phillyk

Well this has been a disaster of a summer, regarding playing. Played the least amount of golf in a summer since 2008. Yips on short game to partial wedges came in full hog. Full swing continued to be ok. Putting was the best part of my game. Handicap went from +2.5 to now 0.0. The number of rounds were low because I taught much more. Numbers are up over 50% from last year. A great thing but my own game was sacrificed and it annoys me a little. Short game really suffered from lack of play and practice. I had rounds where I would lay sod over the ball, from the rough with a decent lie, looking at a simple chip from barely off green uphill to a pin. It would happen several times a round. I resorted to putting or using a 2iron to chip with. Obviously the less short game shots meant full swing was good. But, if it was off a little, I was screwed. My right wrist, elbow and knee all buckled and jerked right before impact. I couldn’t stop it. Tried everything I could think of. I went through a week occasionally that something would work, but never stuck. I remember not even having a club in hand. Just looking down at the ball and knowing I was in trouble. A couple weeks ago, I watched a short game chef video on chipping and it has really helped turn my short game around. Yips aren’t completely gone, but very minimal now. Most of my issues now are distance control as the flight is slightly different. It was clear that I was too steep before. But I also realized I was decelerating quite a bit and trying to compress it for spin. Now, I’m much more neutral in setup. I’m really focusing in the very beginning of my take away and making my chest do everything there. If hands do anything to start, it will be a yip chunk or skull. I’m Trying to take shorter backswings and accelerate more through the ball without a feeling of “compressing” it. Allowing my draw biased motion to do its thing. It’s resulting in much higher ball flights which means distance control up to 75yds will have to be reworked. The ball still has plenty of spin. I’m also able to use any club now to chip with versus feeling stuck with one. My goal this off season is to try and break 60 from the forward tees at my home course. It will focus my game on tee shots and short game. Putting has become almost second nature and am not worried about it. Most of all, I need to figure out a better balance next year between work and play. Maintaining a high level of play is important to me (especially to my stress levels 😆).

I ask nearly all my students to grip in air in pre shot routine. Much easier to set in fingers.

As a Srixon staffer, I mainly use the z star xv. However, the -prov1x is a really good ball for my game. If I find other balls, I give them away to friends.

From your description, you need to work on a consistent-ish club face at impact. Most practice swings have open faces and variable paths due to the conscious thought that goes into them, so you need to swing at a ball for us to help.

My course has A LOT of tree roots that are in play. Nothing we can do about it. As a municipal, the city is very against cutting any trees down, until absolutely necessary. I didn’t know about this local rule, so good to know.

I’m not sure what the laws/rules say, but I would assume they could lose their spray license for creating hazardous conditions for people. We try to have a 30min gap from when the green is sprayed and when the first group plays on it. You certainly can’t spray when it’s windy or too wet.

SAM putt lab talks about perspective straightness putting. I did it with 6 ladies Friday. 3 needed their eye line inside the ball, 1 left, and 2 directly above. Putting, we can change posture and many things and still make a good stroke. That’s not necessarily so for full swing. Of course, if I’m using a driver/any club and standing in address, my looking at an alignment stick 10yds out along ball line will look right. Our eyes are not on ball line. I’d wonder what he would say about those that don’t use intermediate targets for alignment. Also, are people picking an intermediate target that’s 10yds in front of them? He’s right that most people don’t perspectively see straight. But i disagree that it fixes a slice.

Saw it and went to look up how Anthony is playing on LIV. Basically dead last, with a recent DQ. Not much of a story.

When it comes to set up routine in regards to alignment, I generally prefer my students to: 1) clubface, 2) chest and 3) feet. When the foot alignment happens before chest alignment, we tend to have issues. I use this example often. I did an introductory flight for flight school, as a student gave me a certificate for it. As most new flyers are, I was staring at the instruments trying to be perfect. I was doing a 30 degree turn and didn’t realize the nose dropped. It had felt normal. The instructor said I had to learn what flat/level is in the air. Kind of a funny thing to say. He said to look at the horizon and nose and recognize their relationship, in order to determine level. In golf, we see straight from behind the ball. But, when we set up to the ball, we lose what “straight” is. Have someone hold an alignment stick across your chest when you are in full set up and recognize where your lead shoulder is pointing in relation to your target.

Some graphs from Dr Kwon’s research. I have these posted up at my golf school. Dark Blue line is arms. You can see it maxes angular velocity in between p2 and p3, in this graph. Right foot pressure maxes at approximately the same time. These graphs are an average of the pros he has measured.

I’d say it’s more caused by starting the swing with pressure too far into the heels. Another is a misunderstanding of body rotation on the backswing, as the lead knee bends forward to “fake” a hip turn. I wouldn’t recommend many people rolling the forearms. Although some people feel that, in order to feel the release of the clubhead to square it up for impact.

A pedestrian (someone working at a vendor for the event) died this morning from traffic near Valhalla. The cops are all probably on edge trying to keep everyone safe. It sounded like it was a solid miscommunication deal. However, a cop hanging onto your vehicle yelling stop usually means stop. I can’t imagine these guys driving more than 15mph around the entrance. Either way, I hope Scottie can play well and give it another tun.

I took a closer look at my scoring. All my birdies were down wind holes. My big mess up holes were into. I play enough with wind where I’m at. It comes back to the fact I tried to do too much with the wind. I should’ve played my game, not the wind game.

Played in another US Open qualifier yesterday. Same story, sort of, as Phoenix Open pre-qualifying. I shot a +5, 75, with 5 birdies, a triple, and 7 bogies. Chipping and pitching sucks. The course was Palouse Ridge. Very fun and interesting track. They played a couple shorter par 5s as 480-500yd par 4s. But as we say, par doesn’t mean much, still need to get lowest score possible. The wind protects this golf course. Length isn’t that bad with the firmness of fairways. Driver was ok, for most part. My plan for day was my fairway finding “bunt driver.” Basically hitting it low because of the wind. Normally it comes out as a cut. Throughout the round, it slowly went into a draw. My triple was from losing one left off the tee because I was set to cut it. After that, I played for the draw and it went well. Generally, throughout the day, I overestimated how much the wind would hurt when into the wind and cross the wind. So I went a little long on my approaches throughout. Chipping and pitching lost me at minimum 4 strokes. I worked hard on it, but I’m used to soft ground. The ground was firm here and I couldn’t play it confidently. I had 11/18 GIR. Two 3 putts hurt. Had two 2 putt birdies, one was a par 4. It really wasn’t bad. I just couldn’t get comfortable with my game the whole day. I had the moments, but then I got aimy and guidey. 2 things to sum it up, continue practice on short game and trust my normal shots versus trying to play stingers and punchers when the wind picks up. Next big event, I think, is our Section PGA Championship in September, which is at a close-ish course I’m very familiar with. So I’m excited for that. Summer is dedicated to some practice but mostly teaching. I’ve had a very strong start to the year. I want to keep it going.

Why do we care about 2nd place?! He LOST!!! You win or lose. Tiger’s accomplishments are of him being the best and winning. All anyone can come up with for Jack are majors and losing but “close.”