For any golfer who wants to play great golf
Tour Striker – Day 12 – Confidence Building
May 7th
Over the past 12 days working with the tour striker I’ve seen a significant improvement in my ball striking. For a while and before re-acquainting myself with the TS my distance control was inconsistent.
I’m now much more consistent with my distance control and my I’ve added about 15 yards with each iron.
I’ve found that not only is the TS a great practice tool, but it is also a fantastic way to check your ballstriking.
The Tour Striker helps with consistency
Twelve days ago I was very inconsistent with the TS. If you take a look at the last few posts you’ll see me talk about the inconsistencies. Yesterday on the range my strikes with the TS really surprised me. Not only did the ball fly high and far and straight but it just felt great.
I’ve been working on the on practicing with each hand separately and wow is that a challenging drill. It’s really good though. I’m very pleased with progress I’m making with the Tour Striker.
Tour Striker – Day 3 of 30 – a plan comes into focus
Apr 27th
This morning I headed to the driving range early. Got there around 6:50 am, got set up and hit balls into the foggy morning.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Tour Striker – a month long test with it began today
Apr 25th
I’ve decided to do a month long test with each of my favorite swing training aids to see how they impact my ball striking and my game with intense practice. To begin this series I’m going to use the one that I’ve used the least lately, the Tour Striker.
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.
Stop quitting on your putts
Apr 14th
One night while I was on a golf trip in Maryland a few weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to have some putting contests in the room. The carpet was probably rolling about a 10 so it wasn’t too quick. We played a version of leap frog and set the cup out about 12 feet away. The thing that quickly became clear was that it was hard to hit the putts short enough in the beginning to set you up for a good potential leap frog run. It took me some time but I finally figured out why that was.
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.
Feedback from the Technical Staff at Optishot
Apr 10th
Since I’ve seen that a number of people commenting in the Optishot review had some technical issues, I decided to ask the manufacturer for a response to their complaints. I have not had any significant issues with the optishot and in fact really like the product. Over the winter it provided me with a solid golf experience at home and allowed me to work on things in a a warm environment as the snow fell outside.
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/reportissueHowever, 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.
Rickie Fowler – He gets it
Feb 25th
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.
Review: BirdieBall Putting Green
Feb 24th
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. Read the rest of this entry »
That new strange feeling – making swing changes stick
Feb 23rd
I’ve written before about making swing changes stick. It’s a shame to spend money on lessons, or time with your coach, and quickly revert back to what you were doing. It’s not a good use of time or money. So how do we change that? How do we make sure that the changes we are making actually stick.
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.
Winter practice – beating the winter blues
Feb 22nd
Finally it looked like winter was going away, but my hometown just got dumped with a few more inches of snow. Luckily I hear an early spring is in the works.
With all this snow, I couldn’t really get out to practice much. I hit the driving range on a few warm days, just to ensure that the things I’ve been working on are having a positive impact. The result: I’m satisfied with the work I’ve put in over the winter.
My main focus has been on simplifying my swing. I figure, the less moving parts, the easier it will be to repeat. A subset of this has been to focus on automating the squaring of the club so that it is not dependent on timing it precisely, but rather it happens automatically as I turn through the ball.
Both of these concepts, while simple in design, have required work to get into my muscle memory. The upside is that everything is coming together. In my last range sessions, I’ve noticed the following: straighter ball flight, better distance control, more solid contact in the center of the club face, and additional ability to work the ball.
Lessons from Riviera
Feb 22nd
Watching the coverage on both Golfchannel and CBS, I was surprised to see how short the ball was flying at Riviera. Considering it was in the best shape that the announcing team has ever seen it, it must have been a combination of the low temperatures, sea level and kikuya grass, that shortened the distances for the pros.
I was honestly shocked at the number of shots that were coming up short, as well as the clubs that players were using. One a shot of 160, you’d normally expect 9 irons, however, not only did we see a lot of players using 8 irons, but even 7 irons.
The drives on the 290 yard par 4 tenth were coming up short even from an elevated tee.
The lesson here, be careful with your club selection and really take into consideration factors such as the temperature, sea level and local grasses. Short shots at Riviera were made worse by the sticky kikuya grass, that made the ball hop straight up or even backward.
