vandyland

A positive development on the practice side, I have replaced my very thin mat with a much more substantial mat in hopes of extending the life of my ligaments and joints as my right elbow was really starting to bother me. This is what I previously used, a very cheap mat from Amazon. Very flexible and light but not great on the protection side of things: Fast forward to this mat I salvaged from a range that was getting upgraded. Probably 5x heavier in terms of static weight but waaay more comfortable, notice how much thicker it is: I have been using this mat for about a week now and my elbow feels better already. This was a much needed upgrade and I may not even need the anti-fatigue mats under it anymore but I have them already so I will just keep them there. Played golf on Friday and shot a fairly smooth 74. Swing felt good with the increased shoulder pitch but I have to be careful not to get too passive in my arms as they can get pinned to my chest which is not really what I want. Ball was coming out higher and driver was especially good. I challenged myself on a few shots and hit two balls OB on what I knew to be risky shots in the moment. So a 74 with two balls OB I will take as I made 5 birdies on the day which is excellent for me.

I use lead tape on my 58* to add some weight to the head and I have added tape to the center of my 4W shaft to try to make the shaft heavier (it is stock at about 66g and I wanted to get it up around 70g at least) so I wrapped tape around the midpoint between the grip and the hosel on the shaft.

Minor hiccup here with the wrist strap, be careful as the velcro can come off. The velcro is 3 small strips which transferred to the "wrong side" and thus they would not hold anymore. I removed them and will try to glue them back. The good news is that it looks like the strap can be replaced in worst case.

Date 09/06/2024 Course Name Harpeth Hills Golf Course Gross Score 74 Course Rating 71.5 Course Slope 128 Gross Strokes over/under par 2 Birdies or better 5 Longest Drive 317 Pretty flawless round EXCEPT for 2 balls OB, which was probably the difference between being under par or not. Did make a ton of 5-10 footers!

Well, as always, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I looked at video of my swing (again) this weekend and noticed my old issues showing back up: Flat shoulder turn, no hip depth, early extension in the downswing AND the backswing. I really struggle to get my trail hip UP and BACK in the backswing and when I do, it is hard to figure out how where to go from there. I have just been swinging flat for a long time and I can play decent golf like that but most every really good player gets back into that trail hip in the backswing. I fight this battle almost every year and then give up because I can't do it over a month or two, this year will probably be the same thing. Ultimately if I get more shoulder tilt my right hip will naturally move back a bit to keep me from falling over but the transition ends up feeling very strange.

@Goober That is a good looking shallowing move (to my untrained eye). Keep up the good work!

Date 08/30/2024 Course Name Two Rivers Golf Course Gross Score 75 Course Rating 69.8 Course Slope 121 Gross Strokes over/under par 3 Birdies or better 2 Longest Drive 313 Great round today! 100 degree weather but great for driver distance.

Yep, I get that. I will have some crystallized thoughts in my review conclusion in a few weeks but I must say it is an impressive device. Whether or not you can actually interpret the findings and make meaningful changes is the real question. Also, I played 9 holes yesterday and had a FANTASTIC round. Hit the par 5 first in two (280 yd drive, 233 yd 4 wood to 25 feet, two putt birdie). Birdied the par 3 3rd. Birdied the par 5 4th hole and only had one bogey on the 190 yd par 3 6th hole. So a 2 under 9 hole round where I hit 8/9 greens and didn't miss a fairway. PRETTY GOOD! I would chalk it all up to having a more "connected' finish and not rolling my forearms excessively. Will this feel last??? Only time will tell. As always with this thread, I am filled with optimism.

Hit balls last night without the HackMotion and just focused on that impact feel and position and gradually worked up to full speed. My first shot at full speed was, well, amazing for me with a 9i. Started just right and drew back in, 147 yd carry with a 85 ft apex and ended one yd offline. Spin is a little low but I would not say that spin always feels accurate with the rapsodo. Going to try to play 9 holes soon and see if I can translate this onto the course. Feeling especially confident (overconfident?) in my short game.

