WillM

Pants and only pants, even if it 100 degrees. It makes the outfit look sharper and more professional. Also, plug for Alial Fital shirts, only shirts I wear. Fantastic fabric with beautiful original designs.

It's been awhile! Somehow I always leave this site, thinking I have golf figured out and come running back because inevitably something goes wrong. Short update, I am no longer playing for Occidental College, I did not like the school and decided to leave. I am still stuck between a 0 and a 1 handicap... got down to a +0.6 at the beginning of summer but slowly drifted back to 0. As for the swing, there are good things and bad things. You won't like my posture, sorry but I'm not messing with it this time around. I hate to be that student but it's consistent and comfortable and not so far wrong that it's causing problems. I think you will find some other changes that are good, I have been working on keeping my right knee flex in the backswing and getting the loop out of my swing at the top of the backswing. At first blush, it looks fantastic, nothing wrong with it. Upon closer review and comparison with many of the top ball strikers, I think my hips are not rotating fast enough in the downswing (sidenote: I am going to use a K-vest soon to confirm this suspicion) and it is causing my arms to chase down the line instead of moving left, it shows up as my right arm separating from my body thru impact at the armpit. It is subtle but it is there, go look a video of Adam Scott or Henrik Stenson and you'll see what I mean. Despite the apparent beauty of the swing, I still do not have any consistency. I've been hitting pulls and pushes, draws and fades. So I am back, looking for some tips to get the club moving more left after impact and to get my hips rotating more. Any suggestions? The goal of these changes is to hit the ball with the "big" muscles instead of the "little" ones, to promote more consistency.

Unfortunately I do not :/ and I do not have access to one either. D3 golf is not the same as D1...

The whole shoulder plane and spine angle thing! I think you have made 2-3 posts about it in this thread haha My miss is a straight push that will occasionally turn into a fade. You can see that I get a little under plane in the downswing. I like to play a little draw but am really looking for something that will curve consistently, draw or fade... I think this is what you call Key #5? Clubface control?

Posture looks better here. Shoulder plane a bit worse, you can see I am getting a little pulled out of posture at the top of my backswing. I'd say it is better than what it was a few months ago but still far from what you see with many tour players. I mentioned the weird alignment stick in my shirt drill in my previous post but that is awkward and cumbersome. I haven't really found a drill or feeling that I like that will help this. @iacas you have been riding me forever about this... any new thoughts? Is it even worth it to obsess over this spine angle/shoulder plane issue?

1. Win a tournament I play college golf and want to win one of the tournaments that we play in. I "won" my first ever tournament last September but I felt slighted because it was a T-1 and we ended up getting two trophies instead of playing off for 1st because we were on the same team. I want to win one outright. The conference we are in is one of the best in the country but I believe I have the talent to do it. 2. Become a plus handicap I have been between 0.5 and 2 for over a year now and it is endlessly frustrating. Honestly I have no idea how I am going to achieve this one. Getting too this level makes it even harder to reach the next level. Perhaps I will find a swing coach I can trust and create a good practice plan with him.

I am working on getting my shoulders to rotate perpendicular to my spine in my backswing... I just started working on it last week so it might be awhile before anything really improves. It is really, really hard to work on too. I have found that the issue is mostly I am a bit inflexible in my rotation. I can do the typical club across the shoulders just fine but when I get my left arm extended away from my like I am holding a club, I can't rotate nearly as far back. So part of the keeping my shoulders working the right way leads to a shorter swing which is a bit uncomfortable (throws off timing, etc). The drill I am actually doing is sticking an alignment stick through the back of my shirt, parallel to my shoulder plane and trying to point it at the ball when I swing. I am also going to start working on posture a bit again. Seeing the ball out of central vision and rounding the upper back mostly. I started doing it today and was flushing it again for the first time in a few months.

I mark my ball with three red dots above and right of the "Titleist" Got it from the movie Predator :)

Haven't been on in a while... just thought I would share what I think is the purest swing I have a ever filmed. Sure the posture isn't perfect and the clubface is a little bit closed going back but in terms of macro things I have been working on this is so much better.

Good points. Thanks for the insight (and supportive words?). You are correct that it is about quality and quantity. I should've qualified my statement. If she is going to be coming out of university and be working a job and still trying to make this work then it would be better for quantity in the limited time she would have available. But if she would be working a job then I don't know why she would be pursuing this out of college anyway. Guess I gave a half baked idea.

I am in a similar boat as you and I would say don't give it up if it is really your dream. I followed a very similar path to yours, I played once or twice a year until I was 16 and then started playing competitively and caught the "golf bug." I am now 19 and down to a 1 HCP. Hoping to get it lower and have another 4 years to improve playing in college. Like you, the goal is eventually to play on the highest tour. The work it takes to get there is immense. Anyway, there are a few things I would address. Some of them have already been said but they bear repeating. 1) Money - Golf is expensive. Between lessons and greens fees and tournament fees, etc, etc, you are going to need a way to support yourself. If your family is well off enough to support you in your attempt to follow your dream then by all means go for it. But getting a real job to support yourself would make it quite a bit harder. 2) There will be naysayers. There always are. If you truly believe you can do it then don't listen to them. From the sound of it, you are on a very good path so far and your game has not plateaued. 3) Track your stats religiously and compare them to the LPGA tour players. That will give you a good indication of where your game is. 4) Practice is about quality, not quantity. 5) It is going to take a bit of luck. You might become good enough to play on the tour of your choosing but you have to play through the qualifier for it and you might have a bad week or bad month that tears it all down. You have to be prepared for that. You can work as hard as you want to be prepared for the qualifier but if your swing just isn't clicking then it just might not happen. Even if it is clicking it can come down to a bad bounce... 5b) In connection to above, you need the ability to go low. You may be able to shoot 70 on a difficult course but if it's for a qualifier there will be people who turn in 63-65 and you won't sniff qualifying. So like I said, a bit of luck. You need the ability to go low and be lucky enough to catch fire at the right time. Good luck, I am interested in your story so keep posting.

Here are FO and DTL swings from today. Two days later and I am laid off again, I am really comfortable in that position. Swing is looking good though, back still hurts... hopefully I'll get used to it.

1) Hole 14 at the Prospector Course, Suncadia, Washington 2) Hole 10 at the Prospector Course, Suncadia, Washington 3) Looking up towards the 18th green at Chambers Bay, Tacoma, Washington 4) Back down the fairway of the 18th at Chambers Bay, Tacoma, Washington 5) Hole 9 at Aldarra GC, Seattle, Washington 6) View down 7th fairway at The Home Course, Tacoma, Washington (Mt. Rainier in background) 7) 18th green on the right, 10th tee on the left at Thunderbird CC, Palm Springs, California 8) 12th hole at Canyon Lakes GC, Kennewick, Washington

Okay maybe not freefall but definitely on the decline. He definitely fell from the limelight really quickly though. Considering he was a major winner in 2011 and RoY

I don't think about hitting down at all and I take huge divots with a really steep angle of attack. I think the average pro with a 7-iron is about -4.5 degrees... I am -6 to -7 degrees but I am not thinking about hitting down at all. I am just thinking about hitting the ball, or a single swing thought, etc. The only exception is when I hit driver, then I am consciously trying to hit up on it. If I don't my AoA is -4 to -5... even with a little bit of spine tilt at set up (a la Rory) I still hit down on the ball between 0 and -1 degrees. So, not something I think about. It just happens and will vary swing to swing for different people