This is my reflection on Project Par.

Contents:

• By the Numbers

• Success & Failure

• Hidden Lessons

• Personal Reflection

• Final Thoughts

To read the introduction to the Project, see:

By the Numbers

“There’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

I set out on Project Par with an extremely in-depth framework of program design for both physical attributes and golf performance. I also had a detailed schedule, year long macro-cycle phase, and daily habit tracker. It was ambitious. A bit too ambitious.

I ended with just the habit tracker and a very loose form of workout tracker. I also didn’t keep up with my performance testing, but luckily the thing that matters, golf performance, is all well accounted for. Let’s take a look at the year by the numbers:

• 27 official rounds (and quite a few more unofficial)

• Starting Handicap Index of 22.4

• Final Handicap Index of 18.0

• Final score avg. 101.3

• Best score: 89 at Normandy Shores (9/8/23)

• Worst score: 121 at Dunedin CC (1/7/23)

• 282 hours of combined practice + play

• 7603 range balls hit

• 4570 practice putts

• 2531 practice chips

• 2183 swings on air

• 50 bike rides

• 96 hours on the bike

• 1130 miles ridden

• 77 resistance training workouts

• 8 yoga sessions

Whew.

And now let’s look at the same statistics visually. For the aesthetics, you know?

Wow. This is the first time I’ve looked at those numbers myself, and honestly a huge wave of gratitude just flowed over me. I was always taught not to count your chips at the table (poker, anyone?), and so I apply that to most things. Although I was tracking all of these things, I wasn’t tallying the running totals. I actually had no idea how many hours or sessions or anything really throughout the year.

I knew how hard I was working, and how much time and effort I was putting in. And not that I need any external validation, but it definitely feels good to see the objective numbers come out to demonstrate what the time investment really was. A few numbers that stand out to me:

• 282 hours of practice/play! Wow! To be honest, I thought it was going to be a bit higher than that. To think of the standard 10,000 hour rule, this year I only did 3% of that!

• 96 hours and 1100+ miles on the bike. I love that number. I was pretty disappointed that I lost 3 months of cycling due to my injury, but even so the effort I put in cycling was tangible. I enjoyed every minute of it and the improvement to my cardio definitely showed.

• 77 workouts. This number feels a little light, and it probably is considering I didn’t track this as closely as I could have. I average 2 workouts a week, sometimes 3 if I’m feeling good and sometimes 1 or less if I’m traveling. I’d probably estimate this number to be closer to 90 than 80.

• Best score: 89. I am most proud of this. Although the goal was of course to shoot Par, one of the more realistic goals I had for this year was to break 90. I remember everything about this round, where I played, who I played with, what it felt like when I tallied up the score at the end (remember how I don’t count my chips at the table? Yup that applies to everything) and found out I shot an 89. What a rush. And I also birdied 18 without even knowing what was on the line!

And now: A year in Swings:

Successes and Failures

I wrote about this a lot along the way, but most people don’t have the correct definition of failure.

Failure isn’t when you set an arbitrary goal, and then are unable to achieve it. Well, I guess technically that is failure, but it really isn’t.

Failure to me, and how I use it, is when you have stopped making progress. Or stopped trying.

So although I didn’t shoot Par, which was the goal, I don’t view Project Par a failure.

Quite the opposite really. I think it was a smashing success. I achieved one of the things that I desperately wanted (to break 90), I challenged myself to an incredible task and rose to the occasion every single day to meet that challenge, through the ups and downs of life. I was hindered by an injury at the end of September, but I didn’t let that stop me. I overcame that adversity to continue to practice and train and eventually get back to playing in a short period of time.

I had rounds over 105, I had a 91 on the scorecard. My average was over 100, but I ended the year at a solid 95.

My golfing ability is night and day to what it was when it started. I played over 30 rounds (a few unofficial) with some great friends and even my Mom and Dad a few times. I met new people, even picked up some business opportunities because of my frequent (and improved) play.

I developed a proper golf swing, which is still a work in progress. I gained around 5mph of club-head speed, and can drive the ball 280 yards on a good day now, (290 with wind 😏). I can talk at the same level of golf athletes when I’m working with them in the gym, understanding intimately their needs and the difficulty in improving at the game. I can relate to the effect of small, incremental improvements over a long period of time.

I developed an extremely consistent workout habit, of 2 times a week no matter what. I found a great balance between exercise and life, using golf as the happy activity in between.

I got in great cardiovascular shape, riding over 1000 miles on a road bike, peaking at 55 miles in one ride. Had I not gotten injured I’d still be riding today (fret not! I’ll work my way back on the bike in due time).

I never really said this at the beginning, because in truth it needed to be a silent motivator, but Project Par was about so much more than just golf. It was more than just physical capability, and way more than the importance of developing a structured plan or framework.

Project Par was about challenging yourself. About committing wholeheartedly to one singular goal. To not accept failure, to not give up, and to give it your full effort. It was to not let inconveniences, either big or small, de-rail you from that purpose. To overcome adversity, obstacles, and negative circumstances.

It was about realizing that it really doesn’t matter what you want to do, or be great at. It doesn’t matter if you become great at all.

What Project Par is about is trying, and trying your hardest.

In that manner, I could not be any more successful. I am proud of the effort I put in, and I truly did give it my all.

Yes there were some bad days where my consistency wavered and my output was low, but through it all every day I got up with the intention to get better, and made good on that intention.

No one is perfect, because there is no perfect. There’s only your ability to move forward in the face of doubt, or to succumb to it. And I moved forward with progress.

Hidden Lessons

There were quite a few things I learned along that way that I set out to learn, and just as many that I didn’t expect at all.

I learned how to swing a golf club, of course. But I also learned a lot about the mechanics of the golf club and how it interacts with the golf ball to produce flight. I learned way more than I thought about manipulating the club-face in order to produce the shot you want, and that every person creates shots and impacts differently.

I learned that the golf swing is very similar to exercise in the sense that there is an agreed upon “form”, but to that end because every individual is unique, there are limitless possibilities as to the best swing for every unique person.

I learned quite a bit about golf statistics and how it rules professional golf. I hate that the game is so predicated upon how far you can hit it, but there is ample data to back that up. I have my own differences in opinions in the value of distance for beginners, and especially juniors, but one special part about the game is that every style of play has the potential to win. See Brian Harman’s victory at the 2023 Open Championship.

I was pleasantly surprised by the impact of cardiovascular ability on my play. The more proficient I became on the bike the better my endurance became on the course, and in practice too. When I was at my peak of cycling I felt like I could play two full rounds back to back no problem.

And when I got hurt and had to stop cycling I noticed a very quick and significant drop off.

There was also a huge boost to my mental from cardio activity. Most of my life I had never liked endurance training, and always thought that ample resistance training would make up for it. But I had been wrong.

Cardiovascular health via endurance training is vital for complete wellness and performance. It had marked effects on how I felt mentally and physically with tangible results in my measures of resting heart rate and heart rate variability. Neither of which have fully recovered since being off the bike.

I also re-discovered how much I love learning new things. It was one of my original reasons for starting Project Par, but I’ve always loved learning. For much of my time in Miami I was learning how to be a great clinician, then how to run and manage a business, and my athletic and physical endeavors had taken a back seat ever since. But in the process of getting golf lessons, practicing on my own, getting out to the course to play and getting critiqued, I remembered how much I love being a student.

A very special thank you to my Coach, who all year has been the best resource I could ask for. He was patient, knowledgeable, and knew exactly how to communicate the things I needed in a way that I received it best. He would give me instruction in person when he was available, and was always willing to be on FaceTime at 10p at night with our shirts off figuring out if the feel matched the move or not. That may sound weird, but you golfers will understand.

One of the most unexpected lessons was in the benefits of having a singular goal. It’s not that it makes the time go by faster or that it makes the bad things better. But it gives a purpose to the negative events you go through.

Maybe an example is best. I’ve struggled with chronic back pain for almost 10 years now, on and off after having disc herniation surgery when I was in college. And many times when I would have an episode, or flare-up, that left me hobbling around (literally, hobbling), it would be quickly followed by a short term depressive bout. Put simply, it sucks to be injured and in pain all the time, even more so when I can’t do the one thing that brings me joy no matter what: movement.

