More Progress

I have not been keeping my many, many readers up to date in re my on going theory of the golf swing.

Lots of things have been going on.  The main points are that I am trying to turn and keep the body fairly stable over the ball.  Ok, not over the ball, but a touch behind it.  Thus no slide back and no need to slide forward.

Once I started that, I found that I had no need to manipulate the club with my hands.  They were, in the immortal words of Ben Hogan, "freewheeling through the swing."

Of course, and I include this only for completeness, that you can't be lunging forward in the downswing.  Maintaining the body location is required.

Can we do this or is more of an "easier said than done?" 

I can state with no reservation that this is all quite doable.

Today the pieces dropped into place.  I turned, I stayed, I cocked the wrists, I came down in the proper area, my plane was good, the club squared up, I kept the swing in front of me...  And the ball was very happy to go where I wanted it to go.

Distance, good, direction was the envy of my playing partners.

Even the driver, when I chose to pull it out, was operating properly.

Of course, there is always a fly in the ointment and the putter was a bit balky.  I had less than 10 foot birdie putts all over the course.  Never made a one. 

I was applying some of full swing items to the putter swing.  I was killing the ball!  It was zooming off and rolling nicely and it had the proper over spin.  All good, but the tendency was to hit it too well, too long, and I was not making all of the return putts.  On the front nine I shot 3 over with 3 three putts.   The back was equally solid. 

Add all of this to the fine weather and a good group of players.  It was a very fine day to play.  The swing items worked far better than expected.  I am very excited about those.  Maybe all that practice and thought has finally gelled.  It is all good.  I won't be playing tomorrow, but I'll get to the range and try to cement in some of the above items. 

Everything I Need to Know about Golf, I Learned From Hitting my Nine Iron

I'm at the range and it's going pretty well.  There is a young boy there and he is sitting on a nearby bench with his grandfather. 

The grandfather goes off for a lesson from Stan, the aged, local pro.

I say something to the boy.  I don't remember what it was, but something encouraging.  He says, "My grandpa says you never miss a shot."

In some ways old granddad is correct.  At least compared to others at the range.  I assure the lad that the better you get, the more you can find wrong with what you are doing.

I told the boy that he has about a 40 year head start on my golf career and I'm sure he will over take me in no time.


On to our main topic.  Faithful readers will note my long struggle with the big stick. 

When I practice I start with my 9 iron.  Also I've been pretty good about keeping my head behind the ball.  So everything but the driver has been very well behaved. 

I keep pondering this.  "What's the secret of the nine iron?"  I pull it out and set up to hit a ball and try to be very observant about what I'm doing.

I realize that I put very little body action into the swing.  I'm basically turning shoulders and then turning them back.  The body is very quiet.  The backswing is slow.  I have infinite trust in this swing.  It's the envy of my friends and enemy of tight pins. 

A light goes on...

Let's try doing these several things with all the clubs...  It seems that the speed of the backswing depends on how far I'm trying to hit the ball.  Bad, bad!  I try taking the club back slowly.  Then let's try this "bodyless" swing for all the clubs.  Hmm, this seems to be working.

I grab for the big stick.  I'm very happy with my contact.  I'm not sure how far it's going, but it's straight and up in the air.

Hope returns again. 


Meanwhile I mentioned pickleball the other day.  This showed up in my youtube feed and I'm hot to give it a try.  I got a paddle and some balls.  After my range session I went over to the courts.  They were vacant as usual.  But I could try some serves.

My last racket/paddle sport is table tennis.  I found that I had to hit the ball a lot harder than expected.  It took a couple of hits before I got a ball over the net.  If you watch the players on youtube they are whacking it pretty hard.  There will be an adjustment here.  I'm glad I didn't talk anyone into hitting with me before I tried it.  There will be a learning curve here.

The Plan Continues

It was another cool, windless morning at the Las Positas golf course.  The sun was buried behind amorphous clouds that would take a number of holes to burn off.

The seniors had made the turn from their backed up shotgun start.  Our usual group of intrepid golfers were off on their Monday round.  Sadly, a number of our regulars were absent.  Rich II, a usual stalwart member, was off on another course with his third golf group -- he does play around. 

