Practiced after teaching on the same topics. More hip turn allows for more shoulder turn which allows me to get the club further around me. As long as I am patient and wait for my left bicep and chest to connect, I hit long and solid shots.

Started to purposely change my shoulder plane to see its effect on initial starting direction. Typically, when I make a mistake it is when my arms separate from my turn and go down too much without enough around in them. This almost always leads to a flip, bent left wrist and a push for me.

Like many of you, I continue to focus on maintaining a flat left wrist at impact. I usually do a couple drills in the beginning of each session to reinforce the feeling I want. I start with chip shots from a very forward ball position to get my body turning with out flipping at it.

Played in Webster Golf Club Men’s Travel league. Tried for the first time on the course what I had been practicing on the range. Hit the ball ok until the rain came. I wasn’t really prepared to play in the rain because I didn’t have my rain gloves. Actually lost the club out of my hand in the downswing on 17 and the club went almost farther than the ball. Good rain gloves would have allowed me to continue holding on loosely under wet conditions.

I struggled with getting my left wrist flat at impact on the first shot and a couple others but it never really hurt me bad enough to prevent a par. Where I struggled was with the trust in the backswing turn and the patience at transition. Lakeside had a bunch of holes with OB right and just off the fairway. As a fader, I was compelled to favor the left side and did so a little too much. Twice I aimed left and then hit a draw requiring me to take unplayable drops both times on holes 3 and 4 which led to two doubles. Ended up with 40 on the front.

Started well on the back. 3 easy pars. Then the rain and wind came and I struggled to keep my swing together because I either held on loose and lost control of the club or I held on tight and lost feel of the club.

Putted very well. The stuff I learned and that will be covered in the green reading clinic has improved my reads. Most of my misses were speed misses. I chose die lines on a few 5 footers and then hit it too hard and they didn’t break. Starting line was very good. Chipping and pitching were as good as I would expect for someone that hasn’t practiced it in years.

Here’s what I took away from it. Need to replenish some bad weather items if I’m going to start playing again. I need to play more. The stuff I am doing works and works well. Where I need work is visualization and trust only the course can provide. Especially, I need to play where there is trouble right.

Had an extended range session today. In the beginning, I was trying to add a few things that I thought might help my impact position and move through the ball. None of those things worked. Regained my thoughts that I have been using and talked about in previous posts and good shots came right back.

I still have a tendency to swing a little too much left but it is easily correctable. Still same swing keys. Full hip turn on way back which allows my arms to come in enough and make contact with my chest. When I feel my left bicept and chest connect I’m able to rotate that pressure point around and through the ball without feeling like my arms have done all the work. All of my best shots are because of better pivoting. Both back and through.

I was very pleased when I stopped trying things to improve what I had. Shots were very straight to little fade and solid. As I mentioned before, I still need more playing time to work it on the course.

Small range session tonight. Good solid 9 irons. A little pull cut and right on target. Driver had a little too much fade in it. Worked on opening the face less during the backswing and that brought it right around.

Had a little practice time between lessons. Finally, recovered the feelings I had from late last summer on how to release the club and square the face. Extra 10 yards in distance and the sound. Really, have to keep that right wrist bent while rolling my flat left wrist to the left. Contact improves right away and distance comes from a better ground up pivot instead of all arm swing. Happy to finally regain that feel.

Played my first 18 holes in quite a while. Played Webster East from the blacks on a wet and rainy day. Before the rain came, the course was playing long and soft. I started out on the back and made a silly bogey on 11 and a bogey on 15 after a topped tee shot. 7 other pars for 38. Front nine was similar. Silly bogey on two, three putt on 3 and 2 other bogeys on 8 and 9. 8 was a poor iron shot and 9 was a good shot the wrong distance. Made a nice birdie on 4 for a 5 over 76.

Was fairly pleased with how I hit the ball. More than a few times, I was able to hit draw into left pins and fades into right pins. Aside from the real bad top on 15 and hook on 8, I was happy with how I struck the ball. Main swing thoughts were let the club finish in the backswing and keep the right wrist bent while rolling at the strike.

Very hopeful……

Played golf on vacation while in Canada. It was a very nice Stanley Thompson design called Burlington G&CC. Short but in very nice shape.

I’ve come to revelation. It seems the less I play, the quality of my bad shots is worse. There are probably just as many but they are much worse than when I’m practicing. Made 6 doubles with no penalty shots, an eagle and 2 birdies. Missed virtually every putt I looked at. My eagle and two birds had a total distance of about 12 feet. Missed a bunch of 6-8 footers for birdie and par. I had 3, 3 putts and 1 or 2 up and downs only. Drove the ball well and felt pretty poor with that score with 4 under on three holes.

With all my right flying shots, I can feel my left wrist get under the shaft on the way down and there is no way to consistently get the face back from that position. I will continue working on keeping my left wrist flatter in the backswing so I don’t open the face and get my wrist under the shaft in the downswing.

Had a very good practice session today. Been working on a drill to help with my pivot. Drill is working very well and is as such. Make regular swings with your right thumb off the club and pointing at the target and your right index finger almost off the club. This allows me to pivot much better through the shot.