Yet when I got hurt this year, as depressing as it was to think I had overcome the cyclical nature of re-injury, I found myself in a much better place mentally. I didn’t have time to be upset or said or wallow in self-pity. I thought of only one thing: I had a goal to reach. And I would not be letting this flare up stand in the way of that goal.

I immediately started on rehabilitation and recovery, doing everything in my toolbox to get back on my feet quickly. Luckily I’ve got a toolbox much larger than most people, and although it took me over a month to start to feel 80% better, I was back swinging a golf club in 2 weeks. I don’t think I would have had the mental fortitude to rehabilitate as quick as I did had I not had a singular purpose pushing me forward.

The power of goals is great. But that brings me to another unexpected lesson… that I’m starting to think goals are a little overrated. Ok hold on, let me explain.

I mentioned in the beginning that I had this big huge framework broken down into sections with objective markers to track every attribute and properly scheduled intervals to re-test them. It was a lot. It was supposed to be a lot.

I created my framework from goal-setting models used by massive corporations such as Intel, Google, Apple, etc. I thought if they used it, hell why wouldn’t I?

Well, I figured out the answer to that question is because it takes an incredible amount of time and resources to keep track of and organize all of that information. Huge corporations have in-depth systems and multiple people responsible for that data.

When you’re doing it all by yourself, it ends up being a lot of wasted time. Maybe not wasted, but certainly inefficient. And I realized this about half-way through the year when I stopped tracking most things except for golf statistics and daily habits.

As much as I had hoped to track all of these things for the ability to analyze them at the years end, I realized an analysis of information doesn’t help me reach my goal. It just helps me audit my performance when the Project is over. As just one person, I needed to be ruthless with my time and resources, and spending them on auditing, or preparing for an audit, was not a good use of time. So anything that didn’t directly contribute to me achieving that goal got cut.

That got me thinking about whether or not I set good goals? I used the SMART goal framework because I thought it was the best, and it certainly helped me clarify what exactly my goals were.

But I realized throughout this journey that if you are truly committed to progress, and I mean truly committed, then you don’t need a bullseye to aim for. You just need to point in the right direction, and start going. It’s not going to be a linear path anyway, so having failsafes and protocols in place don’t really do anything except take time away from getting closer towards the goal. In essence, too much planning; not enough action.

Now on the flip side of that is the idea that if you’re not 100% dedicated towards improvement, and if you don’t have extremely high levels of discipline, than having the framework and structure to fall back on can be the difference between moving forward and moving backwards.

I came to understand that I am more of the former and as long as I know I am directionally moving in the right direction, I am more than capable of putting in the effort to progress on willpower alone. That I have come to understand about myself, and I think everyone who develops their own Project needs to look at themselves in a similar manner and develop an honest reflection about their strengths and weaknesses.

Personal Reflection

The first thing that I want to say, is that yes, I am glad that this Project has reached it’s conclusion.

I was getting very close to being burnt out in the month of December. I knew it, and if you had been reading the weekly updates you probably knew it too. I wasn’t practicing at home, I wasn’t putting in a lot of range time, I was just a little worn out from all that Golf. Ironic to say, I know.

The reality is that 12 months of non-step effort is exhausting, no matter how well balanced you are. It wasn’t even the physical volume of training as much as it was the mental exhaustion and pressure of having a goal to reach. As motivating as it is to have that singular purpose, it’s also a little tiring to always have a strong urge to move forward, to progress.

By the end of the year I found that the pressure of constantly needing and wanting to improve was becoming a burden. Yes, I was disciplined enough to still practice when I could anyway, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. I am no longer bound to a singular purpose, and that’s a little freeing.

I guess it’s sort of a Yin and Yang relationship, where one cannot exist without the other.

To go through life with no goals or purpose is one of being lost and discontent, whereas to always have a purpose is narrow and can be overbearing. The reality is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, where you can balance periods of goal-setting and progress with times of enjoying the moment and presentness. I don’t think I’ve found that balance yet, but I have certainly come to respect its importance and am much closer than I was last year.

I’m selfishly looking forward to the next round of golf I get to play where I am free from any goals or expectations. I don’t care what I shoot, I don’t have to track every shot and I won’t be writing a detailed report after. I will be back in balance with the game, playing for fun and motivated by my own performance with no external validation in sight. That’s going to be a great round.

I’m looking forward to re-directing my time and energy towards other goals, even if their time-frame isn’t as long. Personal and business goals that have been in check with my physical pursuit will get the attention they deserve.

I’ve also started Proyecto Español, which is my Project for 2024. It’s going to be a less structured and much less intense, but no less demanding, version of Project Par. My goal is to become conversationally fluent in Spanish, and using all the lessons from 2023 will help me in this new endeavor. I won’t be writing about it, won’t be tracking it, and won’t be making a big framework to follow. I’m just going to work every day to make small improvements at the language, and figure it out as I go. I’m looking forward to the new style and different type of learning this will require. Vamos!

I also want to take a moment to thank you. If you’re reading this right now that means you’re probably interested in my journey. You’ve probably read some of my updates, or at least kept a loose track of how I was doing. For the very few of you that have been following closely, your support means everything to me. Many of times when I was not feeling motivated, it was the thought in the back of my head that I had an obligation to do my best if for no other reason than not to let you down. And to those of you who reached out in some form or another to show your support, I am sincerely grateful.

I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to chase this goal in public, providing insight into everything I do. I thought it would feel a lot more vulnerable than it did. Especially in the beginning. After a while though it felt like no one was watching at all. Hell, save for the people who have commented or messaged, for all I know no one was watching!

That was kind of nice though, to stop caring about what other people thought or might think. Being able to do what I thought was best without judgement or fear of judgement. I guess that was a huge win in of itself, is that I was able to get back to just doing me. Being me. Not basing my actions on what other people thought was right, but what I thought was right. So much of our society today is predicated on acceptance, and far too often the line is blurred between doing something because we want to and doing something because we think others want us to.

Knowing where to draw that line and truly accept yourself as an individual is important, at least I believe it is.

I cannot emphasize how happy and proud I am of how I undertook this Project and how I performed within it. I’ve accomplished a lot in my life I’m proud of, but very few things were as clearly defined as this one. I always believed in myself, but when you set a goal and work to achieve it, and then you complete it, well it just feels good.

I know I have so much potential for other things. And not just personal accomplishments either. I know that my future holds a great deal of bringing positivity and change to others. Hopefully my writings of Project Par has convinced at least a couple people to commit to their health and wellness. If nothing else, maybe it at least showed that with hard work, dedication, perseverance, and a whole lot of effort, anything is possible. That one’s from Jesse Owens.

Final Thoughts

I’d be happy to answer any questions or have a conversation about anything related to Project Par. If you have questions or just want to chat, even if its about your own Project, feel free to drop a comment or shoot me an e-mail.

Overall, it’s been an incredible 12 months. There are things I can remember every detail and there are entire months that I can’t recall. Guess that’s just how time works, consistent and distorted all at once.

I’ll look back with gratitude and profound thanks on 2023, for many reasons, but it will always hold a special place for me in that it was the year I took up Project Par.

2024 is for Proyecto Español, but make no mistake, I plan on playing and continuing to improve at golf for a long time. I didn’t work this hard just to stop now. One day I will shoot Par.

It may not be for another year, or 5 years, or even 10. But one day I will. And when I do, I’ll look back at where it all started, with a goal to dedicate everything in my power to be as good as I can be. I’ll remember all the good times and bad, the tough rounds and the injuries as well as the first time breaking each big marker (90, 80).

At the end, my ideals will always be the same.

Aim for progress, not perfection.

Never give up.

Failure is a state of mind, not an objective result.

If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Always try your hardest, or do not try at all.

Thank you.

I want to take a moment and thank all 305 (yes, it just so happens the subscriber count matches the Miami area code. It was meant to be!) for being with me on the Project Par journey this year.