I think it is great the tour is trying something and the coverage complaints are nothing new. The PGA Tour coverage is typically lacking and it made sense they didn't commit a ton of resources out of the box on this. One thing that stood out to me is watching these players on their own, slickly produced channels vs a group setting like this....the YouTubers are so far ahead in terms of presenting and editing a product vs the PGA Tour. Yes it is easier when it is just one player or one group but I find a typical Bryan Bros video so much better than this PGA product. Maybe they will get better but it just highlights the fact that the Tour doesn't do a great job packaging content. Even though they have like 800 employees running around PGA Tour headquarters. They really just care about securing sponsors for the tour and selling ad space.

That is truly inspirational. I am now inclined to try that as well. I want to use my analytical work that I did on tour courses and design a "similar" distance test to the tour players. The biggest issue I run into is that even at 6,000 yds a lot of the par 5s I play are unreachable (not that they *should be* necessarily but most par 5s seem gettable for tour players). The other thing I could do is just play all the par 5s from the yellow (senior tees) and not count that score for handicap purposes. That would change all the par 5s I play from: Hole 5 - 510 yds (not quite gettable with my 260 yd drive) would then be reduced to 473 (now reachable with a good drive) Hole 8 - 493 yds (on the edge of gettable) reduced to 466 (gettable with good drive) Hole 16 - 475 yds but massively uphill, not really gettable reduced to 432 yds which could be gettable Hole 17 - 459 yds (gettable but easily the most diabolical and difficult green on the golf course with 10ft dropoffs on all sides (tightly mown) so reducing it 442 wouldn't make a huge difference but I will take all the help I can get on this hole.

I think it is important to know how and what you respond well to and I think it is just as important to (fairly) extol the virtues and drawbacks of a device. If I saved you from being disappointed in a certain technology then I consider that job done. I will organize my thoughts over the next few weeks but currently I don't think the HackMotion is helpful if not combined with professional instruction. They can tell you that your wrist angles are off but not really how to get there. Yes there are drills to practice getting in the right spots but you could be cheating to get there or causing another downstream problem. For me, someone who OBSESSES over the golf swing but doesn't have a great mastery over my technique...this has kind of pushed me into a vortex. I will say I think it fixed my over rotation of my forearms in the downswing. But the backswing....I am currently at odds with the HackMotion. I am *tempted* to call in Monte Schienblum and pay for a lesson just with the HackMotion to test my theory as to whether this device couples well with an instructor. Seems only fair since I received the device for free. This may speak more to my way of learning or lack thereof but I have never really had a training aid that I would consider a "success". Orange whip, blast motion putter trainer, smart ball, wrist hanger, swing setter, putting mirror, puttout pressure trainer...all of that stuff is collecting dust.

Had a truly thrilling short game session today (I always get carried away with good sessions) but I want to point out a few feels that served me well today: - Limiting forearm rotation through impact gave my clubhead speed a slight boost and was CLEARLY additive for spin on pitch and chip shots, just need to make sure I don't get too jerky with that hand braking into impact - This feel extended into my bunker play which was STELLAR today in practice 25/25 shots out of the greenside bunker and on the green with 21/25 finishing within 6 feet and I had 2 that were 10+ feet away from the hole...that NEVER happens for me in practice - Keeping the clubface square to my spine angle and focusing on rotating through impact

@Brdgolf One tip on the RPT balls (and you may already do this) is to always position them at setup so that the clubface is not going to directly hit the black dots. Basically your impact point on the ball should be the biggest white space you can find. That saves some wear and tear on the dots. The net and your club still do plenty of damage but this has kind of extended the life of mine. I also generally use the same one ball every session until it isn't reading anymore or has some significant damage to it and then I move to the next ball.

I would also say mine were quick hooks, not overdraws so they kind of started left and then kept going left. I have guesses as to why but the one thing the HackMotion has proved to me is that my feel is not real. I am taking a break from the HM today as I have used it everyday for about 2 weeks straight and it is doing my head in a little bit currently. I think I just need to mentally reset and come back to it. At the moment, I am struggling with how to fix my lack of extension at the top without doing a really upright and strange backswing. I think this is where HackMotion works well under the supervision of a professional but I don't want to make too many snap judgements based off a few frustrating range sessions (from a HM perspective). The challenge is just that I was FLUSHING the ball but HM was still saying I was out of range at the top and at impact.