I’ve got two 3 woods and I’ve been trying to decide which to keep in the bag.  I though today might be a fun day do that test.  I must say I’ve also been tempted by the distance claims from TaylorMade golf for the Rocketballz line.  The two 3 woods are an Adams 15 degree superfast from 2 years ago, and a nike VR pro from last year at 13 degrees.  The Adams has an X-Stiff shaft, while the Nike has Porject X 6.0.

Amazingly the both had similar launch angles, with the Nike actually launching slightly higher.  How was the distance?  Normally, the range I go to has a high fence that starts at about the 240 yard line.  My typical 3 wood would carry just short of that and hit the fence on one bounce, or maybe reach the start of the fence.  Today, I had a number of shots that struck the middle of the fence, normally a place reserved for my driver.  I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced 3 woods that solid.

I credit the work I’ve put in this winter on my fundamentals.  Namely I’ve been working with the Powerchute to improve my timing, sequencing, and fitness.  I can’t say enough about it.

Interestingly I’ve been considering getting fit for new clubs.  Not sure I need to do that for my 3 wood.  I did manage to find a winner, the Nike VR Pro 13 degree outperformed the Adams and I’m happy to say that it’s going to take its rightful place in my bag.  In addition, I was hitting all my irons incredibly solid.  It was a phenomenal practice session and I hope things continue well.

My range sessions have shown me that the things I’ve worked on this “off-season”, are beginning to pay off.  Ball striking feels great, and I love the ball flight I’m getting.  I’m launching my irons super high without getting any ballooning.  And my drives feel incredible.  A lot of it has to do with the work that I put in using the Powerchute .  It’s not just a training aid, it’s a real golf fitness tool, and it’s become the main training aid I use.  It has really solidified my swing fundamentals and it’s been incredibly exciting.

What kinds of things you have done this off-season to get ready, and how are they paying off for you?

Powerchute

For the past month I’ve worked with a swing trainer called the Powerchute. I’ve given it an extensive test and the results are in.

What is the Powerchute?

It’s a swing training aid that aims to increase clubhead speed and lag, and improve timing and lag. In addition it strengthens the fast twitch muscles.

You attach the powerchute to your club and it becomes a small sail, that uses the wind created by your swing as the resistance you swing against. I was skeptical at first. I watched the videos on the website and Jack Nicklaus using it and I was still skeptical. It wasn’t until I took my first few swings with the powerchute, and then without it, that the wow factor hit me.

The first swing after you take the powerchute off your club is an amazing. The club feels lighter. The backswing feels normal, and then you start your downswing. My first swing without the Powerchute was so fast that it threw me almost off balance.

After using the Powerchute for a few months now, my old weakness: driving, has turned into a strength. Working with the powerchute daily has really helped with that trouble spot for me. I find that I’ve developed much better sequencing, even better lag, but more importantly I am able to use that lag properly. The resitance from the Powerchute has forced me to use my body and my hands properly to finish the swing correctly.

Over the last few months, the Powerchute has become my favorite swing trainer. I really enjoy heading down to the basement, where I have my golf practice area setup, to make some Powerchute swings. I feel that not only am I practicing solid fundamentals, but I am developing good golf fitness, and in the right muscles.

I can honestly say that the more I use the Powerchute, the more I want to use it. I’ve found new uses for it to help my game overall. It really is the only swing trainer I use now.

Golf Fitness

Now, to the fitness part of the powerchute. I’ve been told that the Powerchute, strengthens the fast twitch muscles that you use in the golf swing. These are the muscles needed to generate speed and power. The Powerchute achieves this by providing a plyometric workout. What are plyometrics? The following is from Wikipedia.

“Plyometrics (also known as “plyos”) is a type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements, and improve the functions of the nervous system, generally for the purpose of improving performance in sports. Plyometric exercises may also be referred to as explosive exercises.”

The golf swing is all about controlled explosive power. It requires finesse, touch, feel, and power. Plyometric training is a perfect fit for golf. A friend of mine trains using Kettle Bells to achieve this, and he happens to be a director of golf so I know that those are great exercies for golf.

I do find that the Powerchute provides a plyometric workout and a very good one at that. The faster you can swing with the powerchute, the more resistance you create, and the more you work out those fast twitch muscles.

