What/How Did You Practice Today?

[Rob Person]

16 hours ago, Steve F said:

So, still waiting for the putting mat that I ordered, but still chomping at the bit to get some putting in with the DF3... need to start getting accustomed to the feel! So, I stood in the house wondering, then it came to me. Flip the area rug around and use one of the furniture impression marks as a hole! Damn if it didn't work! 

Now I have an alternative to the putting mat! In all seriousness, I've been chomping at the bit to work with the DF3 and the weather here has been rainy/overcast/foggy/humid, so not much is getting done outdoors right now. The biggest problem now? The wife is gonna KILL me! 

Was able to get outside and do some work with the 8i after setting this up and hitting several putts, so overall a productive lunch! Now, I need to grab a bite to eat! 
Hope everyone has a great day and that golf figures into your plans as well! 🏌

 

I can't imagine that conversation with the wife!!!  

[Alan Stewart]

From Monday, range session focused more on full swing wedges.  I have struggled with my 50 degree Wilson Staff wedge and want to build better consistency in distance across all wedges (set PW 46 degrees, 50, 54 and 58). I need to have a stock wedge full swing and a 75% swing for all of them with more consistent contact. Focusing on consistent setup to create more consistent contact.  Also worked my way up through 8i 6i 4i 19 degree hybrid (about 5 swings with each) and hit some driver.  Worked on solving my weak right shots of late by more conscious effort to drop into the slot when starting down and giving the arms room to move (width on the down swing).

Good results with the wedges, need to make this effort during every range session with at least one wedge.  Made great driver contact and kept the ball straight or left for the most part. Great to see midface ball marks rather than the impact spread I had recently. Improvements this session with contact throughout the bag by going back to shallowing and keeping width.

[cksurfdude]

Spent time at the range working on nothing specific, actually .. warmed up / loosened up with a bunch of wedges then just tried to hit solid-ish straight-ish shots varying through different clubs.

Had tinkered the day before with adding lead tape to the driver and irons .. they're still on the light side on the swing weight scale but it was still an adjustment from what I had been using. May have to trim off a small bit from each club! 

Oh had also gotten new grips on most of the set, too .. MCC+4 Mid .. l like em. 

Then was on the putting green and a guy came over and asked if I was heading out and would like company? Had been thinking about it since the course was surprisingly not busy - a beautiful day before a forecast 3 days of rain - so yeah why not! 

Turned out to be a new member, really nice guy and and really, really good golfer - scratch or maybe slightly better! Said he was club champ at previous clubs he'd played at. 

So along the way I, of course, I'm admiring how an out of shape 72yo can *power* the ball!! and he's being _very polite_ and says I have good mechanics and a nice swing...

But the important part to that bit is on the last hole he tells me my right misses are not a path or plane issue .. just a slightly open face at impact... Suggest I strengthen my grill on the club - but "very little just one degree" - and boom dead straight on the line I was aiming...

So yeah I took advice during play so it turned into a practice round...

..which is good cuz I'd really stunk up the previous three holes!

[Syks7]

On 5/4/2024 at 4:56 PM, GolfSpy MPR said:

Had a really amazingly interesting garage range session this afternoon. I've been working with Jayson Nickol for a while now on my swing, and this past week, he mentioned this video in which Justin Rose talked about his pre-swing feel and the way it shapes his actual swing:

Like many of us, I've struggled for quite some time to have a feel to consistently shallow the club and neutralize my swing path.

So I took this thought to my garage, measuring everything with Mevo+ and DeWiz (which measures whether your hand path on the downswing is above, below, or on plane with your backswing, and whether your steepening or shallowing the club in transition, among other things).

So here's a version of me rehearsing the feel, and what it looked like with an actual swing (8 iron):

For the, the feel is

• Stretch to the top of the backswing, with the intent of pointing the shaft parallel to the target line, then
• Drop the hands to the trail pocket before turning, 
• With my trail hand palm pointing back toward the camera
• Then turn and hit the ball.

This isn't the longest 8 iron I've ever hit, because I'm still trying to get comfy with the new pattern. But I don't often see a right path on my swing, so that was encouraging.