I’ve also been working on improving my pivot in general. Feeling like my left bicept and left chest stay touching as I rotate that connection around to hit the ball. Feels much less handsy and more powerful.

Had a short practice session today. Was unable to keep my focus and work on the one thing I have been working on. It went well for the first few balls but then I got impatient and tried to go right to full swings. That didn’t go so well and I started trying a bunch of different things.

I started to get frustrated until I finally went back to what I should be practicing on. Basically, I wasted about an hour of practice time because I was too focused on result and felt rushed with time. Knowing what to do and doing it aren’t always the same. I was glad I stopped myself and got a little work done toward the end but I wasted too much time.

Today was a good day. Practiced well. Good concentration and progress. Improvement is still coming as my control of the clubface during the backswing gets more consistent. I hit the ball very straight and good distance. Had a few too many thin shots than I would like.

Decided to bring it to the course. Wow, did I struggle trying to implement the changes. Only on a couple shots was I able to do what I wanted. It is becoming more and more clear to me that being on the course is the only way I will be able to get back to where I used to be.

Things are coming along very well. My distance has returned as well as the solid contact. Main thought right now is feeling like David Duval when he turns his head out of the way before the strike occurs. Helps me be more patient and get pivoted around before the strike.

Some of the longest most solid shots I’ve hit in a long time.

I’ve got it.

Ok so now that I have found a swing that I remember and produces what I want now I have to work and play with it.

Here’s how it feels to me.

Grip is a little weaker than it used to be.

Backswing is same as always. Still working on turning/pivoting more to produce more power but sometimes the more I turn going back the less I turn through.

Downswing has to be pivot initiated. The more I feel like I turn and ignore the club the better I hit it. In fact, I purposely try to feel like I turn my head out of the way so I can turn faster and sooner. This might be a flexibility issue that I’ve felt was caused by my neck. David Duval is my current picture of head turned away.

When I do the above, I get a nice impact shape and solidness feel I’ve been missing for too long. I can hit the easiest, nicest little knockdowns that seemingly have no club use at all. All Pivot. I don’t have to think about squaring the face. It comes out straight or fall right.

I do have to be careful of lifting my posture when I’m pivoting through. This causes a pull.

As I have spent much more time this year reclaiming my swing, I must say I had a picture in my head of what it should feel like. I priortized things and that was the biggest help. Pivot and impact. Those were my guides.

I played about 8 holes today. Hit all good shots except 2 pulls. After the additional information on the green reading certification, I either made or hit the hole with every first putt. This information is sick if you know how to use it. I can’t wait to teach it to more of my students.

Round 1-Monroe GC

Stats:

Fariways—-10

GIR———12

Putts——-37

Score——79

Clear to see where my game is lacking. One 4 putt, two 3 putts and 1 double chip. Didn’t hit it very close and only had 2 birdies. Short game was not good as I got up and down only 1 time. All in all, my swing didn’t hold up that great except for 3 shots. Still working on earlier posts but not horrible ball striking.

Round 2-Shenendoah

Stats:

Fairways—-8

GIR’s——–10

Putts——–29

Score——-77

Obviously putted well today but I did not hit the ball very well. Had a very difficult time keeping the flip at bay. I hit a bunch of accurate short irons but only one decent drive. Only 3 birdies with one lost ball, one ball in a hazard(both from poor drives) and one double chip with a three putt.

I will keep working and keep you posted.

I just went back and read all my previous posts. More than once did I mention that I was going to need to play more to get back to where I used to be. Clearly, I have not made that commitment.

For the last 4 years, I have gone into the year saying that I was going to play more and I have not. I have a difficult time accepting the idea of golf taking between 4 and 5 hours long to play. Surely it can be less sometimes but I prefer to play in an hour or two. To do this I usually play at 8pm or after an hour I just drive off the course.

It’s funny because I used to be a very deliberate player. Now, I’m exactly the opposite. I notice at least a few times during the rounds I have played where my desire to speed up causes me to miss things. In tournament play, those couple shots make it impossible to recoup the expenses of taking time off and the cost of the entry fee.

Is lost income a good reason to not play? A fair question for sure. I struggle with it constantly and will continue to struggle with it for sure. All my practice and swing recovery is nice but it doesn’t mean much because I don’t compete. It has made the times I play more enjoyable. After all that time, it’s worth it.

I have been able to practice pretty liberally lately and I’m happy to report that it is going well. I have a pretty good routine and understanding of how to get back what I want when it is missing. Whenever I rush my transition, it becomes impossible to start my downswing with pivot.

I’ve been making sure lately that I wait for the clubhead to complete it’s movement in the backswing. It helps me complete my turn and it allows me to start down with something else than my hands, arms or club.

All of my good shots are straight to fall right. I can swing as hard as I want and not hook. Everyonce in a while, I might hit a pull. Always shoulder plane related but something to be aware of.

As the year comes to an end, I thought it might be intersting to work on hitting a purposeful draw. Keep in mind that my typical shot is straight to fade. Hitting draws for me has been difficult without dramtically changing my set-up and path.