At first I found I struggled when I switched from Powerchute swings, to iron swings. They felt too fast. Over the past few months everything that’s gone into the driver has also gone in to improve my iron play.

Conclusion

The Powerchute has been amazing to work with. I was so skeptical at first, but it has improved my power with all clubs, my balance, and my fitness. I have zero hesitations about recommending it. It is worth every penny.  Check it out at: http://www.powerchutegolf.com/

The Taly Mindset is a device that challenges conventional thinking in golf.  It was invented by an engineer who loved the game of golf and wanted to play better. You can read my full review here . The device is now used by many touring pros and teaching pros across the country.  One of the most famous teachers who routinely uses the Mindset to teach is Lynn Blake .

The DVD is a big improvement over what used to come with the Mindset.  Although the pamphlet the came with it before gave some indication as to how it should be used, it really was not detailed enough and left questions unanswered.  It left it up to the golfer through trial and error to figure out what to actually do and how to do it.

The new DVD answers the questions that every golfer needs answered when using the Taly Mindset.   If you can understand the thought that went into the development of the Taly Mindset then you can learn to use it effectively.  And it will change the way you approach golf.

I found the DVD gave me new insights to really understand how to use the mindset.  There is a lot more to it than the pamphlet covers the DVD is an excellent complement to the device.

The new DVD comes with purchases of the Taly Mindset for $89.99 or can be ordered from the Taly Store for $49.99. If you have a a Taly Mindset, I highly recommend the video.  Taly Williams is offering a discount to Taly Mindset owners.  They can use the coupon code “MYDVD” when checking out at the Taly Store.

In a few minutes the Tour Striker brought my ball striking back.  An hour and half and two buckets of balls later, I’m feeling much better about my ball striking.  The difference is dramatic.

Sadly, before this session I was having trouble hitting my 8 iron 150 yards.  It was extremely frustrating.  This afternoon, my 8 iron was a much more respectable 165-170 average carry, with several carrying 175-180.  Now that’s what I’m talking about.

I knew I was on the right track when I started to hit what some low bullets with the Tour Striker.  These bullets went no higher than about 30 feet, but they carried about 200 yards.  The Tour Striker pro that I use is the equivalent of an 8 iron, so that’s some serious contact.  In an earlier conversation I had with Martin Chuck, the inventor of the Tour Striker, he assured me that when I’m hitting those low bullets, it means I’m very close to excellent contact, just millimeters away from perfection.  He’s right.

Shortly after the those low bullets, with a minor adjustment I began to hit them high, super high and solid, and they just carried forever.  It felt so good after this past month of less than perfect ball striking.

I saw this post earlier today and I couldn’t help thinking how much it relates to golf and the way we approach it.

http://lifehacker.com/5832020/ambition-becomes-counter+productive-when-you-expect-things-to-go-as-planned

So often, we set high expectations for ourselves, especially when we’ve been working hard on a particular aspect of our game, like chipping, putting, or driving.  Then when things don’t go as planned we stop having fun.

The problem is that this way of approaching the game, makes it harder to perform well.  It gets in the way.  Or rather, our expectations get in the way.

I want to make a distinction between this and confidence.  You can have confidence without expectations getting in the way.  Confidence is a great thing to have.  In fact it’s what we want to develop in our game.  We want to have confidence that we can hit the shot we’ve committed to hitting.  But I think the greatest confidence comes from knowing that you’ll be all right even if things don’t go as planned.

Watching tournaments on tv you’ll often hear players who are playing well talking about the way they felt during the round.  They knew that even if they missed some shots, that they’d be able to get up and down.  This kept them in the moment.

You’ll see the opposite from players who are playing poorly.  Every bad shot is an arrow through the heart of their confidence.  Every bad shot makes them more miserable.  Frustration sets in and bad shots begin to pile up.

It’s not easy to play without expectations.  But I’ve found a few techniques that help.

1) Focus on this shot right now.  Forget about what happened on the last shot, or the last hole, or the front nine.

2) Make a conscious realization that if the shot doesn’t go as planned, you’ll still be ok.  Golf isn’t life or death.  It’s a game.  It’s a maddening game, but it’s just a game.  Learning to let go of the outcome is incredibly powerful for many reasons.