At the bottom of this email you’ll find the Week 52 update, the final one.

It’s going to take me a bit of time to run through all the data and journal logs that I made throughout the year to track my progress, but don’t worry, when I do there will be a comprehensive Project Par Year in Review to follow.

As for other things, I’m looking forward to getting back to publishing educational material for Train Like a Pro, something I haven’t had the time to do in the latter part of the year.

On deck in my drafts is a comprehensive research review on cold and heat modalities, a thorough write up of why “Active” Recovery doesn’t mean what you think it does, and a year-long review of my HRV data. If there’s anything you’re interested in that you think would benefit from my deep dive feel free to shoot me an email and I’ll see if it can be added to the list.

I also want to tell you about my 2024 Project!

Many of you have asked and I’ve been diligent about not revealing it until now. So here it goes…

Proyecto Español!

Es verdad! En 2024 yo quiero aprender español, pero no que un gringo. Quiero hablar español como que persona de español por realidad. En conversación, a trabajar, todo lo mundo que habla español, quiero hablar y entender.

That’s right! In 2024 I want to learn Spanish, but not like a gringo. I want to speak Spanish like a native speaker for real. In conversation, at work, anywhere in the world that speaks Spanish, I want to be able to talk and understand.

I’ll admit, I already know a little bit of Spanish as it is. At least more than most people that grew up in New Jersey and went to college in Ohio.

But I’ve never fully committed to learning the language fluently. I can get around, can understand bits and pieces and am always able to order what I want at restaurants, but I want to be able to meet a native Spanish speaker and have a fluent, candid conversation with them.

Before I talk about why I’m starting Proyecto Español, there’s something I’ve got to tell you…

I won’t be publishing or writing about it like I did Project Par.

I really enjoyed writing about my experiences and sharing them with you, but in honesty it also took a lot out of me. It became a grind to track all the things I needed to track, organize data, and then write up a weekly review. It started to become draining at the end and I found it took out just a little bit of enjoyment from the journey.

And so for Proyecto Español I decided that I won’t commit to a regular publishing of any material. I’ll still be sending out semi-regular e-mails with my thoughts on life, health, wellness, and performance, and of course will include little updates on my progress there. Train Like a Pro will continue to evolve!

With that said, why learn Spanish?

Well, let’s point out the obvious: I live in Miami.

Spanish is the main language of South Florida, I don’t care what you say. It is not only a huge personal benefit to be able to communicate with the majority of the population in their native tongue, but there are a ton of business advantages as well. I think it would be awesome to expand my coaching and training services to the Latin population and those who don’t speak English. I think it would be amazing to be able to translate some of my resources, including my writing into Spanish.

I also spent a fair bit of time in Spanish speaking countries over the past few years, Spain and Colombia. Being around Spanish speakers made me realize that Spanish makes up such a large percentage of conversations that I’m around, and I’m ignorant to it all! I would love to travel around South America more, and speaking the Native language is the only REAL way to do that.

Since I have a pretty decent head start of understanding a little bit of Spanish and knowing the basic rules, it won’t be like I’m starting from scratch trying to learn French or Mandarin. This should help reduce the learning curve a bit.

I knew after Project Par I didn’t want to challenge myself physically. I love the physical aspect of Golf and thoroughly enjoyed the training I put in, but it was time for something different.

I wanted to challenge myself in a way mentally that I had not been challenged before. And what better way than to learn a new language?

I have a lot of fun speaking what little Spanish I do in my life as it is. It feels like I’m a whole new persona. Maybe that sounds weird, but when I speak Spanish I say things that probably don’t fit my personality should I say it in English. Is that normal for people who speak multiple languages? I don’t know… but I enjoy speaking another language and want to take it all the way to become conversationally fluent.

There are some more, smaller reasons, like wanting to take my parents to South America and be their guide.

Compared to Project Par, this is also going to be a lot less structured. When it comes to physical development, I was in my domain. That is my job after all, developing a training and development program was what I do best.

But with this, I’m completely out of my comfort zone.

Combine that with the fact that I need a little time off from extreme goal-oriented production (just a few weeks! Nothing crazy…) and I’m going to have to learn how to learn a language! If you have any tips or recommendations here, I’d love to hear them.

For now, I downloaded Babble and paid for the premium version this morning. I’ll be practicing there daily until I figure out how to take on a more serious routine. I figured it’ll probably end up by getting a tutor, and of course doing my best to talk Spanish with the people I see every day.

I’m really excited to be taking on this new challenge and the lessons I learn with it.

Progress never stops, it may change directions, it may slow down, but there is only one direction in life and that is forward.

I’ll be moving from Project Par to Proyecto Español, and I can’t wait until the end of this year when an entire article is in Spanish.

In the meantime, thanks for being a part of my journey, I hope you’ve gotten as much value out of it as I did.

For those of you that have adopted the Project framework, I want to hear from you!

How did your 2023 Project go? What did you learn from it? And what’s on the slate for 2024?? Let me know!

Whatever it is you pursue, I just hope that you give it your 100% effort. There is no failure in trying, only in giving up.

- Trainer 01

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Not the most impressive final week, but hey, one range and one round, that’s still a decent week!

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 1

I got out for a 14 mile bike ride this week! It was amazing to be on the bike again, but judging how my SIJ felt afterwards I was probably a tad bit aggressive and should not have been out there. A bitter-sweet realization.

Skill Practice

To be honest going into this range sesh I thought it was going to be like, my best practice ever.

Silly me.

It was a good one, felt good to just swing loose and get prepared for the next days round, but trust me when I say there were plenty of terrible shots in here too.

Golf Performance

Not a bad way to end the year!

This was one of my cleanest rounds to date, and extremely fitting that I addressed 1.5 of my 3 worst scoring limiters.

• I hit 57% fairways (but only 4 GIR’s)

• I didn’t lose a SINGLE BALL to OB/Penalty

• I did have 4 three-putts

• I ended up in a green side bunker 6 times, but got up and down for par on one of them!

It definitely felt great to be in play the whole time, and although I did have some bunker trouble it wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as going OB would have been. A few too many 3-putts can be assigned to my lack of putting practice this week, and overall just had a very good day on the tee box.

I wasn’t hitting greens and didn’t pitch well, especially from the 80-110yd distances, but would have knocked off a few strokes there. That was the difference for both my sub-90 rounds is I was money from close range.

Wrap-Up

The best part about this final round wasn’t the score or how I played, it was who I played it with.

I got to play with my dad, who was a huge part in the start of Project Par in the first place, as well as one of my best friends who I played my first round of the year with to kick off the project!

Golf is a special game and I’ve loved committing myself toward improving over the last year. All in all I’d say it was an absolute success. A 95 to end the year isn’t so bad considering where I started!

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Presented without comment…

Good range time and two rounds, can’t complain about that. But I’m being extremely lazy about putting at home. End of the season blues. -1 for me.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

I might get back on the back this week! Or I might just wait until the new year and start anew.

Either way as unfortunate as it was that I sustained an injury that sidelined my conditioning, I’m happy to be through the worst of it and almost back to 100%. It really sucked there for a good month or so.

Skill Practice

I’ll be honest, the range is actually a lot more fun the better your swing is. That’s an unexpected surprise…

Now when I go to the range I don’t feel like I’m opening pandora’s box hoping to discover something that will magically make my swing “click”.

A strange feeling, I know.

I go to the range and hit maybe 30 or so balls to warm-up and just get a feel for the club face, make solid contact, and groove my swing feels so that it feels comfortable rotating on plane.

And then I play games with myself. I try not to hit the same club more than 3-4 times in a row.

I pretend like I’m on a hole; Long par 4: Driver, short iron, chip. Par 5: Driver, 3 wood, iron, chip. Short par 4: Driver, short iron, chip. If I mis-hit a ball I hit it again.

It really helps me develop a rhythm of switching clubs and I actually felt a lot more comfortable on the course after a few range sessions like this.

