Welcome Players! Read below for the Week 48 Update.
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.
Keep it up! Your dedication is so admirable!!