Week 33 Update
Week 33 Update
Good (and Bad) Things Come in Three's
Welcome Players! I was still finishing up some travel at the start of the week, but hit the ground running when I got back to close out a strong week. Three range sessions, two workouts, and the potential to buy more clubs makes for an exiting week!
Contents:
Training Week in Review
Habit Tracker
Training Log
Skill Practice
Golf Performance
Wrap-Up
Habit Tracker
It was another half-week, this time on the back-end due to travel, but the good news is that I went to the range twice while on the road with my friend who is just starting to pick up golf.
Usually it’s tough to go 10+ days without touching a club but having back-to-back range days, even if it wasn’t with my clubs, is huge to continue to practice and develop feels.
I’m having some technical difficulties with my putting mat which really sucks, so I’ve got to return it and get another one. This has turned into a pain-in-the-ass process and I’m more than a month behind now from where I wanted to be as it relates to putting practice.
Training Log
Resistance Train (Gym): 2
Conditioning (Road Bike): 0
I wasn’t able to fit a bike ride into my schedule once returning but I did get two solid lifts in on the back half of the week. As long as it’s forward progress is what really matters.
I’m going to re-test my VO2 max on the treadmill this month, but I’m also looking into finding an exercise physiology lab that has the necessary equipment to test my VO2 max on a stationary bike. This is a bit extra and not really required for Project Par, but I’m curious to know my numbers in a more relevant context so I’ll keep you updated if that pans out.
Skill Practice
Practicing on the road with my buddies 20-year old clubs was more about just getting out there and swinging a club than it was about working on a specific motion. I was on vacation after all.
Once I got back though I had a great chance to work with a TaylorMade rep who was doing a demo-day. I got to spend some time with him and talk about club fits and hit the new line of TM clubs. He fit me into a driver which you can see in the swing below.
I was absolutely crushing it. It was a Stealth 2 HD 10.5 degree with a 6s ventus velocore shaft.
A big note to make is that my current driver is a 43.5in shaft, I decision I made before Project Par started in order to learn how to properly control my swing and reduce my margin of error off the tee-box.
And it worked, after months and months of practice I’ve eliminated the slice as a miss and make pretty solid contact with my driver. I’m comfortable with it in my bag and am starting to dial in hitting it on the center of the face more consistently. The only caveat is that I lose quite a bit of distance, hitting my driver around 250-260yds.
I have a much more powerful / faster swing than that which I always knew but never really cared about.
But after hitting the full-length ventus shaft on the new Taylor Made head I was able to see just how much potential I really have in terms of distance. We were only using a small portable radar and not a full trackman set up, but I was getting distances of 285+ with this club, and my ball flight was significantly improved. Much lower trajectory and much less spin which would contribute big time to post-flight roll.
I had been thinking about going through a full-fitting and potentially getting a new driver, and after seeing the results of this weekend I think it’s definitely time to make some upgrades to the bag.
Wrap-Up
Summer’s almost over which means we’re about to enter prime golf season here in South Florida!
There’s two months left of rainy (hurricane) season and then it’s all out race against the clock to log low-rounds before the end of the year.
At this point I’m not sure how realistic it is to drop 20+ strokes in the remaining 4 months, but I’d really like to get my handicap down to the mid-teens as well as log a score in the low 80’s.
I think I have a good chance of dropping my handicap if I can play 5-10 more quality rounds and with the way my swing is progressing I’m only a few good decisions and 1 great day away from breaking my personal record and seeing my score start with that beautiful snowman (8).