The feel vs. real thing pre-shot rehearsal is legit.  I've slowly integrated a couple quick and specific feels rehearsals based on full drills into my pre-shot routine and it has been amazing for my both my play and my mental state at address.  I'm basically running through three or four feel checkpoints for my swing while selecting a target and it has  Its basically a reminder to my body of some feel checkpoints for my swing and for whatever reason it makes me feel confident that I will produce a good swing and quiets my mind at address -- and the less I think about mechanics the better my swing is.  I think this is a great strategy for people to try out.

 

[WaffleHouseTour]

My coach has me working on 1) path 2) AOA 3) low point.  So I've got an alignment stick set at 15* and I place the ball directly under the end of the stick.  Then I put a towel on the ground about a grip's length in front of the ball.  Objective, don't hit the stick, don't hit the towel.  PW, 8i, 6i. 

 

 

[JoeyBananas]

I have had several tournaments over last couple week and another tournament on Wednesday. I have really good short game so I am confident I can always get the ball within 3-5 feet of any hole from greenside. I work on 3-6 foot putts for an hour each day. I place 4 balls around the cup and walk around making them. Always try and putt from a different angle. This helps me when I am sweating over a makeable putt. I have a very high percentage of up and downs every match. My goal is to make so many it just seems routine when I am on course. My grandfather always told me if you want to grove a shot you need to hit it 10,000 times so you don't think you just do. 

[russtopherb]

I got out to the range for a small bucket at lunch, it was mats only so I just worked on hitting some short irons to targets, concentrating on my backswing. I had some wipey shots this weekend, which usually means I'm not turning my shoulders properly in the backswing, a common problem for me early in the season (and late in rounds when I start to get tired). So today was just mostly working on that, my feel is that my right/back shoulder is behind my head at the top, and feeling like I'm keeping my back to the target as I start the downswing so I'm not lunging at the ball, especially with driver. 

[Imp]

Spent about a half hour chipping up to the practice green with just my gap wedge and 7i. Doing both: land it 50% between me and the flag, and getting it on the green and rolling out to the pin. Much better success with the 7i bump and run. All different flags. Little hint to share from my results: 3-4 pace off, 3-4 foot uphill slope to a short pin (4 paces on), don't go with the 7i, it'll either die on the slope or go welll by the hole... and if using a gap wedge, don't die it into the hill, it won't get on. Use a PW or 9i. (those were over at the cart about 200 feet away...)

[Josh Parker]

Got out for a quick small bucket and worked on swing changes.  Focusing on tempo and path and not caring where the ball is going currently.  

[cksurfdude]

2 hours ago, Imp said:

Spent about a half hour chipping up to the practice green with just my gap wedge and 7i. Doing both: land it 50% between me and the flag, and getting it on the green and rolling out to the pin. Much better success with the 7i bump and run. All different flags. Little hint to share from my results: 3-4 pace off, 3-4 foot uphill slope to a short pin (4 paces on), don't go with the 7i, it'll either die on the slope or go welll by the hole... and if using a gap wedge, don't die it into the hill, it won't get on. Use a PW or 9i. (those were over at the cart about 200 feet away...)

Check out the OG Rule of 12...

Also note this was based on OG lofts, eg the PW is probably at 45° and SW at 56°.

Fwiw... I use my GW (48°) a lot around the greens but *don't* limit yourself to always reaching for just one club. 

 

[TJ Hall]

Spent around 30 minutes putting today just working on feel.  Part way through had some thoughts on setup for the full swing that I need to try.  Have been struggling a bit on a consistent flight/shape and contact.

Will be a bit before I can get to the course/range…Mother’s Day is this weekend and need to keep the wife happy.  If she’s not happy, there will be no such thing as golf for me!

[Willie T]

Day 112 (8 May 24) -  Worked with 9i on making easy bump and runs in the backyard.  

[BallsLeon]

Watched this fitting/lesson video recently and it got me thinking about my own shot shape/pattern with driver… which is a bit of a shotgun spread. So, like in the video I’m committing to single shot shape (fade), and exaggerating my setup to start the ball out-to-in. While I do favor a heel strike that will want to fade the ball, even when centered this club will want to fade. 