I also worked on accuracy on my shorter irons (7-8-9), figuring out how much my standard deviation of movement is so I can start to take better lines. What’s more difficult on the course is trying to anticipate how the ball will come off the club face when it’s on an imperfect lie, which is most of the time. So I still miss quite a bit of GIR’s that I’m working on.

My swing has completely evolved from the beginning of the year, and I’m actually pretty excited to do a before and after of the change.

Golf Performance

I played two rounds this week, the bad news is neither of them were great. The good news is I lost the second scorecard so that one won’t be logged on the official handicap index. So it goes… (no, I did not lose it on purpose).

My biggest problem is the same it’s always been: Penalties, Three-putts, and not hitting greens in regulation.

It’s hard to score when you combine those three things, although I’m hitting the ball so much better.

My chipping has regressed a bit as I haven’t spent as much time developing feel on chips and pitches during practice, but my iron striking is vastly improved. Although I’m still missing greens so that doesn’t show up on the scorecard.

This is a swing I took on 18 from the un-recorded round. I’m getting after the ball so much better, but my back foot slipped and I compensated by turning my hands over too early so as not to push it into oblivion - ended up hooking this one into the water.

A shame too, it was going 300 on a frozen rope if the ground held up…

Wrap-Up

Not much to say here on the penultimate week. One week left, one round left (maybe two).

I’m foot off the gas now. Cruise control is on, I’m enjoying the ride, windows down hand out the window relishing how far I’ve come.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Yea… my practice hasn’t been great lately…

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

I probably could get back on the bike, but no need to mess anything up now with 2 weeks to go. Unfortunately it seems the injury took out my conditioning for the last quarter of the year, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Lifting is going well so I’ll lean on that to finish strong.

Skill Practice

I’ve been having really productive range sessions lately, and since I’m not really working on any swing changes I haven’t been recording it.

What I have been working on is hitting the shot I visualize and changing clubs every 2-3 balls. I’m trying to simulate playing a round where you don’t get to hit the same shot twice, so what I’ll do after warming up is hit driver, a long iron, a short iron, and then a wedge. As if I’m playing a hole. Each time I’ll pick a target and make up a hazard scenario in my head so that I have some ‘skin in the game’ on the shot.

Practicing in this style is going to translate much better to the course vs just hitting the same shot over and over, but that style of practice was necessary for most of the year while I was still building repetition in my swing.

Golf Performance

A 98 at normandy from the back tees, I’m not super happy with it but not disappointed either. I could probably drop 5+ strokes if I moved up a tee, but to be honest I really like playing from this distance because not only does it challenge me but I feel like I have what it takes to perform, it’s just harder said than done.

I don’t mind slugging through the difficulties of these tees. This is where I want to play from and so I’ll endure what is necessary to learn how to hit these clubs and shots from this distance in order to become competent.

Overall my weakness continues to be missing greens and penalty shots, and sometimes 3-putts, but as I’ve known if I can limit the mistakes in those three areas I’m going to lower my score.

It’s just a matter of continuing to play and improve, no secret formula here.

Wrap-Up

I’ve got 2, maybe 3 rounds left in this year.

I’m really looking forward to playing and enjoying the fruits of my labor over the past year, and although I do want to play well, I’m really just satisfied that I worked as hard as I could for 12 straight months.

The results will speak for themselves, whatever they might be.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Ok, I’ll admit it.

It’s been 49 weeks of dedication, commitment, and perseverance.

Sure I had a couple vacations sprinkled in, but all things considered I’ve been grinding my ass off since Jan 1st.

And I’m feeling a little burnt out.

Motivation is low. Thankfully I don’t need much motivation because I’ve built such a rock-solid foundation of habits, but without it the enjoyment is a little less.

I’m not quite invigorated by the idea of playing golf. I actually caught myself viewing it as kind of a chore… “Shoot I’ve got to play golf next week.”

I’m not exactly thrilled of these sentiments, but it’s important to acknowledge them.

That’s certainly one reason my practice time this week has been a lot less. Also Art Basel in Miami and one of my old college roommates staying with me for the weekend certainly didn’t help.

Nevertheless, there’s only 3 weeks left and I’m going to do whatever is necessary to finish the year strong.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

I recently signed up for a gym that is more of a bodybuilding gym, for the sole purpose of having access to barbells and higher weighted machines for specific exercises.

I’m looking to develop my back and chest musculature a lot more (yes, purely aesthetic), but equal parts is I was starting to max out my relative strength on dumbbells.

Exercise variety is great, but if you’re looking to get strong and powerful you need to lift a lot of weight, and barbells are mechanically advantageous for loading as heavy as possible safely.

It felt great to back squat with some real weight (vs. a goblet squat) and I’m looking forward to the increased strength gains that will come of it.

I also am starting to think about taking a 5-10mile test ride on the bike here soon. The time is coming…

Skill Practice

The only practice session of my week was 2.5 hours spent at a beautiful short range facility at the course I teach fitness at. They’ve got 5 greens and over 170 yards of turf that you can hit from.

I hit about 80 short chips working low and high landings.

Then I hit about 100 balls with my 7-8-9 irons.

Then I went over and hit another maybe 50-70 balls out of the sand bunkers.

I really needed that short game practice and think I should be focusing on those skill shots a lot more now that my swing is repeatable.

Golf Performance

none

Wrap-Up

Overall, I’m a little tired and kind of looking forward to taking some time off from golf in the new year. Like my friend’s text message says, Pro’s have an off-season for a reason and I’m looking forward to mine.

Until then it’s double-down on the rocket fuel and doing everything necessary to make a strong final push to a 15 HI. I’m playing tomorrow so back to work.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Not a great week for putting at home (and my round showed it) but 2 range sessions and a round on sunday is a good week of golf!

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

The best news in the past two months is I think I’m starting to turn the corner on my SIJ injury. My trigger (sitting) has practically reduced to no pain or uncomfortableness and I’m feeling very strong and mobile in the gym.

Although my goal was to be riding again by this week I’m certainly not going to push it.

I’ll continue to take it week by week nice and slow until I feel 100% confident I can get back on the bike without causing another flare up or set back.

If everything goes well by the end of the month I’ll be able to savor 40 miles in this beautiful Miami winter weather.

Skill Practice

I had the chance to have my first real trackman session this week which was awesome.

The academy I work with got a full indoor set-up and I got an hour to myself to practice and go all-in on the data the system provides.

I was really impressed with how much information it can give you and was salivating at the opportunity to use that data to better understand my swing. I know there are some people that swear by the advanced data and some people that don’t use it at all, but I think there’s definitely a ton of potential to use it effectively, within reason of course.

I also really liked how I could save the data from EVERY SHOT and send it to myself as a report. This is an example of just my driver (I hit every club).

Because of access to this data I was also able to build my first “club-card”, aka write down the distance I hit the ball with every club… and I was STUNNED at my distances! I was underestimating my carry distances by almost 10 yards per club.

No wonder why I don’t hit any greens!

I definitely would raise the priority on getting a trackman session early on if for no other reason than to get an accurate estimation of how far you hit your clubs so that you can play better on the course.

Below is some data from my swings with my driver, along with my best swing of the day (hello 292yds total!).

And here’s some recordings from the session. My swing is feeling, and looking, really good!

Club Card

Why not. Here’s my distances.

I took probably 10-15 swings with each club, and then recorded distance when I made square contact with the center of the face, my average miss on an off-center hit (mishit), and then my max distance when I cranked my swing speed up.

PW:

• 125-130 center face

• 120 mishit

• 135 max

9i:

• 148 center face

• 142 mishit

• 155 max

8i:

• 165 center

• 162 mishit

• 176 max

7i:

• 179 center

• 172 mishit

• 186 max

• 170 cruise

6i:

• 186 center

• 199 max

• 179 mishit

4i

• 202 center

• 194 mishit

• 212 max

• 195 cruise

5h

• 209 center

• 218 max

• 193 mishit

• 200 cruise

3w

• 222 center

• 237 max

• 201 mishit

• 209 cruise

D

• 253 center

• 260 max

• 240 mishit

Golf Performance

You’d think with all this practice and more data on my swing and distances I’d be primed and ready to go for a full 18 on Sunday. I thought so too!

