NeilV

Couple of new ones yesterday. The tricky 327 yard par 4 2nd. Goes down from the tee into a valley then steeply back up to a 2 tier green. Pin was on the front left which means an underhit approach comes back down the hill 30 yards and an overhit approach leaves a nasty downhill putt from top to bottom tier with the added risk that the ball runs down into the valley. Ask me how I know! 3 hybrid to the flat section at the bottom of the valley, 9 iron pin high 6 feet left of the pin and rolled the putt in. The par 3 9th, playing for the first time off the new tee box. 156 yards downhill with a gentle tailwind. Baby draw with an 8 iron landed pin high about 12 feet left, spun left another 4 feet towards the pin leaving me about 8 feet for birdie. The course tends to back up a bit on this hole, so it's always nice to hit a good shot with an audience.

Interesting question. I had a bit of time on a flight recently so decided to look at my scores statistically. I believed I had improved, but it seems that the answer is no. I plugged all of the scores from 68 rounds since November 2021 at the same course into some statistical software, built a control chart, and did some multivariate analysis against the stats that I've been keeping. Short answer is that there is no statistical evidence that I have improved since the end of 2021, and that there is no statistically significant correlation between gross score and FH, GIR, putts/round, no of penalty shots and no. of chips (although this was just for fun, as I doubt that I have the correct measures in place to find a good correlation). From this I get: The process is stable and predictable. I discounted the high result as probably the 1:200 or so that is outside +/-3 sigma, and the medium shift improvement in August last year which I suspect is special cause variation related to bone hard fairways and bonus driver distance. The process centre is undesirable high, The variation is undesirable high. There is a medium shift for the better in August last year in August last year. Special cause variation related to bone hard fairways I suspect. Anything between 85 and 112 is completely to be expected. All in all, a fairly depressing picture that says I have a ridiculously inconsistent swing and my practice is ineffective. I had a bunch of lessons in 2019-20 and know I improved then as I dropped from literally every score being over 100 to what you see here. I've recently started another course of lessons so I need a run of scores (4 from 5) of 94 or better to show a small improvement and a run under 90 (2 from 3) to show a medium improvement. If anyone is remotely interested, I'll post the graph again at the end of the 6 lessons. Anyways, it killed a few hours on a plane.

Steady(ish) 92 yesterday. Short game and putting were much better than in recent weeks with 29 putts. It was a game of 2 halves though with 42-50 against par of 34-38. Made double on 2 of them and quad on the third. If I can keep the ball in play for 18 holes I should be on for a PB given the course conditions and the way the rest of my game is going. 3 bad swings (all pull hooks) off the tee cost me 3 lost balls and 6 shots or so.

Managed a slight improvement this weekend after 5 range sessions during the week working on fixing the early extension that seems to have crept into my swing over the last couple of months. Focusing on hip rotation eventually started to work and the driver was back to baby draw with solid contact after 7 holes or so. Definitely a relief after 3 rounds of absolute garbage off the tee. Shot a 101 (53/48 against a par of 34/38). Much improved back 9 where I managed to convert the range work to what I was doing on the course. Left a few out there as I don't think I holed a putt over 4 ft all day and had a brain fade leading to a 2 shot penalty for playing the wrong ball. Strong finish of 5 over for the last 7 holes gives me confidence for the next time out, especially as I bogied the last 2 par 5s despite being 25 yards from the green in 2.

Had an absolute disaster on Sunday, shot 110. I was spraying the driver (and in fact anything I tried to hit off the tee) everywhere and had 10 penalty strokes in 18 holes. Big blocks and pull hooks with the occasional snap hook just for variety. An honourable mention for a 2nd shot 3 wood on the 580 yard par 5 18th, out of the first cut, that went arrow straight 300 yards to about 15 yards short of the green (downwind with a stiff breeze but I'm playing that down 😉). The less said about the duffed chip and 3 putts the better. Made 2 pars and 2 birdies somehow, but 2 9s and 2 10s somewhat killed the card. Days like that need to be erased from the memory! My learning style is reflective though, so after a long think about what was different from a few weeks back when I was hitting driver really well I concluded that I was snapping my left leg straight before impact which was throwing the club off-plane. I need to remember that I don't have the flexibility to fold myself in half sideways like Rory so that much use of the left leg is not going to have a pretty outcome. Went to the range last night and worked on maintaining height through the swing and rotating my hips correctly and (surprise surprise) immediately starting making a more consistent contact with my usual baby draw ball flight. I'll get to the range a couple more times this week and try to get that somewhat embedded. I need to take advantage of some really good course conditions at the moment to get my handicap down. Our place has some nice firm fairways but also receptive greens so I should be scoring much better.

Holed a couple of good putts today to make a new birdie on the par 5 8th and a repeat birdie on the par 4 14th. A couple of decent holes in amongst some dross.

