So stableford at Rosebud today and the focus was coach’s new game plan. The plan is to par all the par 5s and bogey everything else. That gets me 40 points on my current handicap. I had an okay but unspectacular front nine – a hitler on the second was disappointing but not upsetting, cause both shots were good contact and technique, just caught the lip. Ended up with 15 on the front and 4 down from the game plan perspective but no wipes.

Started the back well with three three pointers in a row had me back to 2 behind the game plan (one of them was the par 4 where I get two shots, so only made up two shots on the plan). Topped the next one off the tee leading to a messy hole and came into the three par 5s in a row back to 4 shots down on the plan. It’s the part of the course where I can capitalise, but the focus on being behind on the plan saved me from focussing on the fact that I was putting together a good back nine. Only managed a double on the first par 5 after I was out of position for the drive. Rolled in a birdie on the next. Managed a bogey on the next, so the par 5s were played in three over. Some work to do there.

Didn’t get out of control. but had a poor bunker based wipe on the last. Was disappointing but left me with 18 points on the back with two wipes, so there were plenty of good shots. So 33 overall, which missed the plan, but was a good round nonetheless.

Driver was awesome all day. Had a few mis-hits while practising the new takeaway. And took a while to get used to taking practice swings, but managed by the end of the round to figure out how it fit into my routine.

All in all pretty happy with the day to score well and hit plenty of good shots while in the middle of changing both my pre-shot routine and my takeaway.

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Weetbix, Hack2489

Francie wrote:

deege wrote:

So headed out to Golf Studio this afternoon for 30 mins or so of putting practice. The technical putting mats are really cool. The one I was using was set up for puts from 3 feet, 9 feet, three metres and four metres from memory. Using the swing guide generally meant that distance control was good, but I noticed that my natural stroke had too much of a backswing and follow through on short putts and not enough on longer putts. So doing some repetitions on the mat should help me to groove a better feel for that.

Also gave very good feedback as to whether you are getting the ball on line because the line is marked on the mat. From my observation I was pretty good at getting the ball on line initially, but my fault is that the ball curls away left once it slows, suggesting that the putter face is just a fraction closed. Then practiced some distance control on the big putting mats. They have target areas marked, so I was practising lag putts from 30-40 feet just trying to get a better score on the target. Turns out I am crap at lag putts from that distance – improving that feel might have a big impact on my 3putt count.

So all in all a good session, super convenient to pop in – only two other people there on a Sunday afternoon.

How quick are the putting “greens”. Some I’ve found at Drummonds etc…are just too quick for my liking and you just have to get the ball started..

They did mention to me something about the stimp when I signed up, but I forget. They are not like the drummonds ones though which feel like putting on floorboards. To me they felt pretty comparable to our Rosebud greens (which are on the quickish side).

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Francie, Hack2489

Hack2489 wrote:

Getting on trackman for every ‘range’ session would be great value… Knowing actual path to face etc while grooving swing changes would be awesome. At $20-25k per unit, the $30pw is awesome value!

That putting area setup is brilliant too.

Will be interesting to see if it gets too busy at times and what impacts that has on use of various areas etc.

What’s your “superstition” about taking a practice swing as part of your PSR?

They actually told me that they have a notional limit on number of members with the current set up – they have 140 at the moment and they reckon that they can handle about 250. There is an online booking system for the trackman bays and the simulation suites and there seem to be plenty of slots available.

My superstition regarding practice shots is about what if you make the good swing with the practice swing. But my coach was suggesting that the clubs are all different lengths and you might not have swung a 6 iron yet today, so you just want to check your ground interaction is at the right spot and if you have just done exactly the right move, it increases your confidence and muscle memory to do it again.

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Hack2489

Had a lesson after the round with my coach. I basically spoke to him about my challenge. We went through some stats and strength and weaknesses, and spoke through where the errors had been and where there had been problems with bad shots. I said that while my ball striking is generally pretty good, now that there are no really glaring areas of my game which are draining shots, I feel like the mis-hits and occasional poor shots both with short and long clubs are causing me grief. I said that I had rounds where I feel like my face strike with the irons is a bit off and that I can’t afford those sort of errors when I am trying to get the handicap down. Today I felt like the mis-hits came from poor ground strike.

So he took me out on the actual range so we could hit some off the grass back toward the chipping green. Took a wedge and he encouraged me to take a practice shot to get the ground feel before carrying out the shot. Went through the routine a couple of times and certainly was hitting them well. I don’t normally take practice swings due to being superstitious, but looks like I am going to implement it now. Then went to try the same thing with chipping and promptly shanked 5 chips in a row.