It was frustrating, but I did get my initial launch monitor spin rates.  They ranged from 2400, to 4200, but most of them were right around 2800.  Like I said, it was a weird day of practice.

I was pretty frustrated so I did some more work in the evening and figured some things out.  It came down to some basics, posture, take away, and clearing the hips.  Correcting these 3 made a huge difference and let me get through the shots more efficiently.

Looking forward to taking these corrections out for a spin tomorrow.

My recent fittings have shown my spin to be in roughly between 2800 on good swings, and 3200 on my poor swings.  My mission is to get this down to a paltry 2200.  A Bridgestone Ball Fitting made some recommendations based on my numbers:  105-107 Swing speed, launch 11.8.  It recommended 2200 rpm as my ideal backspin to optimize carry and total distance.  This means I need to reduce my backspin roughly 1000 rpm give or take a few.

First things first, I need to confirm my current spin rate. I’ve started to make some changes but I think it’s important to get an accurate assessment of where I stand.  I’m sure this won’t be an easy mission, but I think it will be one well worth the effort.

The game is split into two halves, your front nine and your back nine.  On your front 9, each putt is like you’ve hit the in regulation.  Every putt made is a birdie, every putt missed leaves a par putt (you must putt in, 3 putting does count as a bogey).

On your back nine, these are your greens missed in regulation.  Every putt is for par.  Miss and your next putt is for bogey.

So, on the front nine, you want to get as quickly and as far under par as you can.  Be sure to mix in 3 shorter putts (4-6 ft), 3 medium putts (6 – 12ft) and 3 longer putts (more than 12 feet) in each nine.

You’ll find after you finish the front nine and start the back, the pressure really starts to mount as you try to remain under par.  Give it a shot, and tell me what you think.  I’ve found it to be an awesome way to practice.

I’ve tried a lot of different things to maintain a good tempo, but a quick thought came into my head that made for a really good swing thought.  ”Lazy Explosion”.

It may sound a bit funny, but it really worked for me.  The feeling that resulted was one where the swing felt slow, especially the downswing, but the ball just EXPLODED off the club face and flew very far consistently.  When I was doing it right, I never felt rushed and it felt like power built up in a very subtle way.  Of course I still fought my tendency to swing hard, but this idea of a lazy explosion really cut through that most of the time.  I was compressing the ball way more than usual and it felt like it stuck on the clubhead for a split second, before blasting off into space.  Even though my irons are very stiff, with shafts designed for a lower ball flight, the ball flew higher, farther than I’m used to, with no balooning.

Obviously the swing itself wasn’t slow, but it felt that way.  In fact it felt like I had a lot of time between the top of the swing and the start of my downswing and the resulting shots were really exciting to watch.

• accurate distances
• satellite views of the holes
• fly overs
• scoring for multiple players
• club recommendations
• No subscription fees

How does the application work in real life?

In order to start using Mobitee you need to create at least one golfer in the system.  The process is simple and painless and then you can start using the application.

On course Mobitee is an accurate GPS.  The target selector allows you to pick out any target and get the distance to it, in the same way that advanced gps units like the SkyCaddie SGX allow.

One of the nicest features of the application is a fly over of the hole.  It’s perfect for holes with blind shots.

As new courses are added, the application is automatically updated.  There is no need to manually download any courses, as they are downloaded automatically when you want to play them.

Overall, Mobitee is an excellent golf GPS.  It compares nicely to stand alone units.  While I can’t say that it is as accurate as something like a SkyCaddie,  it is accurate for most recreational use.  One glitch I ran into is that unlike traditional gps units, it’s best to turn off the setting for getting your location from wireless networks.  This setting can interefere with the performance of the gps and provide some wrong yardages.

Mobitee is priced at 24.90 for the full version.  A lite version is good for showing you up to the first 5 holes on each course.

One of my favorite uses for Mobitee is tournament or course preparation.  Because you can see each hole and move the pointers around you can plan your on course strategy.  It becomes like an interactive yardage book and it’s a lot of fun to do.  This way you can plan angles and shots into the greens and give yourself an opportunity to shoot a low score.

Mobitee has created a fun contest to win $250 just for downloading Mobitee Lite.