Sike.

Crandon is a really tough golf course, and 15.5 penalty shots and plenty of flubbed chips does NOT make it any easier. Nor with the 3-putts.

The front 9 was atrocious. It is what it is.

But I was proud of my ability to put that behind me and focus on playing well on the back 9 and posting a 48 with a birdie (!) and par on the two par-5’s.

Having the longer clubs in my bag (3-wood, 5-hybrid) really helped me close the distance on those long holes and I think it’s going to make a big difference in my scoring ability on par 5’s.

Oh, I think I left this out… I got 3 new clubs!

I talked to my coach about needing better fairway clubs for my swing ability and he agreed, so we went to a local golf store with plenty of used clubs and hit some. He picked out a 3 wood, 5-hybrid, and Utility 4-iron that I hit really well.

Don’t ask me the lofts, or what a utility 4-iron is. I don’t know. My coach picks ‘em, I hit ‘em.

Wrap-Up

I’m not going to lie, my foot isn’t really on the pedal here. No amount of practice is going to close the gap for me these last 4 weeks of Project Par. I’m OK with that.

I’m going to stay in routine, not try and be a hero (by over-practicing or over-training), and just enjoy this final month of golf in perfect weather.

You are the result of the work you put in preparation. I put in 11 months of work, and this is where I’m at. No amount of work in these last 4 weeks is going to make a difference in the grand scheme of the year, so I’m going to trust in my abilities, try and squeeze another 4-5 rounds in, and go out and have some fun.

The modified goal is still to get down to a 15 HI, and I’m at a 17.9. It’s doable. And I’m going to keep working at it until Dec 31st.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

Had a set-back over the weekend. Spending 4+ hours in the car driving on Wednesday really did not do my SIJ any favors.

Skill Practice

Range session on Wednesday to try and get some feel back from the week off. No videos but a decent session to shake the cobwebs off.

It’s pretty crazy how quickly you can lose feel of the club with any more than a few days off from swinging.

So much of the swing really is just a habit/pattern that if you don’t give your body that stimulus as frequently as possible it will be very hard to make positive changes.

Golf Performance

There were a lot of good things about this round, and a lot of bad things.

Let’s start with the bad:

• 5 bunker shots - 0 were hit successfully

• 2 penalty shots into the water on the same hole

• Four 3-putts

That pretty much right there are all the strokes that bring me from a potential 90-round to the eventual 100 that I actually shot.

Now on to the good:

• 50% of fairways hit. My driver was HOT this day

• Par’ed both the Par 3’s on the front

• 1 birdie!!!

Overall my game is in a really good place. I’m swinging the club well, making good contact, and playing strong.

But I’m still having the same problems I had in the very beginning: shooting myself in the foot (more like the knee) with penalty strokes.

Getting into trouble in green side bunkers and not being able to get out cleanly was the biggest hindrance today. But going double-water on hole 8 was another just really poor lapse of both judgement and performance.

the 3 putts really hurt as well, giving up a par and turning two bogey’s into doubles, those are the kind of careless mistakes that just can’t be happening if I hope to post a good score.

Wrap-Up

Of course there’s a certain aspect to the game that you’re going to get into trouble, you’re going to hit some errant shots and you’re going to end up in a hazard.

The real key is not letting a 1-stroke penalty shot turn into 2 or more strokes. That’s one area I really do poorly in is I end up going on tilt when I hit a poor shot and I turn that one poor shot into 3 poor shots.

That’s how I end up carding triple or even quad-bogeys.

Playing conservative and calm are really key for me to maximizing performance, and I’ll need to get a handle on that if I hope to get to a 15 HI before the end of the year.

Pressure’s on, only 1 month left!

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Well, I’m not proud of it, but I’m not upset either. I had company in town visiting from the 16th onwards, and prior to that Miami had 4 days of torrential rain.

It’s unfortunate, but the way it goes.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

Skill Practice

none.

Golf Performance

None 😢

Wrap-Up

We were supposed to play on Friday which I was REALLY looking forward to, but 4 days of non-stop rain in Miami means every course was flooded and/or under water. And I’m sure as hell not paying >$100 for a round of golf when it’s cart path only and half of the fairways have standing water in them.

So it was a slow week, but a week in which life was lived. This week hopes to be better with Thanksgiving practice and a round with my dad.

It’s been a hell of a journey, and we’re not there yet.

But I find my thoughts drifting forward… to next year’s Project.

I started planing Project Par in October of 2022, and it was around the end of October this year that I started to think about 2024.

I’ve learned an enormous amount throughout this year’s Project, and of course it’s not over yet.

How did I want to challenge myself? What new skill did I want to undertake being a student of?

Would it be a physical endeavor? Mental? Spiritual?

One unexpected benefit of having gone through this process so thoroughly this year is that I actually didn’t have to think so hard about what I wanted the next Project to be.

I just kind of, knew.

It was something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, something that I knew could benefit me, and something that I knew I would enjoy doing.

And as I let the idea ruminate over the previous few weeks, it became more and more clear. I didn’t have to create the same kind of risk-analysis or cost-benefit chart that I did when choosing golf.

I simply led my passion lead me, and was wise enough to listen to my gut.

I won’t be revealing what it is just yet, and I still have to name the Project, but rest assured, Project Par will continue. It might not look the same, it might not feel the same, but the goal will never change:

To commit to a journey of progress and improvement, through all the ups and downs, whether it ends in success or failure, and be satisfied with the effort put in along the way.

As for you, if Project Par has inspired you in any way, and there are many of you whom I know it has, I once again encourage you to consider creating your own Project for next year.

But you must start now.

You must sit with your thoughts and ideas, evaluate what it is you really want to do.

It is a commitment after all. And the first step to commitment is having the conviction to put in the work and do the things necessary to succeed. If December comes and goes and you have no plan, no purpose, you are doomed from the start.

It could be something simple, like vowing to master the push-up, pull-up, and squat.

Or it could be something incredible, like completing a triathlon.

But at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter. So long as you are dedicated to the improvement in a craft and don’t give up. So long as you give your complete effort. So long as failure is not an option, only lessons to learn and progress to make.

If you have an idea you’re not sure about, or are lacking confidence in an area, well consider me open to helping.

While Train Like a Pro is certainly a place for education and inspiration, it has the potential to be a community of like-minded individuals all pursuing one goal: Progress.

As you’ve followed my journey this year, I look forward to following yours.

Stay tuned for the revealing of my 2024 Project at the end of the year, and in the meantime, I’ve still got 6 more weeks to shoot Par.

Back to work.

- Trainer 01

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

A great week of practice.

The 9-holes on Wednesday I had one focus, and that was to really get comfortable at an 80-85% stock swing speed.

The past few weeks I had the problem of practicing at max intensity, and then trying to swing at max intensity on the course and I lost a lot of control and made a lot of errors. So playing 9-holes alone with the sole intention of swinging with a very smooth tempo and not trying to smash it really helped me see what the potential of my game is at when I limit the mistakes and not try to maximize performance.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

The good news is that I’m back to training at 100% intensity in the gym. My SIJ injury is feeling about 90%, and it’s not limiting me in anything I do.

But.

I do still have some residual uncomfortableness and I’m in no rush to push myself into as set-back, so I’m going to continue to wait before trying to get back on the bike again.

I’ve earmarked December as my earliest return, but I’m really going to continue going by how my body feels and my own understanding of my injury.

Skill Practice

My coach is back in Miami and so we got our first hands-on range session since the beginning of summer.

Even though we’ve been communicating via text/call/video frequently, it’s certainly a whole different experience to be in person hitting golf balls with immediate feedback.

The good news is I’ve shallowed out my swing plane enough where coming over the top is no longer a problem for me. Hooray! Only took 10 months of practice 😅

Now we’re moving on to deeper corrections that are smaller in magnitude but will continue to make big differences in how I practice and perform.

For starters, I was standing a little too close to the ball. I think this is a recent development because of my SI injury, so I’m getting comfortable moving a little further away again and it’s naturally correcting a tendency to get really steep in the downswing that I was dealing with, causing me to pull the ball.