So we went back into the lab and put it on the trackman. And we identified a move he wants me to focus on to get my path a bit better. Basically the same swing thought that I have been working on with the driver but to do it with the iron swing and the chipping as well.

He also walked me through a plan for my rounds for the next little while. The plan is to aim to par all of the par 5s which are easily in reach and then bogey everything else. If I manage that then I will get myself to a playing handicap of about 14, at which time we are going to talk about it again to form a new plan. So it’s not that I am not trying to get on in reg on the other holes, but I don’t need to, so don’t be disappointed if I don’t.

Then we talked about practice and I said I was having trouble finding a convenient way to get practice in. And he said, let me tell you about this indoor golf centre that my mate has just started up in Mordialloc. So that led to….

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Hack2489

Hack2489 wrote:

deege wrote:

So I had stableford yesterday at Rosebud and another somewhat scrappy day. Dwayne was behaving very well but had some inconsistent strike patterns on the irons which was leading to some mishits that got me into trouble a few times. Add in a couple of three putts and one par for the day (which was actually an awesome hole), and I was lucky to get away with 30 points.

Completed a full round of practice before golf so won’t be off to the range today, but will use the time to review some more of the strike plan videos to better understand that program. And I am booked in for a lesson next Saturday with coach to review full swing and talk about what I should be doing to improve things going forward.

I can’t help but wonder if the inconsistent iron strikes were in some way, some how, linked with the drill work you mentioned earlier.

My coaches have all referenced postive skill development and drills like the process of hitting high, low, draw, fade type shots with each iron. Which BTW I struggle with, but do find beneficial, in building feeling of face control and even understanding of swing mechanics.

Inconsistent strike (particularly with irons) is something that I had been noticing a couple of times earlier, before I did the practice that you refer to. There is an association, but only to the extent that I had noticed some inconsistent strike patterns and therefore sourced a practice plan which aimed to address inconsistent strike patterns.

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Hack2489

Hack2489 wrote:

deege wrote:

Practice

Did manage to get my practice in this week with a visit to the range (albeit after the poor performance on Saturday). I was working on some drills from the Strike Plan, and in particular practicing hitting bad/not centred shots. So hit 10 out of the toe deliberately then similar number out of the heel and so on.

Made for some mild embarrasment at the range hitting shanks and so on. I did find that when I was trying to hit it out of the heel I was actually striking it pretty well, which is weird particularly as I had a couple of half shanks on Saturday in my forgettable round. I did enjoy having particular things to work on at the range as I tend to find hitting balls pretty boring.

Then I went to the putting green to finish off the last couple of items from my level one putting challenge. I had passed the first four sets of drills even though I still had some items left in the fourth set. So I finished those up, and then I just had two drills of lag putting, with the pass requirement to leave 70% of the putts from 35 and 45 feet within 3 feet of the hole. I got 8 out of 10 from 35 feet, and then totally tanked the 45 feet drill, leaving me two putts outside the standard.

It was an interesting exercise in putting under pressure, cause I had in my mind the whole time the response. But it was illustrative that my lag putting from long distance is pretty poor, when compared with my general putting. And that actually does show up in my game – mainly by leaving long putts short. So I have to repeat the level 1 drill, but my plan for this next week is to try and get through the level 1 chipping challenge and see how I measure up there.

The deliberate heel and toe drill is interesting.

Any info as to why / purpose?

I’m guessing it’s about club face control and awareness of swing path, however I would’ve thought the drill process of hitting draw, fade, high, low would achieve the same with a positive outcome focus.

Any information / background to this “deliberate miss hit” drill in the strike plan notes?

How are you finding having a focus / plan for your practice?

After the ‘putting’ challenges are completed, will you then have a putting practice plan based off the results?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by Hack2489.

Okay so the theory behind the variable face contact practice is indeed for managing face control. He approaches things from a biomechanical position and has found that students who undertake variable face contact practice become better at managing face contact than those that focus on hitting the sweet spot. I don’t know whether some other drill would accomplish this, but this is the one he uses.

As for the putting “tests” they are really practice in themselves, but with a pressure element built in. There are like 11 levels of the test so it won’t run out any time soon – and they require practising progressively more precise skills as you go through the ranks.

So, for example for the first level I have, say, 10 each of straight, downhill, uphill, left-breaking, right-breaking putts from 10 feet. Plus similar putts from longer distances with different targets. So having “failed” the test, I have to repeat that practice session until I am good enough at those skills to meet all the targets. And then head on to the next level with more difficult or more precise tasks. Doing the “test” takes about an hour, so that is an hour of practising putts of different lengths and breaks.

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Hack2489