[russtopherb]

Even though I was at the range yesterday, it was far too beautiful out this morning to go straight to the office. I grabbed a bucket at my local muni and continued to work on my backswing shoulder turn and my initial transition, feeling like my hands were dropping while my back stayed to the target. It's something I've worked on for ages, lessons pointed out how much I tend to spin out from the top and come OTT when I rush things. Lots of practice swings just feeling things gather from the top before swinging through. 

[gavinski91]

Lunchtime range session working on moving my driver strike point closer to the center. Last time out I was consistently 20mm out towards the toe.

Added some lead tape to the bottom of the club head and it seemed to help a bit. Still some work to do, but things are trending in the right direction. The pic is the final 3 shots of the session. PRGR was showing an average ball speed of 153 mph.

Edited May 9 by gavinski91

[C-Lau76]

Practiced some driver consistency, then went over to the short game area for some chipping and putting. 

[Steve F]

Well, got home to get to the "range", and no sooner had I warmed up and went to grab the driver, the heavens began to weep once again, so I got to warm up with some 8i swings! Tonight it's inside to start building the feel for the DF3. 

 

 

[ILMgolfnut]

On 5/7/2024 at 8:31 PM, ILMgolfnut said:

Rypstick again tonight after dinner. Speed session at the end came back with an average, or something, of 82 mph; I've emailed them to find out exactly how they derive that number. But the first swing came back at 91. So after I concluded the official session I left the radar unit on and took two more swings: 90 and 84. If that thing is accurate and I am actually reaching 90 on 30% of my swings (two out of seven), I'm ecstatic with that. It's also telling me that my carry tonight, if I'd actually been hitting drivers, was 197 with rollout to 212. Not the best session I've had; the session April 16 had 197 carry and 224 total. Considering that I was hitting drives 160 two years ago...

They confirmed that the speed number for the session is an average of the five swings. So 82 would total 410, plus 174 (90 and 84 on the bonus swings) is 584, divided by 7 is 83.4. Of course I don't know if it was 82.0 or 81.6 or what before. I can't actually look up what each swing was.

I had one session that averaged 86 back in April, outdoors on grass (the session on the 7th was in my driveway). Four of the five swings that day were clocked at 89 (so the outlier was somewhere around 74); the only reason I know that is I posted it in this thread at that time. So the 90s are a first. Did grass vs concrete make a difference? No idea, But now I need to make that 9 in front consistent and build on it.

Edited May 9 by ILMgolfnut

[Rob Person]

Hit the putting green before work today.  After yesterday's round with too many 3 putts I need to figure out why.  Of course a practice area I a controlled environment and repeated lines yield false results imo

But I was able to work on 10 foot putts for about 30 minutes 

[Willie T]

Day 113 (9 May 24) - played modified scramble with good friend and his father-in-law.  Modified in that we all tee off, and each man plays his own ball in from there, scoring is individual stroke play.  Great thing was seeing the short game pitching and chipping paying off today - of the 5 pars, 4 were up and downs from less than 12yds out with the pitches ending on average 3’ from the hole.  Nice way to have an up and down kind of day.  

[NubianRugby]

Went to the range and hit a bucket yesterday. Did the Top 12 thing again and played it well, with my calculated indexes being 11.7 and 11.3. Improved on this week's earlier session on the approach challenge too and shaved a few hundred points off my score with a couple of ugly but effective shots. Based on the fact that I now have the low score on the approach challenge game for a couple of different courses, I don't think people are taking full advantage of the games available on TopTracer at the range I frequent.

 

[Jake Fairbanks]

Really poor practice yesterday. Went to the range to hit about 50 balls during lunch, and I think I had maybe 10 solid strikes. I just got some new-to-me Srixon Z785 Irons with midsize grips, which are about an .5-1" longer than my previous set (standard grips), so I probably just need to tweak my swing to fit the standard-length irons and thicker grip. I think I caught a case of the fix-it-all-at-once bug, and I couldn't find one thing to work on at a time. The whole session felt really rough except my last 4 flop/chip shots. Couldn't find a good connection with my irons or driver.

[Willie T]

Day 114 (10 May 24) -‘played 18 with a buddy from church and one of his coworkers.  Was a relaxed round that was not so smooth as far as scoring, but some great fun in course management.  As my friend said “we are getting our money’s worth” (a lot of army golf today). 

