Journey to scratch

[MelloYello]

19 hours ago, kengan said:

added additional goal for this year: hitting 50% fairways off the tee. 

 

As my distance have grown with the speed training and weight training, so have my dispersion off the tee. In addition I'm missing off the tee in both directions, currently to date I'm hitting 39% fairways and 29%/31% to left and right respectively. 

 

A shot I'll be looking to gain is a 10-20 yard fade fairway finder for the tighter holes. If my goal is to score well, I should probably hit that shot 100% off the tee. 

 

Ideally with the speed gains, I want to swing more easy but have more stable speed on course. 

 

Obviously every shot curves to some degree, but aim to hit your driver as straight as you can.

 

A good rule to remember is that no matter your handicap, the people beyond you are always hitting it straighter--that too is also part of getting longer. The more you build up the skill of hitting it straight the better you'll be and the faster you'll see your handicap trend downward. 

 

 

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Edited January 17, 2023 by MelloYello

[bladehunter]

14 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

Obviously every shot curves to some degree, but aim to hit your driver as straight as you can.

 

A good rule to remember is that no matter your handicap, the people beyond you are always hitting it straighter--that too is also part of getting longer. The more you build up the skill of hitting it straight the better you'll be and the faster you'll see your handicap trend downward. 

 

 

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1000 %.  “Straight” is written on my glove.  I can hit either curve. But why ?  I can also hit it straight if I want.  It will have a tail sometimes. But I’m  just saying trying to zero out path.  
 

I always find whne I get into trouble , it’s when I’ve watched some doofus on TV drawing the driver.  And suddenly I think I need to.  Then we play block , duck hook.  Repeat.  But I can stand up and hit one straight.  Maybe with a tiny fade tail , 9.5 out of 10 swings.  
 

the reason for this is that high draw feels so good !  But the inevitable average of one double bogey a round trying to hit it does not.  

Edited January 17, 2023 by bladehunter

[Hkovo17]

Your mind will take you to that next level. 

Next step for you is trusting your work and taking less time over the ball after you've taken the last glance at the target. As soon as you look down, even if you're not ready to go... go. 

[kengan]

Added Garmin stats for full transparency and so that I can reflect back to it and compare at the end of the 2023 golf season.

 

Drive: As discussed above, the two way misses have costed me. Will be looking to hit a power fade as my go to for this season since that seems more manageable. I'll also be looking to add a stinger fade with the driver + fairway finder 2/4 iron or 3/5 wood off the tee for days when the drivers are not cooperating. Fairways are tight at the courses where I frequent. 

 

Approach: Per online stats, most amateurs miss short, and that's totally fine with me since it's gone for most courses if it's long. Would like the spread to get tighter and maybe hit 50% of the greens on approaches. At times I tend to try and add too much shaft lean with the wedges and it ends up shanking. Been telling myself to adjust the ball in my setup and play the natural loft of the clubs more as opposed to force it with hand positions. 

 

*also interesting to see the short left drives.... those are all from duck hooking. Another reason why I should try and hit those 10 yard baby cuts. 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by kengan

[jestein1679]

Hit a ton of drivers in practice.  Half your bucket at range sessions should be devoted to driver.  It’s the most important club in the bag.  The sole focus should be keeping it in play. We want to reduce tops, snap hooks, complete duffs etc.  You don’t need to hit the fairway!  It just needs to be in play at a reasonable distance.
 

Practice on the range pretending trouble is say on the right and try to hit a reasonable driver not in trouble.  Switch to the left next.   
 

Don’t try and hit different shots. You’re not good enough and few are.   In play at a reasonable distance is the sole goal.  Hit a lot of drivers!

[kengan]

Update after not posting for 4 months: 

 

Weather quickly warmed up here in PNW - golf season is now in and I'll be aiming to be 1 round per week on average + 6-9 holes of sunset rounds. 

 

Can't believe I'm saying this but the game has been great. Off season tweaks are paying dividends - the last round I was able to have full confidence of my long game. Ended up shooting 86 with 40 putts, which doesn't seem to be an uncommon theme considering I had 39 putts in the prior round of 18 I played. The score itself was not much better than my previous best but it is encouraging to see that area that I can significantly improve in is in putting, the area I've neglected on and also to what I believe is the easiest part of the game to shave strokes on. 

 

The area of focus for the next little bit will be chipping and putting. I have no confidence on holing the 3 feet putts on greens with moderate breaks, to which I attribute to a lack of experience. What I believe will help is to have an extra ball in my pocket and redo any 3 feet putts I miss to see how much break the putt truly demands versus my original read. As for chipping, there were a couple of holes where shots have costed me. Reflecting back at one of the poor chips, I had selected the wrong shot to play; I had short sided myself on a par 3 and my ball was in the rough between a bunker and the flag. With the ball in a poor lie, I had opted to open the face and with a lack of conviction on the shot, I ended up skulling it 15 yards right. My poor decision might have been an unconscious one as I had been hitting more or less the same type of chips on that day. In any case, practicing different lies and having multiple tools around the green would definitely help. 

 

Lastly, I was also able to get a chance to get trackman stats recently. Playing driver speed is around 108 average. I'd like to get a bit stronger and have that go up to 110+ in the next little bit but that's not the main focus at this point. The angle of attack had come across as a surprise: what I felt like was neutral was 4 degrees down. Even when I exaggerated to the point where it felt like I was aiming 10 degrees up, it ended up only 1 or 2 degrees. Now knowing this, I'll aim to gradually working on hitting up more so that I can still play mid season without making too drastic of a change.