Dick, aka Rich 0, wanted to play the forward tees as the Wednesday contest would be played from there. 

So off we went onto a strangely dry course.  Normally the dew and left over watering makes for some heavy grass laden with juice.  It finds its way into all shoes and, rumor has it, capable of dissolving glue on some usually good shoes.

Playing from the reds was fine with me.  I could work on my iron game and not worry about trying to hit long drives.  And so it went.  I've made changes to keep the ball to the left of my head through out the swing and it's still doing a wonderful job.

My length with the clubs has gotten longer and as I'm trusting what I'm doing, the distance continues and it's become nearly effortless.

One of my other swing thoughts, there has to be at least two, is to allow the club to swing and slap the ball as it comes into impact.  No longer trying to drive the hands past the ball, just let the club come around and the momentum from all of that to bring me out and up from the hitting position.

I was hitting everything with the utmost confidence and thoroughly enjoying every hit.

How did you score?  I hear you ask.  Not badly, a smooth 76, which pretty common these days.  I had a three putt and did hit one tee shot into a bunker, which cost a stroke.  But two birdies and 15 greens in regulation.  There were a couple of lip outs.  It all could have been better and I can't see that it could have been worse.

All fun, all good.  But, yes the driver needs to be hit the same as the other clubs.  I'm looking forward to that day.  And I suspect that it might be fairly soon. 

When a Plan Comes Together

As faithful readers will remember, the gist of the new goals is to keep the old noggin behind the ball.  Start it there and keep it there. 

With minimal exception I was able to do that today.  Woods, irons were all on the program and chipping in to do their best.

Of course there is always a fly in ointment and the putter, usually a friendly chappy, was a bit cold at times.  I hit it close enough to have made 5 birdies without much work and dare I bring up the three 3 putts?  Well, in the interest of an honest account, I must.

I've not added up the score, but it was pretty good.  I did manage a couple of birdies in spite of the short stick.  Played most of the holes with goodly purpose and forethought.

Let me take you back to the long 6th.  It's 500 yards and there are trees left and out of bounds.  To your right there is a yawning trap that never sleeps and if you hit it right and avoid the trap, there are trees to block an efficient advance.

One of the interesting parts to this hole is that there are bunkers left and right at 100 yards.  The gap between then is about 20 yards wide and there is some banking and such around the bunkers.

I decided to eschew the driver off the tee.  My four woods is reliable and I was center fairway and about 280 to the green. 

I like to get around the 100 yard distance for an approach shot and 180 yards is a bit awkward for me.  The 5 iron tends to about 170 on a good day and the hybrid is been dashing off about 200.  I hit the hybrid without putting too much behind it.  Off it races and the ball slips into that 20 yards gap between the traps. 

When I get up to it, it's managed to roll out to about 80 yards in.  The pin is back left, top tier of the green and there are fearsome bunkers short and left.

Well, 80 is most of a sandwedge.  I keep the old pill on the left side of my head and give it a wack.  High and to the point it goes.  Hits on line and runs out to two feet.  I tap in for 4. 

I was quite pleased with my approach and club selection all around on this hole. 

That was pretty much how it went all day.  Solid shots, even some drivers working.  Off to a nice lunch at the Costco.

The only thing to spoil it was that on the first tee Allen mentioned that the back of my pants had split open!

Wednesday Round

On Wednesday it is important to get out early.  Steve and I teed off at 7:20 or so and had a nice run with little waiting until late in the back nine.

Every other week the seniors have a little competition and since they make them putt out everything, they are slow.

I played with them one time and the putt out everything is not a good rule.  The group I played with frequently would have 3 or more putts each and since they all count, they took a lot of time with each one.

There is a joke out there about writing the book, "How to line up your third putt."  Sadly it is no joke with this group. 

The seniors, not liking a slow round themselves, put their slow guys up last.  Then they drag behind and all of us non-competitors move no faster than the slowest group.  Asking the marshal, excuse me, player assistant, to cattle prod the slow guys, rarely works.  Basically it's slow and you want to get out early.