Golf Performance

This one felt good!

Clearly the 9-hole practice round paid off as I was very relaxed on the course. I didn’t hit a lot of fairways but that wasn’t exactly indicative of my driving performance as I was hitting long balls with clear second shots, even if it was out of the fairway.

This is one tough part about golf statistics is the numbers rarely tell the whole story, but let’s take a look at the scorecard.

I didn’t do anything exceptional in this round, but most importantly, I didn’t make many drastic mistakes either. And that’s key for me. Only 2.5 penalty shots, only two 3-putts, and 1 triple and 1 unfortunate quad.

It was a great round to show me that for as much as my skill has improved it’s the mental aspect of the game that leads to the greatest improvement in scoring.

Wrap-Up

Another good week of practice ahead and a round upcoming on Friday. My goal is to stick to my keys and play cool, calm, and composed!

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Pretty good week of practice!

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

I miss the bike :(

I’m out of shape.

But I’m back in the gym slowly returning to full strength so that’s a great sign that my injury recovery is moving forward.

We can’t expect immediate resolution but steps in the right direction is positive and I’m OK with that.

Skill Practice

This weeks practice I realized I’m definitely standing too close to the ball, and confirmed by my coach when I sent him a video.

So I’m getting “jammed” in my downswing as my hips turn I have nowhere for my upper body to rotate so in order to my square contact I come steep down onto the ball and pull it.

It’s good that I recognize this! So after that I started working on my posture and set-up which I had previously not been paying much attention to.

I think I started to move closer subconsciously from my SIJ injury and so it’s been a struggle to get my swing back to where I want it after, and still, dealing with that.

Golf Performance

Sigh.

This one was ugly. Too many penalty shots.

And a really poor performance off the tee box.

Honestly it was all mental. My swing felt great on the range and warm-up but when I got on the tee-box I was trying to “force” the ball to go where I want it and it was constricting my swing.

Similar to throwing a baseball if you try to force it to go to an exact location it’s never going to work.

I didn’t recognize it until the round was over but I was just playing too “tight” mentally.

A key here for me will be continuing to practice so that when I get out on the course I can really trust my swing to go where I want it to and free up my head so that I’m not trying to be so controlling on the course.

Golf is a beautiful game that way!

Wrap-Up

I still feel like I’m bouncing back from the time off from my trip, and getting injured certainly isn’t doing me any favors.

I feel a bit of pressure to start playing better so that I can try and get my HI under 15 before EOY, but that kind of mental pressure is only going to hold me back.

The goals for this week are going to be to put in a good week of training, a good week of practice, and really work on the mental side of performance where I’m comfortable with my swing and not trying to do too much.

It will be a challenge, but that’s what we’re here for!

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Well, we got back on track with practicing this week after an abysmal round on tuesday (more on this later).

Contrary to popular belief, if I don’t practice, I won’t play well! (derrr)

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

Still dealing with the lingering SIJ injury. Can’t ride the bike, but thankfully gym workouts are starting to be more intense and it doesn’t bother me while golfing so all things aside it could be worse.

Skill Practice

First range session in WEEKS. Badly needed. Working on just getting back the feel of my swing that I had lost after a few weeks of travel + time off.

Golf Performance

Well, after shooting an 89 in September and a 91 opening October, I thought I had left the high scores behind.

Sike!

Golf is a game that will humble you quickly when you get too confident. After traveling and being very busy at work I didn’t have time to go to the range and wasn’t practicing at home as much, but I thought I’d achieved a level of skill that would be maintained if I at least played once a week.

What the hell was I thinking lol…

No sense in reviewing this. Hadn’t practiced, played poorly.

This round re-committed me to get back to the range and daily practice.

Wrap-Up

You can’t take your eye off the ball for just one second, no matter how well you’ve played in the past!

Thankfully that was the wake up call I needed to double down on practice while I’m still recovering through injury, and will be setting up to play this Sunday.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Well, I’m certainly not proud of it. This might be the worst week I’ve had as far as daily habits goes this entire year. But the context is important.

I returned from a long weekend of travel on Monday, and a lot of work to catch up on, and am prioritizing the rehabilitation for my SIJ injury (which is getting better). With all things considered I just didn’t have the capacity to prioritize practice this week, and as much as I hate to say it, some things were more important.

Recognizing when to push and when to pull back is a key factor in sustainability, and for me, this was a week to pull back.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 1

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

I really miss riding the bike :(

I’m not doing progressive resistance training as a pre-caution with my injury, so although I’ve been in the gym exercising it’s been a completely different style of training. More bodyweight movements, more controlled movements, more corrective exercises, little heavy weight.

I’m working WITH my body right now, and this is all I can handle.

Skill Practice

None.

Golf Performance

The round on Friday was UGLY. The course was out of range balls (How? Don’t even ask…), so all I got to do was a physical warm-up and some putting before the round.

That on top of no practice in over a week, the injury (still feels pretty good swinging though), means I definitely did not strike the ball well.

Ok - here’s the scorecard:

Yikes… I thought I left the +100’s behind! Golf sure is a hell of a game.

The best news here though is that I’m putting on an absolute STRIPE SHOW with my driver. The swing off the tee box is starting to feel really good, which is funny considering I haven’t practiced it. Not only am I getting accuracy, but I’m getting distance too (I recently switched to Pro V1’s and see a tangible 10+ yd difference vs the TP5’s I was playing before).

57% fairways is a good number, so if I can repeat that tee box performance along with dialing in my irons/wedge game the opportunity to score will be right back into shooting sub 90.

Wrap-Up

My injury has certainly de-railed a lot of my training up to this point and definitely is inhibiting my progress, but that is an uncontrollable at this point.

Although it’s not bad, as in it’s not super painful or limiting, but not pleasant either, I’m still taking the cautious approach because my health is always a priority and I’m not going to risk making it worse.

The things I can control are the rehabilitation, my mindset, and focusing on taking one step forward in recovery and in practice to get back out on the course at full strength as quick as I can.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

One round before hitting the road for travel, not bad.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 1

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

One workout, before the round, before travel, also not bad.

Skill Practice

No range time this week.

Golf Performance

A beautiful mid-day round in Boca Raton.

I played relatively well, but had a terrible back-9.

43-54.

43 is on track for a great 9-holes, but the back-9 I just started to fall apart mentally. Hitting poor shots, penalty shots, 3-putts, it was a mess.

My biggest problem right now, is that I make poor decisions with too much risk that cost me 2-strokes. It’s a combination of taking a slightly aggressive line off an imperfect lie in a situation where I want to play for par but should be playing for bogey.

I can be honest and admit that it’s definitely an ego thing.

I think, “Well, if I can just hit this shot perfectly I can get a stroke back on the poor shot before this and I’ll be even for the hole.”

And what happens is I turn a would-be bogey into a double- or triple-bogey, and that really hurts the scorecard.

When I shot an 89, and when I shot a 91, I was playing very relaxed golf and hit less than 2 or 3 truly aggressive shots.

In order to be successful I need to play within myself, within the course, and take the strokes I can get while trying to limit mistakes and mental errors.

That will be my focus during these last 2 months of project par, and as a bonus (for reading this far), I’m happy to report my Handicap Index is a 18.9!

Have 2.5 more months to get that number as low as possible… Let’s go!

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

My SIJ is still not 100%, but getting better slowly and surely day by day.

I’ve significantly reduced my training time, which has given me a lot more time to devote to practice, so maybe this new balance of activity will be beneficial.

But a week where I hit balls, putt, or play every day is as good a week as I can ask for.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

I really miss the bike. And not just because I enjoy riding.

I’ve noticed that my endurance has decreased. A full 18-hole round I used to leave feeling energized, as if could go back out for another round!

But recently, especially in the past week, I’ve finished the two rounds wanting nothing more than to go home and take a nap.

As the rest of my preparation hasn’t changed much, I’m left only to believe that I’m started to get de-conditioned from being off the bike.

It sucks to know that I’m going backwards in one area, but that’s just a temporary step I’ll have to accept until my injury heals and I’m able to start riding again.