I get this fairly regularly if I play after work. Pretty good focus for 10 or 12 holes before the wheels come off. Had a 42/53 recently. I think my best front 9 round this course is 41 and my best score is 87. Managed to keep a 7 off my card but was less successful with higher numbers 😞

Nope. I have holed a provisional on a par where I didn't find the original ball. It's a 3 on the card and I still regard it as my finest par save scramble ever 🙂 One of my playing partners who witnessed it still likes to describe it as a hole in one and I still have to remind him about the score on the card.

89 on Saturday which is the best round since the op in January. Pleased with it as there was only one triple in there because I made some good choices when out of position. Maintained concentration all the way round. Didn't hole anything outside 6 feet all day, so it was a good job that my distance control was good with the first putts. Really focused on not making 7s, and to be fair I didn't as the triple was on a par 5 😉 And round in 3.5 hours, which is (sadly) gold standard for my home course.

99 on Friday. Again put together a tidy front 9 (43) and had a couple of disaster holes on the back 9. At least this time it wasn't bad course management. I'd been driving well round the front and then hooked 2 in a row OB on 11 followed by a big slice on 13. I love days when I have a 2 sided miss going on 😞

Chip-in for birdie on the 1st on Friday evening. Duplicate, but it seems like I have remembered how to make birdies.

I have no idea what to make of yesterdays round. I shot a 95 which had the potential to be an 80 or 115. Front 9 of 42 (par 34) and a back 9 of 53 (par 38 ). 3 birdies, 3 pars, 6 bogies, 3 doubles, a triple, a quintuple and a sextuple. Complete brain fade on 11. Hit a wild tee shot over a line of trees separating the 11th from the 17th and ended up a couple yards from the tree line in the rough. Smart play would have been to hit a wedge the wrong way down 17, then something like a 7 iron down near the front of the green, make a double and walk away happy. Oh no, trees are 90% air right? That makes the odds of me failing to get back in position 4 times in a row about 10,000 to 1. So we’ll call it bad luck rather than appalling course management. When I finally escaped I drove my push cart into a tree stump on the way out and the handle gave me an eye watering couple of minutes. I hate the 11th and it hates me. I’d also had a short game lesson in the morning, and I’d promised to keep persevering with the 58 degree. That accounted for another half dozen or so shots lost , along with 2 OB tee shots. So I’m a bad student as well as a bad golfer. Stupid, beautiful game.

Not had a sniff of a birdie this year then 3 come along at once. Left a 4th one an inch short in the jaws as well.

Steady improvement. Shot 94 yesterday. Missing one or two 2-3' putts per round, always pulled, which is getting frustrating now. It's not quite the yips, but I can easily see how it could happen. Only made 4 pars from 3 GIR and 9 nGIR so the short game is still somewhat sub-optimal to say the least 🤣 Good enough for a 0.4 cut. Only another 5.4 needed to get to the season goal and 2.9 to get back to where I was last summer. Staying optimistic.

Slow improvement after the hip surgery on a cold and gusty day. After 3 101s in a row where my short game was abysmal but I was driving really well and hitting 10-11 FW, I finally started to find some touch around the greens. So naturally, driver misbehaved and I hit a couple of tee shots OB. Shot 95, didn't mishit a chip and 31 putts total with only one 3 putt this time from about 40' . 4 FW and 2 GIR hit really didn't help though. My body is starting to come to terms with the vastly improved rotation and the fact that I don't need to protect the hip, so I feel like my goal of getting down to 14 HI this year is achievable. It's currently sitting at 19.8, whereas it was down to 16.5 before the pain really started to bite. If everything comes together on the day, I feel like I'm capable of breaking 80.

Having injured a hip flexor 2 weeks ago (while warming up 🤦‍♂️), I got out on Sunday to play my 2nd 18 of the year. Drove the ball really well and hit 11 fairways, but was unable to convert that into anything like a score. Only hit 4 GIR and 3 putted one of those. Didn't make any up and downs, had too many poor contacts with the irons and wedges, chipped twice on multiple occasions and had 4 x 3 putts. All in all, an ugly 101 during what was close to a 5 hour round due to a big club competition out in front. On the upside, I know where my practice needs to be focused this week, it was warm enough to play in short sleeves, I got better as the round went on, and it was great to be out playing and pain free.

