1/1/2023 - 1/8/2023
Having my practice plan laid out gave me some excitement that I haven’t felt in a long time. People often throw out words/phrases like “grit” and “it’s a grind” when describing their practice sessions and I’m sure I’ll feel that way at some point, but not now. I’m in that honeymoon phase where every drill, every movement, and every practice session is new and fresh and is going to lead me to the promise land.
I began the week with a Calibration session to give me some baseline numbers to compare against in a month. The object is to hit 20 shots with a 7i and 20 with a driver, then record how the face strike, ground strike, and flight direction went. Here are my results:
What jumps out to me was poor Ground Strikes and poor Face Strikes with Ground Strikes being the absolute worst.
So, without getting upset about it, I catered my practice plan to attack my weak points.
Monday
The Later Release drill I did to address Fat Shots was really eye opening and I was able to make some really good progress in this area. In the below picture, you’ll see in the “Before” image that I was releasing the club much too early. At this point in the swing, the club would overtake my lead arm and thus “casting” it prior to hitting the ball.
In the “After” image, my lead arm and club were still in line much passed the ball and while this isn’t the desired outcome for a real shot, it gave me the feels of waiting the extra split second to release the club into the ball - ultimately leading me to hit ball first and then ground.
Tuesday
During Calibration, my second biggest weakness was Face Strike. The way this drill is designed is to purposefully hit a ball on the toe and then the heel. Again, you wouldn’t intentionally want to do this in real life because the sweet spot is where the most power lies; but according to Adam, if I can begin to get a feel for what toe/heel feel like, he said his students are more apt to find the middle because you can pickup the subtle differences.
With a 7i, I sprayed my clubface with Dr. Scholls foot spray (which reminds me, I need to order more) and got to work. 30 balls.
The first 10 I aimed for Toe strikes. Went 7/10.
The second 10 balls, I aimed for Heel strikes. Went 3/10 and found I was thinning the ball a lot when trying to hit the Heel.
The last 10, I alternated. Went 5/10 and most of my correct ones were Toe side.
Wednesday
Today was a mini Calibration session focused on Ground Contact only since that’s where I struggle the most.
With no ball, the Drill is to hit and make contact with the ground within 1” of where the ball would be. Start with a chipping motion, then go to Pitching, then full swing. Only advance when you correctly do it 7 out of 10 times.
Results:
Chip: 7/10
Pitch: 6/10 then 8/10
Full: 8/10
Thursday
I have a tendency to push and even slice balls right (which I think a lot of people do too) so the drill today helps carry a closed club face at impact.
The object of the Lead Wrist Flexion Drill is to pause at the top of the backswing and purposefully flex my wrist and then complete my downswing. No balls.
So I set a timer for 10 minutes and went to work.
It felt like I was extremely bending my hand down in a very unnatural motion, but when I’d look back at it to check, it had BARELY MOVED! The purpose isn’t to get me to a Dustin Johnson type flexed wrist, but rather a more flat wrist which in turn makes it easier to carry a closed clubface at impact.
Friday
My original schedule had called me for a Rest Day, but when the weather was nice and I had a vacation day to burn, I jumped at the opportunity and I’m glad I did.
Anxious to see how my practice would translate to the course, it did not disappoint! And while the card shows an 84, I played like a score in the 70’s and just let 2 bad holes on 16 and 17 caused me from breaking 80 for the first time ever.
Couple takeaways:
I only hit 2 Fat shots during the day (compared to my normal ~10.
I’m MUCH more confident with my driver now that I have better control of my clubface. This thing is a weapon now since my avg distance is 276. I’m now looking into The Stack system to get my speed up to help pick up even more strokes on the field.
I hit 10 Greens in Regulation because I simply aimed at the middle of the green versus trying to go Pin seeking. I was very guilty of that before and it caused a lot of misses which in turn added extra strokes because my chipping has been shaky recently.
Still have a long journey ahead
Saturday
I’d love to say that I followed the plan and took a day of rest. But my wife had other plans. Let’s just say, I didn’t pick up a golf club.
Sunday
Back to the Lead Wrist Flexion drill since that one felt so strange to me and I didn’t quite get it. So again, pause at the top of the backswing and purposefully flex my wrist and then complete my downswing. 10 minutes, no balls.
This time, I started to feel more comfortable finding the desired position.
Recap
I throughly enjoyed the week and I think it’s mostly because I had a plan in place that was easy to execute. In the past, I’d come up with all these elaborate plans with 2 hour practice sessions that had me floating between all kinds of moves. Instead, each session has 1 singular focus. Being intentional on the quality of the session and not the quantity of it.
Sidenote for me later: Even though I didn’t publish this article until 5 days after the week finished up, it was still beneficial to write the recaps to remember what I did, what I felt so that I can see the progress later.