[Steve F]

Well, Mother Nature put the kibosh on any outdoor practice today: 

Time to roll some putts indoors. Need to get some time under the belt with the DF3, and no better time than the present to start getting more accustomed to utilizing him! Set up markers at 3ft, 5ft and 7ft. I also like to set up a 10ft marker when I'm outside, but my indoor green simply isn't long enough!  

Had the opportunity to have an extended lunch, so was able to roll 60 putts and have to say, I'm starting to get used to the "feel" of the DF3! I am starting to understand why they say it's thumbless: the grip pressure feels much lighter on the club vs the Spider, not as much is required to keep the face squared. 

 

I am STILL releasing after impact to the left, but am for sure getting square at impact: thanks to some of our members for pointing that out! Overall, happy with and productive lunch practice! Now, if Momma Nature will be kind tonight and early tomorrow morning, I've got a 0610 tee time that I'd LOVE to make and get some course time in with the L.A.B.! 
The numbers for the lunch session: 

I hope everyone was able to get some golf in today! Hit 'em straight MGS Nation! 🏌

 

[ED13]

After 3 years of no golf I have gone to the driving range a few times the last couple of weeks.

Have always been poor with the driver and today started to straighten out with the club.  Hopefully this will carry over when I start playing.

[Syks7]

Had a long session into the practice net today.  Yesterday felt a little off with my irons and it felt like I was defaulting to some old/bad muscle memory by swinging too much with my arms and standing up vs. generating power with my lower body and torso.    So I went back to some drills that have become some of my main swing feel checkpoints and cover pretty much the whole swing.  Lately my practice has been some variation of these drills, but today I ran through all of them.

I started with exaggerated takeaway/rehearsal drills really focusing on keeping the face hooded/parallel to my spine angle, staying connected and loading my trail leg.  It's got a lot of parts and different feels to it it that I alternate focus on and repeat until I feel like I'm making a connected turn with my hips, torso, spine, and the club face all in the right place.   I picked it up watching one of the UCLA players at the range one day.  He did it for 20 minutes then just started striping iron shots with Mizuno MBs.  

This is a decent approximation.  

Then I spent a few minutes doing a portion of a drill I learned from the coach I took lessons from last year.  It's very exaggerated, but you set up or imagine an iron face down with the grip at your heel and the club angling out 45 degrees to your trailside and behind you.  The idea is to fee like you're matching your downswing to that club.  Face shut and behind you with your back toward the target front leg loaded.  It's basically P6 with your back turned toward the target.  I have no idea what it actually looks like since I've never filmed it.

From there I moved into what has become one of my favorite turn drills.   Basically, you either continue to rotate or you will hit yourself in the ribs with a rapidly moving piece of PVC pipe (or paint handle extension in my case).  It make DeWiz learning stimuli seem like a gentle tickle    One of the things I've added to this is that I usually have an alignment stick set up so I have to finish low left to avoid hitting it.  

 

Keeping on the rotation theme I moved into full swings with a hip clearing drill.  If I don't clear the lead hip out when I rotate I tend to shank the crap out of the golf ball.  It's happening less but I usually count on an early shank sometime in the first couple holes.  So I've got a box that I set up behind my lead leg that I focus on knocking over before impact.  The only way to do this is to push hard with my lead leg and shove my lead up backwards.  It's pretty legit.

I finished with the next step in the drill I learned from my coach.  It's a full swing with the same feel  from the initial downswing then you focus on staying down while you try to close the face as much as possible.  Contrary to producing snap hooks  all trying to shut the face down does is force your body to rotate all the way through the swing.  It produces crazy solid contact where you fully cover and compress the ball.  I probably hit 20-30 balls with this drill and called it a day when I felt that sweet spot butter feeling 5 times in a row.

It was a really good practice session and it feels like I'm in a really good place with my swing.  Took about 18 months to really make the changes my coach taught me and overcome the previous 13 odd years of self taught bad swing habits.  I'm making good contact and playing well.   This practice routine seems like its going to be perfect maintenance routine (Some of it also being part of my pre-shot routine) that's going to help me smooth the edges without making any major changes -- something I haven't been able to say for several years.  The goal right now is to continue to dial it and see how far it takes me  gets me for the rest of the year.  

