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At risk of bringing the average age of this discussion down a notch, it’s an interesting question BM posed and Commish has eloquently captured in his response.
As a 48yo with ongoing lower back issues I have had to readjust my expectations and approach to both improvement and playing. Previous thoughts were filtered with feel isn’t real, what I think I’m doing isn’t even close to what I think, and lessons are best.
Using that same approach and knowledge from 3 years of lessons and practice etc. I have recalibrated my goals and playing approach. In short I have realised I have a functional playable swing and need to fine-tune my short game to score better.
I don’t need to think in terms of positions or concepts, I need to keep my current swing repeatable and work on short game skills.
So, for me, the TGM type discussion or overly detailed analysis of the golf swing had never really worked and I now doubt will ever need to be. But, I 100% support and encourage others who do like that approach.
So, where are they all?
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If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
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The underwhelming strategic plan for Ocean Shores Country Club has been released.
Can be viewed / accessed here:
https://www.oceanshorescc.com.au/
I’m rather surprised at the action items and strategy. Very very basic. All things the General Manager should be doing anyway.
I think the club has wasted the money.
I agree a strategic plan is needed, but more robust strategy needs to be developed. Doing the same basic things is not enough.
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
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The plan
So apart from the round, the other stuff I have been working on. Chalked up a fail to the practice this week – I had the opportunity to get out to the range but just didn’t bother. I did purchase a copy of the Strike Plan by Adam Young, which is a really interesting approach to practice which works on actual skill improvement trying to improve your strike patterns rather than changing your swing. So I watched several of his videos and will plan to use that for my range practice, but need to watch a few more times to make sure that I understand the drills correctly.
And I have been reading a couple of golf books. This week I read “Every Shot has a Purpose” which is about a mental approach to the game and practice. It actually lines up very closely with the practice plans I have purchased, so that’s good.
There is a bit focus on pre-shot routines and the other sorts of things you can control in the round. One of the messages was that for each round you should be having a golf focus which is not a swing thought. So something that you are looking to achieve in the round. I think I already have a pretty good pre-shot routine, but I identified two places I want to improve. First, once I have decided on the shot, I spend too much time over the ball before I pull the trigger. They warn that once you are in the “play box” or the mental and physical place to play the shot, you should just move instinctively through the shot. Pausing over the ball allows other thoughts to come into the shot and ruin it.
Secondly was the idea of a “post-shot routine”. This is the idea that you have a way of thinking about a shot afterwards and filing it away so that it doesn’t infect the rest of your game if it were bad, but taking a moment to enjoy and acknowledge it if it is a good shot. So yesterday my golf focus was only having positive or neutral reactions to shots. I did okay with it (except for on the 9th which was a real brain fade). And I don’t know if it was because of this or not, but I spent less time thinking about the score and more time just reminding myself that the only thing that I could control was the shot in front of me.
Will be interesting to see how I go with it during a stroke round on Saturday.
I can see what it’s talking about, when you get on a roll your not really thinking about your score you can get to a run of pars and think gee that seemed easy. Alternatively if your struggling your thinking of what your doing wrong what swing thought can I try next!
Well a great example was my meltdown on the 9th on the weekend. 30 feet away from the pin on the green. I left the first well short which I got annoyed at because I had been leaving putts short all morning. My second was makeable but not a gimmie, and it rolled past to 3 feet. So far so normal. When I missed the 3 footer is where things really fell apart – I was so mad at myself for stuffing up a good chance. I really should have marked my ball and let someone else putt while I got out of the headspace. But I stepped right up and slammed the ball at the cup for a power lip out and a wipe.
It was a complete mental escalation just because I was getting progressively angry with myself for each poor putt and not allowing myself to let it go before stepping up to the next one. It was really the only occasion that I lost my golf focus on avoiding negative thoughts. So, while I don’t want to dwell on negative outcomes, I think the memory of that hole will be a little reminder when I get into that kind of spot. Maybe I will write a little reminder on my stats card “Step away from the ball before you five putt”.
I’m a big believer in the mental aspects of the game. Totally get where you’re trying to reduce yourself from “reacting” and letting the emotions impact following shots.
However, out of curiosity, can you recall your thought on the PSR for the first putt. Standing over that 30 foot putt… What were you thinking?
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Good news that the back isn’t broken
Yes, very good to have my afternoon outdoor activity.
Walking around finding a little white ball at least gets me out doing something!
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
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condom factory. Coronavirus
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Few weeks without swinging a club now.
Decided to test the back and walked 9 holes at the home track yesterday afternoon. I did some warm up on the practice range, hit about 50 balls starting with wedges then walked onto the par 3 8th.
Shot 9 over OTS to course par.
3x 3 putts and 4x short first putts, and 4x short pitch / chip shots really cost me. Just couldn’t get the feel of the greens. They were crazy slow!
Course is starting to kick after all the rain.
I’ve booked in for the Blue Marker on the 28th. Goal is to shoot sub 90, which is bogey golf working off course par. Daily handicap will be 20.