I’ve been working on keeping the clubface less open both on the backswing and downswing. When I mess up, I loose the club face shape I built in the backswing as I switch to the downswing. I can feel my wrist fall under the shaft opening the clubface.

The feeling I am working with is width. As I keep my left wrist more flat and the face less open, I can feel the angle between the shaft and left forearm is less than normal. I can feel the clubhead farther from me on the downswing. This is the part that identifies this as a draw swing vs. a fade swing.

I’ll keep you posted….

So, today I played round number 8 with some guys from my golf team. Decided to play it all the way back for the qualifier with not a single ball to warm up. 8 rounds. Sad indeed but such is my life right now.

Stats:

Fairways hit–4

Greens in regulation–10

Birdies–2

Putts–33

Up n downs–0

Score–78

No doubles, no penalties

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on hitting more draws so I thought I would try that today with my driver. The only fairways I hit were ones I tried to fade. All the rest, I aimed up the right and hit a little fade just off the fairway or I hit three straight pulls.

Never hit a single draw with my driver. Oh well. I also tried a chipping technique I had heard about but didn’t calculate slope well enough for it to work. I hit three other greens on the edge or front that either spun off the front or spun off the green into the rough.

My number of putts was not great, but my reads were all excellent except for one. Either a make or a speed miss. Anyone that has not heard of or doesn’t believe the AimPoint method works, is going to fall behind those of us that use it. It is so accurate, it’s scary. I talked in another thread how difficult people have reading the greens at Webster GC. I can tell you, once you know what you are doing, they are very understandable. If I had good pace today, even with horrible chipping and pitching, I would have shot 72.

It’s so funny. I pull out the AimChart to determine the break and noone asks about it until the putts start going in. Then I tell them and most are like “nah, that won’t work or I think I read them pretty well.” Then you make a few more from all over and now they want to learn more.

Again, it’s clear but my shortgame again prevented me from shooting a decent score and I never hit it close(inside 20 feet) except the par 5′s. Any of you that think you can get better playing 2 times a month and only practicing at the range will struggle scoring lower.

Tonight, I went out and played just a couple of holes tying up some loose knots from the weekends golf.

I went back and read some previous journal entries, looked at old video when I use to play a bunch and tossed a couple things around in my head.

I know I have a problem with narrowness on the downswing which opens the face and makes it difficult for me the square the club repetitvely.

I decide on a plan of action and immediate results arrive. Longer and straighter and wider. To me, it feels so wide it’s like I’m swinging a huge straight pole. It feels like my body, shoulders, arm, hands and club are all traveling on the same radius.

I’ll try and get some video and post up soon.

So, I just got back from the AMF Teaching Summit that was held at Medinah CC. #3 was under construction to prepare for the 2012 Ryder Cup so we had to play #1. The course was recently aerified and wet from the rain. It was difficult to putt and chip with those conditions but here we go.

Fairways hit–2

Greens in Regulation–8

Birdies–1

Putts–33

Up n Downs–2

Penalties–4(2 hazard, 1 OB)

Score–79

1 double bogey on the OB tee shot. 2 tee shots in hazard. 1 straight out due to wrong club and 1 other tee shot in hazard to the right but I thought I chose a club that couldn’t reach the hazard.

Aside for the 1 pull that went OB, I really drove the ball very close to the fairway all day. Usually in the first cut. Eventhough I only hit 2 fairways, I was never in any real trouble. I hit a bunch of shots over the green(especially on par 3′s). As I’ve worked on getting less narrow, my distances are increasing and I wasn’t prepared for it.

Clearly, there isn’t much golf to review but let me give you what I’ve learned about my swing to take into the winter and next year. The most important piece of information effecting every swing decision I’ve ever made is the fact that when I make a mistake it is virtually always with the face and it’s usually to the right. Only when you know where someone is coming from, do you have a full appreciation of why they do what they do and what they’re afraid of doing.

So, wide open push slice is my fear. When I worked on my swing up until this year, I always worked on something that would make my push slice go away for ever. More turn, less weight right, or any number of things. As I looked back on my past attempts to cure my problem, they didn’t truly fix it. For awhile. Sometimes. Only if I was practicing regularly which we all know didn’t happen enough either.

Last year and this year, I focused all my time and attention on face control. It comes down to this. My main problem is opening the face too much in the backswing and then opening more in the downswing. For so many years, I would try and time my flip to hit good shots. Explains why I always needed to be a range rat.

For many years, I hit would hit the ball solid almost every time. In fact, this is how I used to rate my ball striking. Not by where the ball went but by how solid it. Strange? Right? As soon as I got a club job, I got bad fast. Very little practice led to push right. One of the reasons I hit the ball solid was a very narrow/steep angle in the shaft in the downswing.

It is this angle that makes it very difficult to close the face in time. With a clearer acceptance of my past and where I want my future to be, the road to recovery goes through keeping my left wrist flatter and angle in the shaft not as sharp.

As always, I will keep you posted.