Interesting article with an in-depth look at Luke Donald’s stats.  With Luke Donald ranking low on the driving distance category you would have expected him to rank higher in accuracy, given that his low ranking in distance would put him at a disadvantage on approaches from the rough.

I’ve always considered myself a decent iron player, but I’ve made a concerted effort as well to improve my accuracy off the tee.  I’ve noticed an improvement in my scores from that.  Here’s what Luke had to say about his improvement in this area.

“At the beginning of the year the focus was to get my percentages up, getting it more in the fairway, hitting more greens,” Donald said. “I think the last few years — I’ve said this before — I think I got it to a point where I was trying to hit the ball too hard.

“My swing got to a place I didn’t really like, and it was affecting me quite heavily off the tee. … For as far as I hit a ball, I needed to hit more fairways than I did.”

I was encouraged by my practice session on Monday evening.  This morning it was a slightly different story.  I hit a couple of toppers which right away told me that I had too little shaft lean.  When I corrected that I hit a number of low flat stingers.  The balls took off low, stayed lower than 30 yards high and carried about 175 yards into the fog.  They felt solid.

I decided to reach out to Martin Chuck, the inventor of the Tour Striker to tell him about this month long test with his product as well as to get some advice on how best to take advantage of the time.

Based on his suggestions I will be working on the following over the next 30 days.

Tour Striker Practice Game Plan

1. Learn how to let the club land with forward lean. Do this with both hands and with each hand individually.
2. Monitor where you are touching the ground with hands together and individually. Seek to get similar results with the club landing inside the left heel.
3. Hit some “9 to 3″ shots trying to get the leading edge of the TS as close to the ground as possible. Keep the left arm on the upper chest, don’t chase the target line.
4. Get use to anticipating the “thud” of touching the ground, not smashing, just touching.
5. Take this “9 to 3″ into fuller swings with a focus on balance and rhythm.

I plan to take about a week with each of these guidelines (give or take a few days).

Low Flat Bombs

The exciting thing about hearing from Martin was that to cure my low flat bombs I need just a touch more shaft lean.  So things are not that far off.  All in all it was an encouraging session.  I had a lot of very solid strikes and my distance control feels somewhat more consistent.

I’ll be working to add that little bit extra shaft lean and see what happens with these low flat bombs.

Why the Tour Striker

I picked the Tour Striker because over the past couple of months I’ve noticed something interesting.  Inexplicably I’ve had periods of incredible ball striking, followed by periods where I lost significant distance with my irons.

With this in mind I decided the Tour Striker would be the perfect tool for the job.

So today I brought the Tour Striker out and headed to the range.

Although I had no problem getting the ball in the air with the tour striker, hitting off firm mats, I knew I wasn’t making perfect contact.  Over the next hour I was able to hone in on the problem and the Tour Striker was incredibly helpful.

The results of Day One

My shot shape went from high spinny shots to penetrating shots that seemed to fly forever.  It was exciting to see my distance come back, and to boot it happened so quickly.  However, I’m not ready to say 100 percent that it was the tour striker’s influence.  I may have happened to have a great range session.  All in all it was a good start.  I will continue working with the Tour Striker over the next month and report back on the results.

What I’ve realized is that I was decelerating on those short putts and when you do that it becomes very difficult to have any consistency or to actually control the speed of your putts.  Our minds don’t react well to deceleration.  They can’t judge have quickly something is slowing down as well as they can judge how quickly something is speeding up.  At least that’s true in my experience, although I’m sure there are some of you out there who will disagree and that’s fine.

For putting though you always want to be accelerating.  One of the best ways to practice this is actually with short putts.  It will really train in feel an in an amazing way.

As I worked with this technique last night, in a very short while I gained tremendous feel for distance.  The main thing I did was to ensure that on every through-stroke you feel an acceleration compared to your back swing.  Try this out, take some short putts and really focus on feeling the acceleration into the ball.  You’ll start to get a lot more feel, and your putting will improve.

Here is what the technical folks at Optishot provided. I hope it helps anyone who is having some technical issues with their unit.

The best way for an individual to get technical support is to follow the link below, fill out the form and use it to ask questions. Then we will get back to them as quickly as we can.

http://support.dancindogg.com/reportissue

However, inaccurate swing results is the most common cause of frustration. There are three possible parts to this issue, lighting in the room, Swing Pad integrity, and software adjustments.