I’m going to concentrate practice on short game. Chipping, bunkers and putting. I’m going to have to practice on the greens and course more than anywhere else to get a feel for the greens.
Oh, yeah, and my back is ok ish this morning. Bit tight and stiff but not out of action sore. Need to stretch … more, lots more!
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
You all seem to be comparing your before & after GA Index. The only change there was the scrubbing of the 7% discount.
So they all went out by 7%, or 1 in 14. That was a Golf Aust peculiarity not used anywhere else in the world. But they liked it so much that they brought it into the playing handicap. That’s probably not done anywhere else in the world either.What I found interesting was that the 7% was added in to the ‘new handicap’ on the last round recorded before the golflink shutdown. My anchor was then reset (from 14.5 to 16.5) on my last round (4 days later).
I don’t understand how it could takes 3 days to add 7% to every GA Index. It’s just a simple database update that takes a few seconds.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell us.
The 7% adjustment is WHY we are looking at our GA, but like up, mine did not adjust out by that 7%
Can you explain why that is?
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
For all who “are playing the same clubs as (insert pro’s name)” …
When a product goes to Tour, it’s built for the tour, which in this case means it would have a longer hosel for manipulation, center of gravity would be different, and there would be a hot melt port for sound and swing weight
From here (buried in the comments mid article):
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
15.2 to 15.9
… 🤔 …
15.2/0.93 so it should be 16.3
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Practice
So I had a full practice before the round but also took some time afterwards to do some more intentional practice. I have purchased a short game practice plan which includes 10-11 levels of drills for both putting and chipping. It is designed that if you do one level of each it will take about 2 hours. I had about 40 minutes and managed to complete 3.5 sets out of 5 from the putting drill. The deal is that you have to get a certain number of outcomes (eg hole the putt, leave it within 3 feet etc) from each set of drills, which are between 20-50 shots per set. You need to pass each of the sets in the level before you can move on to the next level, which is a new 1 hour session of drills. If you don’t pass, you do the same level next time.
I have completed 3.5 of the sets but have good enough results in the 4th set that I have already passed it. Which means that when I finish the level, I only have to pass the last set to advance to the next level. Which is causing me some angst. Never having done intentional tracked practice like this I don’t actually know whether I am going to manage to get 14 out of 20 lag putts from range within the target area. So I think I will be introducing some pressure into my practice on some of these exercises.
Next week if I have time I will start on the first level of the chipping drills. They seem very intimidating as they are all built around outcomes requiring you to put the ball in an area one foot square. And, never having done planned practice, I have no idea how consistently I would be able to do that.
Anyway, so far very impressed with the practice plan, which should keep me busy all year even if I do both levels in full every week, which is unlikely given that I will likely have some other practice priorities at different times.
All in all a good first week of the challenge, albeit on that has seen the handicap go in the wrong direction.
What ‘practice plan’s did you buy?
Care to share a link?
Or
Is this your new secret sauce for winning the L4G Vic OOM and Nationals?
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Deege, at risk of breaking one of your rules, with your on course playing stat tracking, have you considered including any mental / mind / body / how you were feeling type of info?
Knowing when a bad shot happens and your mindset at the time may prove useful information.
This links with the on course playing lesson Mads mentioned. Having to talk through your pre shot thoughts to.soneone who knows better, can uncover interesting mental aspects.
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
a pint of
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Bloody sucks mate
Maybe look up swings for older golfers which often involve more arms and less twisting
Yep… Set up slightly closed and open right hip at set up. Allows for a 3/4 swing, good firing of the left hip and good clearance at contact. No improvement in distance, but control improved and excess strain on back reduced. 15.1 to 13.8 in 3 weeks and getting some consistency for once. Hope I haven’t spoken to soon.
Hang in there Hack. Learning to enjoy what you can do will lead to better results anyway. They may not be as good as what you desired, but hey, how often do we get what we wished for. Raquel Welch still hasn’t rang me..
Thanks Commish.
TBH, I think I had it sorted, it’s just the set up.posture change thing that’s now thrown me. I also think, looking back, it’s been worse working with the new coach.
I might go and get a second opinion from my old coach, who did the club fitting in early 2017. Fuck knows what he’ll think when I show him the standard loft n lie 718 AP2 Ii bought off a mate and have been using!
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Bloody sucks mate
Maybe look up swings for older golfers which often involve more arms and less twisting
Cheers Weeti.
I had already been looking at info on the www for tips n tricks re the back. TBH, I think my swing was functional enough to score… The 8 over from the white tees was easily only a couple over with short game impacts removed. I hadn’t really practiced short game in a while due to the condition of the greens.
My downer aka bummer is the overflow impact ATM onto, into, other parts of my life, aka surfing. Awake again at usual time today and I’m no chance of surfing…
Hmmm. The mental aspects of this are harder than the physical I think!
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
, soggy naan bread
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