Skill Practice

Two range practices this week.

I’m really still working on the same move as the past couple weeks, now that I am more comfortable with my hand position at the top of the backswing, for me the next feel to drive home is the patience to start the swing with my lower body, allow my hips to get around, create sideband from the torso and then swing through the ball finishing the swing instead of hanging open.

If I can do that then my strikes will continue to get better, and notably my misses this week came from rushing the downswing, getting too steep with my hands, and pulling the pull.

No secret sauce here, just need to continue practicing the right technique until it sticks.

Reps. Reps. Reps.

Golf Performance

Played 2 full rounds this week, which by all accounts, is a great week.

Let’s get into the first.

A 91 at Plantation Preserve, it was a good round!

Some notable stats:

• 5 Par’s

• 7 Fairways, 5 GIR

• 3, 3-putts

• 1 triple bogey, 1 double bogey

I played really well this round, especially on the front 9. 42!

The back 9 I started to lose driver accuracy and had one very unfortunate blow-up hole that cost me 4 strokes to my total score, at least.

I chipped really well, inside 5 feet on most, and putted well enough to score, 35 total putts is pretty low for me.

Overall it was a great-feeling round but I left disappointed that my one blow-up hole took away what would have been a new PB!

Onto the next, a round at Crandon from the Blue tees. This story isn’t as good…

Some notable stats:

• 6 Par’s

• 9 triple-bogeys (or worse), 2 double-bogeys

• 7 fairways, 5 GIR

• 3, 3-putts

• 21.5 penalty strokes (as calculated by Grint)

Yikes.

One thing to note about Crandon is that it’s a much harder course. Distance of 6860 yards and a slope of 142, as compared to Plantation (distance 6700 slope 125).

And it’s the slope that made all the difference, as noted by the enormous strokes lost to penalties at Crandon.

Bunkers, both fairway and green side, OB, water, I was in it all.

Crandon is a difficult, long course that rewards distance and punishes inaccuracy.

I was striking the ball well but just couldn’t stay out of trouble. I was happy with all of my misses but just wasn’t able to play well from hazards and lost way too many balls to OB/water from inaccurate shots.

I played well on the front 9 (47) with 5 par’s!

But what hurt is that I had 9 triple bogeys… that’s ridiculous!

At Plantation I only had 1!

Playing Crandon was a good measuring stick of my abilities in the sense that I can play confidently from the blue tees now, but my strategical game and controlling my misses are still weak points in my game that prevent me from scoring.

I have the ability to score now, and can do so on more forgiving courses with less hazards and greater opportunities, but at tougher courses my game is still sloppy and I get crushed my penalty strokes.

Wrap-Up

I love that playing at different golf courses bring different challenges and strategical requirements.

The game is always changing, and this week was both rewarding to see my ball striking so greatly improved and humbling to know that I still have a ways to go to being able to work my way around a course safely without losing strokes to penalty.

I’d like to continue playing Crandon this winter as a status-check of my strategical game, and look forward to the challenge of striking the ball while minimizing the punishment of misses next time I play there.

All in the name of progress!

Let me tell you a tale…

A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, "Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!"

The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not. We'll see."

A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out,"Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!"

The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not. We'll see."

Later that week, the farmer's son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, "Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!"

The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not. We'll see."

A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer's son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, "Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!"

To which the farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not. We'll see.”

The moral of this story, is, of course, that no event, in and of itself, can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate, but that only time will tell the whole story.

Additionally, no one really lives long enough to find out the 'whole story,' so it could be considered a great waste of time to judge minor inconveniences as misfortunes or to invest tons of energy into things that look outstanding on the surface, but may not pay off in the end.

The wiser thing, then, is to live life in moderation, keeping as even a temperament as possible, taking all things in stride, whether they originally appear to be 'good' or 'bad.' Life is much more comfortable and comforting if we merely accept what we're given and make the best of our life circumstances.

Rather than always having to pass judgement on things and declare them as good or bad, it would be better to just sit back and say, "It will be interesting to see what happens."

You see, at any point the farmer could have been at the top of the scale of happiness, or bottom.

But he was neither.

The farmer embodies the Taoist philosophy, which is the belief to be neutral in life occurrences and to allow things to be, and not to be, simultaneously and forever.

I’m not going to get into Taoism today, although I am a growing believer, but I do want to point out how the farmer was able to stay calm in the face of negativity and composed in the face of positivity, because of his attitude.

You see, each of us holds a very unique lens every day. It’s not a physical lens, but a mental lens with which we view life. This is our perspective.

How many of us have felt sad, tired, lonely, depressed because of “X”. It doesn’t really matter what “X” is, because we’ve all felt those feelings before.

So how can we all relate to the same feeling, even though none of us have lived the exact experiences as another?

Our Attitude helps form our Perspective, to which fuels our subconscious reactions to life.

I had surgery to correct a herniated disc many years ago, and while the surgery could be considered a success, I was left with many functional complications because of it, mainly that I had on/off SI joint pain.

At it’s worst, the only relief I had was lying on the hard ground with my legs supported on stacked pillows.

At it’s best, well, I was pain-free and fully functional!

While the chronic injury has changed quite a bit over the years, what’s changed the most has been my attitude.

At first, it was “woe is me”. “Why did this have to happen to me?” “How do I fix it?”. “This is preventing me from doing all the things I wanted!”

If you’ve dealt with chronic pain I’m sure you can relate.

But recently, the past two years or so, I’ve had an intimate changing of my own relationship with the injury.

I will have an ‘episode’, as I call them, about once a year now. It used to be 3-4x a year, and it used to be much more painful and much more debilitating.

And so, as I limped around my apartment last week understanding that some way, some how, I managed to flare up the injury again, there was no feelings of despair, or hopelessness.

Ok, maybe some feelings of hopelessness and anger and “how did this happen?!” on the first two days. But I didn’t allow those thoughts to last.

It was much more acceptance and understanding.

I wasn’t exactly sure how or why my injury had flared up when I had done so much over the course of Project Par to eliminate the risk of an episode, and had done a good job of that I thought! Up until last Sunday apparently…

What I noticed the most was how my attitude reflected my perspective on the matter.

Instead of pointing out all the negative things that resulted from an episode, I merely accepted what had happened for what it is.

My SIJ had flared up, and that was that. Now what was I going to do to deal with it?

You see it’s your ATTITUDE that not only determines the direction of progress, but it also gives space for (or takes space away from) you to grow!

Let me put it simply: No matter how many objective good things happen to you, a shitty attitude will make it seem awful.

And no matter how many objective bad things happen to you, a positive attitude will make it seem better.

As we learned from the farmer and his son, there are no objective good or bad things in this world. Well, maybe some…

So the single most important thing that influences our emotions, the thing that is 100% in our control 100% of the time, is our attitude.

Those with a good attitude will have more good happen to them, not because the universe is making good things happen, but simply because the person is applying good to them!

We each have the power to improve our own lives, relationships, and goals by very simply starting with a positive attitude.

We each have the ability to turn seemingly negative occurrences into opportunities for growth, with nothing but our attitude.

We can make new friends, meet new people, experience new places and things with nothing more than an attitude!

And we can ruin relationships, businesses, kill ideas and murder progress, with nothing more than a poor attitude.

As children we’re taught this constantly. For the parents out there you probably teach your kids this too!

But how often do we pause and reflect on what our own attitude is?

Are we so caught up with life that we never once consider whether or not we’ve got the dark, scary lens on or the soft, bright lens on?

How could changing your perspective make you a better person? Or how could changing your attitude help you reconcile your goals and make progress on them?

My message to you this week team is that the most foundational aspect of progress, is a belief in yourself. And that belief in yourself is cultivated from your attitude on life.

A positive outlook will lend itself to maximizing your faith in your own ability and will allow you to take risks that lead to uninhibited growth and eventually, accomplishment.

I have spent so much talking about the scientific ways we can improve these objective measures of our health and performance. Those things are vitally important, don’t get me wrong.

But none of them is more important than your attitude.