It's by no means good yet, but it's got me under 10 for the first time ever.

 

 

[Indy_Oz]

Hit the range and practice greens on a pretty windy day here in Central Indiana. It felt like the wind was 15-20mph and friends that played a round at the same course (Golf Club of Indiana) said the wind was brutal.

Today was the first time testing out the shoulder/ muscle injury with relatively full range of motion swing, but at a slower, stead speed. No major aches and pains during the session or since, which is a huge positive. Gonna see how I feel in the morning, but a friend has a spare spot in their 4-ball tomorrow morning for 9-holes. if i play, I'll be clubbing up a lot and playing from further forward tees than usual so I can take it easy on swing speed. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Hit a small bucket of balls. Just worked through the bag: gap wedge, 7-iron, 3 hybrid, (new in bag) 7-wood and driver. Focus was just good take-away and keeping the swing smooth and not pushing speed with a good finish. Swing was pretty good. Clearly rusty and holding back a lot, but decent.

Next was chipping practice with GW, SW and LW. Around the green in different lies and 15 or so from the bunker with the 60*. Worked on Dan Grieves' release 1 mostly and a few release 2. Bunkers were firm (even after raking them), so used the low bounce 60* to continue getting to know that club. Worked pretty well all in all. I like it so far.

Last stop was putting. Started with ladder drills- 4 balls arranged around a hole, moving out in 2-3ft increments each set of 4. After 12ft I moved onto distance work and lag putts, with the aim to have all putts finish within 3ft of target. Feel wasn't great for the longer putts. Need to keep working on that. Ladder drill putts went well with a good % holed and I had a good feel for slope and reading the green. I haven't yet played a round with this new putter and I need to do more work on longer lag putting with it. That's what you get for not playing a round for about a month I guess.

 

[Willie T]

Day 115 (11 May 24) - what do you do when you’re at the beach place and have no golf gear to work with - you improvise!  Used the broom, holding it at the head end to make some swings ala slap shot drill to continue rehearsal of pre-shot routine.  

[cksurfdude]

Short indoor practice today... Swung an Orange Whip and hit some balls into the garage net with a PW - idea with both was to get the feeling of moving the arms and body together. 

Felt like I made a teeny bit of forward progress

[Rob Person]

2 hours ago, Indy_Oz said:

Hit the range and practice greens on a pretty windy day here in Central Indiana. It felt like the wind was 15-20mph and friends that played a round at the same course (Golf Club of Indiana) said the wind was brutal.

Today was the first time testing out the shoulder/ muscle injury with relatively full range of motion swing, but at a slower, stead speed. No major aches and pains during the session or since, which is a huge positive. Gonna see how I feel in the morning, but a friend has a spare spot in their 4-ball tomorrow morning for 9-holes. if i play, I'll be clubbing up a lot and playing from further forward tees than usual so I can take it easy on swing speed. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Hit a small bucket of balls. Just worked through the bag: gap wedge, 7-iron, 3 hybrid, (new in bag) 7-wood and driver. Focus was just good take-away and keeping the swing smooth and not pushing speed with a good finish. Swing was pretty good. Clearly rusty and holding back a lot, but decent.

Next was chipping practice with GW, SW and LW. Around the green in different lies and 15 or so from the bunker with the 60*. Worked on Dan Grieves' release 1 mostly and a few release 2. Bunkers were firm (even after raking them), so used the low bounce 60* to continue getting to know that club. Worked pretty well all in all. I like it so far.

Last stop was putting. Started with ladder drills- 4 balls arranged around a hole, moving out in 2-3ft increments each set of 4. After 12ft I moved onto distance work and lag putts, with the aim to have all putts finish within 3ft of target. Feel wasn't great for the longer putts. Need to keep working on that. Ladder drill putts went well with a good % holed and I had a good feel for slope and reading the green. I haven't yet played a round with this new putter and I need to do more work on longer lag putting with it. That's what you get for not playing a round for about a month I guess.

 

Glad to read it's improving for ya Oz!!!