Wet dirt?  I don't know, but I couldn't even get the club into the "sand," so I didn't get to practice sand.

Lastly, went back to the putting green.  Did the 3-6-9 drill from LSW and then checked my 10' and 30' speeds again.  My last six putts were from 30' and all finished within 2' of the hole;  hopefully I can do that on my next six 30' putts on the course!

August is 10-for-10 so far;  playing next two days, hopefully three.  With all the practice July (most days) and the past 10 days of August... we'll see if I can put everything into play tomorrow. 

[WUTiger]

Aug. 10

I've been without a local pro since November, and had a lesson today with a new one. I have known him for many years, and he's involved in a nearby golf shop now.

Problem: My long clubs have been a rather wild lately, after a very promising spring and early summer.

He gave me a diagnostic with 6i shots, and then put me on the longer clubs. On driver, he said I was doing two things wrong:

• A "stack and tilt" setup, with so much weight set forward I wasn't getting proper turn and load on the backswing. I was not getting much shift backward in backswing, and restricted forward shift on downswing (LSW, p. 17). I simply checked to make sure my weight pressure was more 50-50 at setup, and I got better hip movement both ways, plus more balanced rotation and load.
• Sometimes I give a little forward press with the hips at address which opens my stance, and causes balance problems on the downswing. This will be something I will need to work on to remove.