The most common cause of inaccurate results is lighting. Following the guidelines below will help mitigate erroneous swing results.
Incandescent, halogen, and day light in even small indirect amounts will negatively affect performance.
OptiShot works best when used in a room with fluorescent lighting.
Warehouse lighting such as Sodium Vapor or Metal Halide also work very well.
Shadows from objects such as the club shaft and the golfer also may negatively affect performance.
Overhead light is generally better than light from the side of the room.
Something else to keep in mind is that irons will tend to produce more accurate results compared to woods. Drivers like the R9, R11 or the King Cobra for example do not work well with OptiShot because of the intricate design on their underside. We have found that drivers with a smooth and reflective bottom will yield more accurate results with OptiShot than those with an irregular and non reflective bottom.

If your lighting is properly set up and you are still having an issue try running OptiShot with the Swing Pad connected and turn off or at least dim all the lights in the room and observe the infrared sensors. With the exception of the Green/Red status light, every other bulb should glow faintly red. If some are out that should be lit then the Swing Pad should be replaced.

If your lighting is properly set up and you are still getting inaccurate results then you could create a custom club set (click link below). Select the actual club you are using, take a few swings and observe the results. If the results are not quite what you would expect then you may edit a number of factors that may bring your swing results in line. For instance, if your club face is always open you could try setting the club’s offset to something dramatic like -5.9 and observe the results. Then you could dial in that number bit by bit until the ball flies true. Next you might edit the club’s speed adjustment up or down from 100% (200% maximum) to bring the club head speeds in line with what you would expect. Then observe the distance the ball is traveling. If that is off you could make an adjustment to the Distance Adjustment up or down from 100% (200% maximum) until the distances are correct. You would then do this for each club.

http://support.dancindogg.com/practice-mode#clubset-configuration

Jonathan B Cole
Technical Support Lead
231.421.2397
866.941.3644 ext. 306
Dancin’Dogg Golf
Leading the Home Golf Revolution!

Watching Morning Drive this morning, I was in total agreement with the comments that Brandel Chamblee (@BrandelChamblee) made about Rickie Fowler.

“You understand the best way to play golf, this is my opinion, is to go out there and try to hit shots…You know,it’s the big lie to me, that you can go out there and swing perfectly.  And I understand why guys do it.  I mean literally they’re trying to play this game in the most organized fashion, there’s so much money out there, and if you can stay on tour a long time, you can get ridiculously rich. So what are you gonna do? You’re gonna work out, you’re gonna get a sports psychologist And you’re going to take all these lessons ’cause you want everything to be perfect. And Rickie’s like ‘No, I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna hit golf shots. I’m gonna hit it high, I’m gonna hit it low, I’m gonna draw it, fade it.’  And I know it’s because of the way he was taught the game. His teacher was very much into hitting golf shots. And that’s why he plays fast.  Because he’s not out there thinking about a pre-shot routine, and he’s not out there thinking about swing mechanics. He’s out there thinking about golf shots.”

There’s a ton of wisdom in what Brandel said this morning.  This is why Rickie is the future of golf.  And I think he is going to stun us with what he is going to accomplish in his career.

I want to contrast this style of play with Tiger Woods.  And my intention is not to bash Tiger but to look at differences.

Tiger Woods when he was dominant could hit every shot in the book and then some.  He created that famous stinger and it appears he doesn’t even have that shot any more.  Tiger said he is thinking about his swing and swing mechanics now before every shot and it looks that way.  When he gets off track, he goes into repair mode, and it’s mechanics, mechanics, mechanics.  The artfulness seems to be have left him, at least for now.

On the other hand, Rickie Fowler (and several other players, most notably Bubba Watson), look like golf artists.  They see shots, and they hit shots.  They use the golf course as their canvas and they create masterpieces of golf.  Plus they’re really fun to watch.

So where does this leave us (the amateur golfer)?  Well, for one, I know when I’m playing my best it’s when I’m seeing and hitting shots and when I’m not thinking about mechanics.  There are times when golf seems so much easier.  Conversely, when I’m playing poorly, it’s all about mechanics.  The swing ends up feeling like it’s separate from me. And it feels forced.