7:30 or so in the middle of the summer is a nice time.  This time of year, it is chilly and wet.  The dew is heavy and waterproof shoes are a really good idea.  I had a friend who liked to play in sandals.  They make them for golf.  His feet were soaked early and often.  He said he didn't mind, but it didn't look like a comfortable condition to me.

I had some goals for my Monday round.  I discarded them for new ones today.  I was determined to stay behind the ball, i.e., staying at the back of the batters' box.  There might have been another, but it has slipped away.

I was pretty successful with this.  I managed to hit most of my drives, only one was pulled.  A few went high right and a bunch found the fairway with reasonable distance.

The rest of the game was just fine, thank you. 

Jackets came off on the 7th hole.  Which is a bit late.  It is kind of a cool day.  It's just reached 80 on the patio and it's about 2:30. 

I had one birdie.  Bunches of pars.  Maybe two double bogeys as a couple penalty shots showed up.  I tried to hit a low slice out from under the trees on 10 and it pushed, caught a limb, and found the arroyo!  My pitch after a drop, was one of my most solid shots.  Alas, the putt didn't fall.

We were done playing about 10:40, so the round took all of 3 hours and 20 minutes.  Steve is like me, a no nonsense player -- just get up to it, grab a club and give it a wack.  He plays a nice game, thought he was a bit off today.  He blames this on painting his fence all day yesterday and then going off to taco Tuesday for $1 tacos and $3 beers.  I suggested that he have 3 tacos per beer and not vice versa.

He is good company and we enjoyed a snack post round.  I pitched the idea of some pickleball to him as he used to play tennis.  There are courts in Livermore.  I went over and looked at them.  I hoped to run into some players, but the park was empty save for a couple of guys just hanging out and another guy on the tennis courts practicing his combat pistol shooting footwork. 

I'm going to keep at this stay behind the ball stuff.  It's the right thing to do and I'm not doing it and when I do it with my irons they are as wonderfully straight as usual.  So there is much to gain and nothing to lose!

Goodness Around the Greens

The best round of my life was 2 under.  But it was not being under par that caught my attention, it was that the round was bogey free.

I managed to do it again today.  18 consecutive pars.  But, wait, there's more!  I played the links course yesterday and shot that at 2 under, also bogey free.  Hmm, so it's been 27 holes without an error.

The front nine had some scrambling today.  I had consecutive sand saves.  Considering the consistency of the sand at the course, this is impressive.  They lost a lot of bunkers when the floods came a couple of winters ago and it's been slow to reconstruct them.

I think I had 4 missed greens besides the sand shots.  I managed to chip them all close enough that the putts were "gimmes." 

13 putts on the front and 16 on the back.  I had 36 putts on Monday and managed to shoot 76.  It's been a pretty easy stroll around the course this week.

My driver is still an issue.  I had a couple of two hundred yard shots into greens that should have been 150 or so. I'm off to the range to work on that tomorrow. 


I keep imagining that I've found various things that point to a solution.  But it never seems to last nor travel well from range to course.  The drives that were good today, I felt that I hit them at 10% power.  Perhaps there is some value in that.

Not much else to report.  Oh, I borrowed a putter I wanted to try for the back nine today.  No miracles, but it did a pretty good job of moving the ball on the greens.  The putter was an Evnroll model ER1, an Anser shaped head.  I've been a mallet guy for awhile, so this was a bit different.  But I holed all the short ones and the long guys were close enough.  Doesn't make me want to run out and replace what I have, which is an early Titleist Red X by Scotty Cameron.

The days are getting shorter and the early holes are cooler.   The fairways are damp and I fear my golf shoes are leaking.  But the pars are rolling in, so there is much contentment to be had.

Another Monday

And back to the golf course...

I was trying to get to the driving range yesterday, but the wind was blowing 25 or so and it was too windy to chip.  I had no need to try and hit any full shots, so I called it a day.  My back got a twinge in it and some time off was probably prudent.

I watched a lot of the Safeway open, which was played an hour up the road from here.  They had some of the wind too on Sunday.  It was a play off finish.  I do like how Ryan Moore hits the ball.