Be a positive player, support your team, and no matter how dark the sky’s look, always have faith that the sun is still there, waiting for it’s moment to shine.

- Trainer 01

Project Par Week 39 Update

I hit a significant speed bump last week when I got off the bike after a short 37mi ride and couldn’t stand up straight.

Over the next few hours I fell into a full blown SIJ injury flare-up that I’ve dealt on and off with for years.

What’s done is done, so I had to take a few days off to recover. Thankfully it wasn’t too serious and now I’m getting back to the grind.

Read how I’m making adjustments to my training schedule in the Week 39 update:

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

Unfortunately on my bike ride last week I somehow caused a flare-up of an old SIJ injury I’ve dealt with in the past.

It’s the first time in about a year since I’ve had a flare up, which is a good thing. I’ve learned how to become well aware of what to do when the pain flares up as it leaves me pretty hobbled. Sitting, standing are painful and uncomfortable, and most athletic movements don’t feel great.

But with that being said the timeline is relatively consistent, 0-4 days of severe limitations, 4-8 days of minor limitations, and then 8-21 days for typical full resolution.

Some flare-ups are worse some are not, but I never really know how bad it’s going to be until it’s over. I’m going on day 7 as I write this and have been able to play golf and perform light resistance training workouts.

While I’m not feeling great, the silver lining is the injury doesn’t limit or cause uncomfortableness in my golf swing, so at got back to playing on Friday.

I think I’m done on the bike for the next few weeks until I’m confident I’ve fixed whatever problem caused the flare-up, and in the meantime will be changing up the focus of my resistance training workouts and trying to practice golf every day.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 0

The road bike is OOC for now, as I really don’t want to turn a small problem (injury flare-up) into a big problem (re-injury).

I’ll pull back on my resistance training as well as I’ve been lifting heavy the past few months.

While it’s not what I’d want to be working on, the nice part of being adaptable and fluid with your training is listening to your body when it tells you to change direction. In my younger, more stubborn days I would not have been likely to comply but with experience comes wisdom and I go with the grain, not against it now.

Skill Practice

A 2.5 hour range session (partly in the rain) on Sunday morning was a great way to work out the kinks.

Coming up to the injury last week I was in a really good groove with consistent swing practice and was feeling as fluid in my swing as I’ve ever felt. Of course 5 days of no practice plus an aggravated injury means I lost a lot of the feels I developed over the previous weeks, so I was focused on just working those feels back in.

I was honestly pretty pleased with my technique considering the circumstances, but this week I’ll look to double-down and return to the point of my swing where I was pre-injury.

Golf Performance

I did play a round last week but it was off the books.

I originally showed up to the driving range just to practice, but ran into someone I knew and we decided to head out to play.

It happened relatively quick so no warm-up, no range time, literally we got there and went right out on the first tee. Not ideal scenario by any means.

I shot a 53 on the front when I decided to put away the scorecard, focus on just swinging easy again and removed the pressure of scoring from my head.

While it’s not ideal to abandon scoring mid-round, I really did it because I noticed I was focusing more on the score (or implications of scoring) on every shot and it was detracting from both my focus and enjoyment of the round.

I don’t want to get to a point where I’m constantly evaluating whether I’m playing good or poor and then sizing myself up to my own expectations. If I notice that in my mental, I’m more than OK to shut down the scoring for the day and get my focus back to enjoying the game of golf and playing within myself.

Wrap-Up

This is the first time this year that I’ve had an injury inhibit my progress.

The good news is that it’s an old injury and one I am more than equipped to deal with quickly and efficiently.

The bad news is that it definitely took a hit to both my mental and my consistency of practice.

As with all things I’m focused on staying present and focusing on the things I can control. This is the way.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

A pretty solid week at the range with 3 range sessions. Wasn’t up to par with my putting practice but I was away for the weekend so didn’t fret about it to much.

I’m honestly OK with not putting as much when I’m going to the range more.

I know that without practice I can’t get better but my real goal is to work on ONE aspect of my game every day, so if I’ve spent 2 hours going to the range it’s more difficult for me to get up for another 30 min at night with the putter.

Definitely one area still to be improved but for now I’m happy with how I’m balancing it.

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 1

Is this section getting boring? Good. That’s what consistency looks like.

Skill Practice

That past two weeks I got an encrypted message from my coach.

He essentially told me I will forever be relegated to an average, below-par golfer if I didn’t learn how to get my hands higher at the top of the backswing and then learn how to rotate (dropping the hands to shallow out the club) before making impact.

Message received loud and clear, so that’s the only thing I’ve been drilling at the range.

Get into the top backswing position, pause, do that twice, then step up to the ball and hit.

Over and over and over again.

Until it feels like my hands going high are automatic.

You can see throughout the course of practice the beginning gets good, then it slowly trails off as I shift my focus to concentrate more on ball flight than on internal body position.

I’ll need continued work on this for a few more weeks at the least to really learn the movement and get to a point where I don’t have to concentrate on it so much, but for now I already see the value in what the change is going to do for my swing both in terms of efficiency and accuracy.

Golf Performance

No rounds last week unfortunately. Hoping to get back out soon.

Wrap-Up

Coming off my career low I felt renewed interest to continue to perform, but it was a good wake-up call having my coach tear into me about my technique being far below where it should be.

Yes, I shot an 89. No, it wasn’t pretty.

He made it clear that I have the ability to be shooting low EVERY. TIME. 80’s for sure, but eventually 70’s.

But I won’t be able to get there with an inefficient swing like I have now. Spending the time to learn correctly and set up a better foundation for the future of my career is necessary.

Of course that comes with a natural waxing and waning of interest as it relates to certain parts of the game, one thing that makes golf such an amazing sport is there’s always something you could be working on. Which, if you’re a positivity preacher like me, allows you to keep the progress mindset without succumbing to boredom.

And so, as I’ve reached a significant milestone, it’s back to the grindstone again trying to not come so steep in the downswing. I think once I’ve gotten this move to a consistent part of my swing, the 79-score-watch is going to go on high alert.

Back to work.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

Habit Tracker

9 holes of golf in New Jersey, then hitting my new driver for the first time, and taking it out for a 9-hole spin, followed by a dedicated range session on friday and weekend putts. It was a good week for golf!

Training Log

• Resistance Train (Gym): 2

• Conditioning (Road Bike): 1

Oops, I, did it again (lol). Jokes aside, it’s good when things are this consistent.

Skill Practice

Good news… my driver is in hand!!

With the equipment upgrade complete, my focus has shifted back on to my swing.

My coach made it very clear to me that while I might be able to hit it consistently around the course with a bad swing, it’ll be impossible to significantly lower my handicap with poor swing faults.

And so, I need to start with getting my hands higher at the top of the backswing so that I can start the downswing with my hips, letting my hands drop to then bring the club from in-to-out, leading to an on-plane swing path. That’s my goal, and for the next few weeks I’m going to be monotonously drilling the hand position.

These drills suck to do, but they’re absolutely necessary to develop a new feel and thus a new movement in your swing if you’re going through a change.

More reps isn’t better, better reps is better.

Golf Performance

Here it is!

A Ping G430 Max on a Ventus Black (6s) Velocore shaft 😍

A beautiful thing to unwrap a new driver and hit it for the first time.

Anyways, I shot a 48 in New Jersey with the most ragged clubs I could find, but a 48 isn’t bad!

When I’m playing 9 holes by myself I don’t usually keep score. I’m working on specific parts of my game, whether it’s strategy or swing thoughts, and view those like practice rounds. Most of the time I don’t putt it out either (unless putting is one of the things I’m targeting for practice that day).

Wrap-Up

It feels really good to have broken my record last week with the 89, and I’m super excited about having a new driver in the bag.

But.

I can’t get too carried away, it’s time to get back to head down on the grindstone time as I’ve got a lot of re-working to do with my swing in order to hit this driver extremely well.

I know I've got the potential to perform really well off the tee box so I need to build a consistent on-plane swing to use appropriately. I think that will also have a significant impact to my scoring now that I have equipment that will respond to a better swing efficiency.