If you’ve read this blog for a while you know that I’ve moved away from mechanics to a feel based approach, where I not only see the shots I’m trying to create, but try to feel what it’ll feel like to hit them.  And every shot is unique and feels differently.  This makes golf more fun, and the end result for me has been better scores, more fun, and not having to practice as much.

Other posts about Rickie Fowler:

Pro’s slow motion swings

Rickie Fowler – a result of Consistent Coaching

Stuck in a slump?

If you’re a serious golfer, you want to be able to practice at home.  It’s not always easy to get to the golf course with all of the obligations we have on our lives.  It was with this thought in mind that I got a BirdieBall putting green.  I received it as a present from my parents, who know just how serious I take my golf.

I received the 13.5 x 9 ft green.  Although it would have been nice to get a bigger green for those long putts, I really don’t have the room for it.  The width at 4 feet allows me to comfortably hit putts to all three cups.

The green comes in three speeds, slow (9-10 on the stimp meter), medium (10-11 stimp) or fast (11-12 stimp).  Since most of the time I’m playing in real life on greens in the 10-11 stimp range, I opted for that one.  The nice thing about knowing how it stimps, is that it allows me to train in a solid frame of reference.  I can get good from various distances with a green speed I play on regularly.  Since I don’t often play fast greens, it didn’t make sense to get the faster green.

What I Like

The green is quite realistic in terms of speed.  It’s soft and springy like a real green, and it rolls out nicely.  Check out the video above to see the roll.  The surface is nice and textured and in fact you can add grain to it.  By brushing the green in one direction or the other you can actually make it faster or slower.  The green also comes with some foam inserts that allow you to create breaks in the green, from very subtle to severe.

What I don’t Like

The cups are too shallow.  If you’re putting on a hard surface, the ball will go in the hole and pop back out.  I usually end up putting the cup side over some carpet to soften the ball impact and so that it has less chance of popping out.

The other thing I don’t like is the cups themselves and the target flags.  The cups are a hard plastic and although they have some holes that are supposed to catch the ball, they often don’t.  The target flags are so light that if the green moves a tiny bit they fall.  They have no weight to them.  So I usually take out the cups and the flags and just putt to the holes.  It’s not a big problem, but they do ruin the feeling a bit.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a solid green.  With fixed cups (a bit deeper) and flags (a bit more weight to them, and not as flimsy), I would heartily recommend it.  It’s less expensive than other greens that are similar.  It has a much better feel and roll, then almost all other synthetic greens that I’ve been, so that is a huge plus.  All in all, it has some limitations, but I’m glad I have it because I can set it up how I want, as well knowing that I’m practicing to a speed I’ll encounter almost every round I play.

When I’ve had a good session with my coach, I know it because what he is trying to get me to do feels strange.  It’s not something I’m used to.  It’s important to remember that feeling of it being strange.  I think though because it’s strange, it’s unfamiliar and it doesn’t stick.  It feels uncomfortable and on some level we don’t want to do it, but we need to get familiar with the unfamiliar in order to change.

If you look at most amateur golfers, they take lessons, but they don’t really get better.  Part of that is practice time and not having enough of it.  But I think a more significant reason is that as soon as the lesson ends, we start forgetting what was being taught.  We start forgetting how it feels.  And we start intellectualizing it.  And a golf swing, is not something you want to do intellectually.  You want to feel it, and you want to do it.  You want it to be automatic.

Recently I met with a golf pro friend and we talked about the swing changes I’ve been working on over the winter.  He acknowledged that I’ve made solid progress and then had me implement a little adjustment, to bring my hands closer to my body on the down swing.

It felt good, but it definitely felt strange.  Over the past few days, I’ve concentrated on maintaining that feeling.  I’ve made hundreds of practice swings with that thought, and I can feel it becoming a part of me.  It’s not a hundred percent there, but I know I’m making progress.

I think it’s important to ingrain these feelings at first without a ball, as the introduction of the ball, messes up a lot of players.  The tensions that ball can create, limits how much you can feel, it’s distracting and it leads to going back to old habits.  Practice the feeling without the ball, until you can really really feel it, the gradually introduce the ball.  It will make all the difference and help those swing changes stick.