"5 Minutes Daily" Practice Challenge October 2017

[onthehunt526]

10/26/17:

Hit some shots, with a strong left hand grip. And stronger than normal right hand grip. (I can't do both my thumbs at 3:30 like Erik). I cannot hit a shot to the right with this grip if I tried...

Also, hit some wedges in the yard. Focused on getting my clock positions correct with how far the ball carries. 

[woodzie264]

10/26 - wall drills with focus on not dipping my head (still in Disney)

[Lihu]

Short game practice. Trying to keep the stroke uniform in speed.

[Lihu]

This is kind of unexpected, but tallying up the last weeks number of practice balls I hit was close to 800. 100 or more or about 15 per day were warm up balls with a short club or practicing short game. 100 or more were using mid irons from PW to 8i. 100 more were with longer irons from 7i to 5i. 25 were attempts with 4i. The rest were with my driver. I averaged something like 67 drives per day this last week.

So, needlessly said, I drove a lot of balls, but I'm working on my lag and sequencing. That took a lot of work. I also did the same without balls using a swing training device in front of a mirror. My hips were out of sequence as of Wednesday, but the clinic fixed that up.

The summary of the week, is lots of driving. I hope my tee shots will improve this weekend's rounds. My irons are so-so. At least my 150 club seems to be reasonable at this time. I was able to plant a couple shots really close to the 150 flag.

Practicing my driver swing in front of a web cam setup to check if I am putting enough lag on the shaft per my instructor's drills.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Lihu

[onthehunt526]

10/27/17:

More work with strong grip partial shots, today, trying to get used to hitting shots with this new grip more or less.

[Lihu]

Got in a full round yesterday, but it was at a 27 hole facility. So, I started on the correct tee box, then followed a group to the wrong tee box after the second hole. Finished the 8 on that hole then played the correct 9. Played with my golf instructors best friends dad, who knew my instructor since he was a little kid. That was fun. Almost got my 6 free round, but since the round was funky anyway it probably doesn't count anyway. Shot a 78. Only hit a few trees. Hit pretty far if not for the trees.

Still working on the driver drills.

[onthehunt526]

10/28/17:

Wedges in the yard. It's the worst part of my game so I'm continuing to work on it.

[woodzie264]

10/28 - more wall drills at Disney

[onthehunt526]

10/29/17:

It's raining steadily outside. So I did a few indoor drills this morning. The weight forward drill, the wall drill, and the hands together swing drill.

[Lihu]

Focusing on my drives. Went to the range thinking of increasing my hip turn and shoulder turn more through stretching at the top a few times to increase my mobility. my best shots seemed to be with more shoulder turn. So, I'm getting to the top then holding there and attempting to turn farther as I hold. I repeat this twice befor the actual shot.

[woodzie264]

10/29 - last day of doing wall drills for a bit. Just got home from trip so I hope to put a club on a ball this week 

[Lihu]

My shots were getting lower with irons, and one of the people on the range noticed that I was coming down too shallow. Fixed that immediately and started hitting a lot more decent shots.

[Lihu]

10 hours ago, Lihu said:

My shots were getting lower with irons, and one of the people on the range noticed that I was coming down too shallow. Fixed that immediately and started hitting a lot more decent shots.

Changed my takeaway by making sure the club is on the target line at A2. Looking at different alignments, and found a 15 degree alignment  in meandmygolf. The ball seems to come out straight as long as it's in a reasonable position, but the more vertical takeaway leads to a more vertical shot for me.

Doing swings in front of a dark window to get more comfortable with this change.

Kind of surprised this didn't come up in a lesson? Anyway, my support group at my home course seemed to fix it. One of my range companions demonstrated that if he can see the club in front of him, then he knows he's too steep. It was a funny demonstration that stuck in my mind.

Edited October 30, 2017 by Lihu

[woodzie264]

10/30 - lag putts down the hallway at work with focus on speed

[onthehunt526]

10/30/17:

Putting practice in the living room. Used the 4-8-12 drill to see where I was at. Completed it successfully 5 straight times so I called it a day... It was literally about 7 minutes.

[woodzie264]

10/31 - kettlebell swing for balanced weight shift with focus on centered turn.  Walls drills with focus on maintaining bookends 

this completes Oct 5min challenge

[onthehunt526]

10/31/17:

Worked on my clock positions with my wedges this morning. Knowing how far I hit each from each position and writing it down on an index card.

This completes my October 5 Minutes Daily challenge.

That's 7 straight months of completing the challenge. I'm going to attempt to get to 1 full year or more.

[Lihu]

On 10/30/2017 at 5:11 AM, Lihu said:

Changed my takeaway by making sure the club is on the target line at A2. Looking at different alignments, and found a 15 degree alignment  in meandmygolf. The ball seems to come out straight as long as it's in a reasonable position, but the more vertical takeaway leads to a more vertical shot for me.

Doing swings in front of a dark window to get more comfortable with this change.

Kind of surprised this didn't come up in a lesson? Anyway, my support group at my home course seemed to fix it. One of my range companions demonstrated that if he can see the club in front of him, then he knows he's too steep. It was a funny demonstration that stuck in my mind.

Last entry for this month.

I had a few sore muscles in my trailing (dominant) forearm after making this change. Gone now, after a day of rest and doing exercises using a golf club simulator. Played a course with a Halloween setup, and managed to not hit a single tree off the tee, but for only 16 holes with some tees moved forward. Getting my drives out there again, and my irons shots are no longer anemically low. Gad, those were frustrating shots, I felt like I was duffing every shot on the course. Now I no longer have that ailment, and I'm enjoying this game again. Downswing now more steep and still keeping the inside out path. Hit a lot of greens, but they were setup easier.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Lihu