I get an email with a few lines of summary of the lesson like this from a recent one: "Great to catch up today, well done with the swing, I can now see why you've played solid since being back. With the swing we saw you can get the takeaway a little more outside the hands for the start to soften the shape but all in all it was good. we are only looking at a slight tweak for this to help. The change in the posture will help the strike and allow the hands to hang and take the tension out to help the consistency . With the putting work on the trusting and the closed eyes drill to really get you to get the hand more passive and allow you to trust the move through the ball. See if you can shorten the backswing on the short puts so you can accelerate through the swing and help control the path of these putts. Use the mirror ruler to really help you with the short putts. Chipping was great, so you are all set for sunday, don't over think it, be confident and focus on keeping still on the short putts and what we worked on" I have a CoachNow account also, so there are key videos from the lesson along with any relevant still pictures supporting what we have worked on, and launch monitor data if useful. He often also checks in between lessons via CoachNow if he hasn't heard from me in a while. He also organises half a dozen or so competitions (at cost price of the course they are at) for his students every year and rotates through the groups to watch them play and feed back after the round on course management etc. In all honesty, I should be way better than I actually am with all the help I get 😀

Lee Trevino - I spend that much time in the woods that I know which roots are edible.

9 holes on Sunday as first game back after hip replacement. Pretty horrible start losing 2 balls in 3 holes (both with irons) and took 3 out of a bunker on 1st, but settled a bit eventually and finished par, par, bogie, bogie. Putted and drove pretty well (4 of 6 FW and and 15 putts) but struggled to get a good iron contact for about 4 holes, until I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. Leg didn't fly off at any point either, happy days 🙂

Didn't play but... ...4 weeks and 3 days after having my left hip replaced I hit a small bucket of balls with a PW on the driving range and did a bit of chipping. For the first time in a while I was able to get my weight transferred properly and get through to a balanced finish. Hit the ball really well after the first couple were out of the way. Very happy. I'll be getting some points on the birdie challenge thread soon.

I also play golf regularly with a guy who has cancer and we make loads of adjustments so he can play. The person in question has nothing wrong with his eyesight, he just doesn’t watch the ball to its end, and often turns away in disgust if he hits a poor shot. Of course, if he did have a problem with his eyesight, we would watch for him and be happy about it.

Great resource! Can't believe I haven't come across this before. Thanks for your time 🙂

Correct, and yes I was making your point. Probably didn't explain it that well, but my point was that you can't tell from video only whether there is any pushing taking place with the trail foot but force plates are unequivocal. Thank you! Just made a few practice swings and I'm definitely shoving my hips forward now. This will be my next range practice goal.

Disclaimer before I start: High handicapper who far too often self-diagnoses. Proper weight shift has been (one of) my biggest swing issues. I disagree that you can't push off your trail foot and still show flexion in the trail knee, which seems to be one of the points of contention through this thread. One of my many problems was that I was actually pushing from the ball of my trail foot and using ankle flex to drive my hips towards the target. It looked on video, and felt as though I was shifting my weight correctly as my right heel was lifted off the ground and my knee still increased flex. It doesn't change the fact that the force plates would have still shown a spike on the trail foot, just that video evidence is not evidence (or not) of pushing off. It led to some issues,: It sometime increased my "height" if that's the right term, leading to thin contact and/or (or maybe due to, I don't have the skillset or equipment to be able to tell) early extension. I sometimes shifted my whole body (torso included) ahead of the ball with predictably poor results. It "felt" as though it limited my hip rotation. I actually watched the AMG force plates video on weight shift a while back, and spent some range time working on the hip slide. It made my ball striking a good bit more consistent. I'm still crap, just less crap than I was 😉 @iacas Would you mind explaining if you have a couple of minutes what you mean by "fall a little bit" please?

Get my left hip replaced in January. Gym and physio to come back fitter, stronger and more flexible (which shouldn't be too difficult given my current level of fitness and flexibilty) Drop handicap index to 14. Currently 19.8, but has been down to 18.5 this year. I'm convinced I have the game to do it and can put together long run of single figure handicap golf, but always have some bad blow up holes. So to achieve this: Hydration and nutrition. Figure out what works to maintain concentration for 4 hours. Reinforce my pre-shot routine. Every range shot to get full concentration. Switch off between shots. Practice 50 yards and in wedge game at least once/week. I have a reasonable wedge game from 115yds - 55yds with swings fairly well calibrated at 5 yard intervals for those distances, but the shorter, more "feel" based shots are not good, and I can have upwards of 15-20 shots/round from that sort of distance including chips from a few yards off the green. Get some alignment sticks! 1 range session per week for driver and irons. Not possible at the moment if I want to be pain free enough to play at the weekend. Do an iron gapping session when fit. Play at least 5 new courses. Try and sneak a round in at Celtic Manor when I'm working in Wales next summer. Enter some club strokeplay competitions. Playing competitive golf definitely seems to sharpen my game compared the the usual weekend 4-ball round. Played in 2 society days this year, winning one with 42 points and 3rd in another with 36 points. Neither round had a hole where I failed to take a point. Break 80. Stretch goal this one, but I have rounds in the mid 90s this year and again I can see where a 79 could come from.