Week 51 Update

The Penultimate

Welcome Players! Read below for the Week 51 Update.

Contents:

• Habit Tracker

• Training Log

• Skill Practice

• Golf Performance

• Wrap-Up

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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.