I was trying to incorporate some of Ryan's nice wrist set today.  It was a day of much distance and good ball striking.  Add to that some putts were dropping. 

In addition to the wrist cock, I'm getting more athletic in my back swing.  I'm allowing the lower body to do some moving.  I think I've been trying to lock everything up for control.  The new movements are as accurate, easier to do, and it feels a lot more powerful.  The swing seems to have a nice solid base from which I can swing.  

It feels very liberating.  I was tempted to go to the range after playing today and try to cement in the feeling.

Tomorrow is another day and I'll get out a bit later than early morning and see how it goes.

Confidence

I got a link from my golf mentor.  It was about confidence.  The idea per the author was that confidence is a learnable skill.  With some effort you can get better at it and that should lead to more even play -- less mental dips, less fear of failure.

Here were some of my thoughts in a reply to Sonny:

Thanks for the link in re confidence.

I would like to believe in this.  I don't really have a reason to doubt it, but I think it may be a bit more complex then saying to yourself "I can do this!"  

Humans have a couple of problems.  One being that we are too adaptive.  We are not good at doing something the same way time and time again.  We are always looking for a new/better way.

Of course this is good when we have a strange golf takeaway.  We somehow manage to get get club on ball.  But if we couldn't get the club back to the ball, we would have to change the goofy swing.  More of that and it might lead to better swings more quickly.

VJ Singh said that confidence comes from doing something 20,000 times.  Dave Pelz might agree with that.  Though Pelz was saying that until you do something 20k times, you have to consciously be aware of how you are doing it.

I would suggest that you do not have to do everything 20,000 times.  I think when you come up to a different lie or some other golf puzzle, if you stand back a moment and figure out what the problem is and decide how to alter stance or loft or swing to overcome it, then you draw on all the years of experience, indeed the 20k swings in your past to overcome this new problem.  So in some sense the new problem is just a minor variation on older ones.  Ones that you have solved before.

As long as there is a bit of analysis and then resolution/decision, then I think you should be confident about what will happen.

Of course you have to be sane about what is possible.  Hitting a buried bunker shot 150 yards is probably not doable by anyone and thus the resolution may be where to hit the shot that is going to go 20 yards.  Basically take your lumps and don't turn one back shot into two or three.  

Thanks for the link.  I'll see if I can apply it to my game too.

Can You be Too Optimistic?

I was off to the range today.  Some inspiration in re the Ryder Cup and some just because I'd had a day off.  Sure I'd swung a few in the backyard and watched a few videos, but basically no golf.  Okay, I watched 8 hours or so.  Sheesh, the Americans can't play team events.  Why is that? 

But David from the UK was happy!

Ok, back to the range. 

The speed post talked of dropping the arms as the first step in the down swing.  What this feels like to me is that you line up your hands about waist high and then apply speed.   I'm a guy who is willing to try new stuff, so I'm going to try it.

And while swinging a shaft with no head on it in the backyard, I found that it went faster when I kept my left hip from moving much. 

Let's put both together and see what happens!

The irons went like the lord above suggested they should.  Then I went to the 4 wood.  It too had a "get out of jail card" attached to it too.  The sound of the strikes was different and wonderful.

Where I was hitting, there was a bench and it was quite close to where the clubs were flying.  A family took up residence on the line next to me.  A gal sat on the bench.  "Can I move the clubs?  They seem to be in your way" I asked.  "No, no, it's all fine.  Is it ok that I sit here?"  "Sure, no problem, but you have to clap when I hit a good one."  She went back to her phone.

I hit a good one.

"You should have clapped for that one," I said.

"It sounded great."  And this from a non-golfer.  She was right. 

For all the clubs save the driver, I could drop my hands and then come in low and fast.  Just like in that scene in Dr. Strangelove.

The driver seems to have a lot of emotion bound to it.  I can't relax and just hit it like the other clubs.  Maybe some day.  But I was very tickled with the everything.  I pitched and cycled through the clubs and everything was monstrous and wonderful.

I'm worried that the clubs will be longer and I'll have to recalibrate distances.  I'm ok with that.  The contact was what every golfer wants.

Monday will tell the tale...