What/How did you practice today?

[cnosil 24,354]

7 hours ago, PankaGolf said:

Get that face open and keep the out to in  

What lead you to that conclusion?      Neither in to out or out to in is more or less difficult to achieve.  Right now, I am just really neutral which isn’t ideal in my mind.  I used to be 5-6 in to out and was told by my coach that I should be in the 2-3 range.   Also, I never specified what my face tendency was so why advocate for an open face?  I probably pull the ball more often so why not just shift the path a little more right to move the ball more to the right?  Out to in generally steepens the AoA which in my case results in hitting down on the ball which gives me too low of a spin.  Ultimately you have to look at the whole picture and not just variables in isolation to figure out what direction to go.   

[Syks7 921]

Going stir crazy here.  Since I played with my FIL on the 23rd I have not been able to swing a golf club (and I haven't swung my clubs in a month)  It feels odd after grinding away for most of the last six months.  Holidays, travel, and a pre-school quarantine have turned me into the weird guy doing little practice drills around the house.  So, I suppose I've been practicing club free lately.  The plus side is that the nagging elbow tightness has gone away and I think my body has finally had some recovery time after the non-stop repetitive stress.  Looking forward to getting back to normal on Thursday when I can drop her off at school then again then  head to my first ever lesson.  

[sirchunksalot 15,587]

I had to run out to the course because one of the guys I work with asked if I thought it was going to be playable tomorrow. I ran over to look to see if there was standing water in the four main places it's most common and it was only in the fairway on the first.

After that, I hit a small bucket on the range. I only took four clubs, 52, 9 iron, 5 hybrid, and driver. I took the 52 and 9 because the shots between 50-120 are costing me strokes and wanted to see if I could hit the 52 better than the 56 for some of 50-100 yard shots. I developed a bout of the shanks with the SW and I'm not super confident right now. It all went pretty good. 

The 5 hybrid continues to perform and without getting hooky. I was hanging back on some of the early shots, but remembered my lesson and started making better contact.

The driver was meh. I might drop back to 3 wood off the tee on some holes or maybe use a shorter tee. Hitting high on the face is a major problem right now. I'll check again on the range tomorrow before the round. 

[Kenny B 32,353]

8 hours ago, sirchunksalot said:

I had to run out to the course because one of the guys I work with asked if I thought it was going to be playable tomorrow. I ran over to look to see if there was standing water in the four main places it's most common and it was only in the fairway on the first.

After that, I hit a small bucket on the range. I only took four clubs, 52, 9 iron, 5 hybrid, and driver. I took the 52 and 9 because the shots between 50-120 are costing me strokes and wanted to see if I could hit the 52 better than the 56 for some of 50-100 yard shots. I developed a bout of the shanks with the SW and I'm not super confident right now. It all went pretty good. 

The 5 hybrid continues to perform and without getting hooky. I was hanging back on some of the early shots, but remembered my lesson and started making better contact.

The driver was meh. I might drop back to 3 wood off the tee on some holes or maybe use a shorter tee. Hitting high on the face is a major problem right now. I'll check again on the range tomorrow before the round. 

Sounds like the downswing is a little steep.  Try to get the club a little flatter in transition.

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW 4,459]

Actually got to a gym today. Did SS training in gym but was slightly low on some swings. Swing didn’t feel best. Then hit weight room for FFG winter strength training and wow. Having actually weight room set up really pushed me more than my in home setup. 

[edingc 11,909]

We're in the middle of a decent blizzard today, so I decided to work from home. Pulled the car out of the garage at lunch and wanted to focus on driver setup and ball position. I've been struggling with low launching hooks and through trial and error narrowed it down to having the ball too far back in my stance. On Saturday I put the ball really far forward and increased my AoA to something like +4 and launch to 14+ but that came at the expense of ball speed as my dynamic loft got all screwed up.

Anyway, today I placed the ball even with the outside of my front shoulder and also lofted my driver back up to 9 degrees. Dispersion was incredibly better today. Launch angle was still a little low (around 10 degrees) on most shots, but almost everything would have been in play on the course. AoA also stabilized between 0 and +2.

I did manage to get my launch angle up closer to 14 on a few shots and they were excellent, 270+ carry. Realistically, I'd just like to see my peak height get above 100 as right now it can be as low as about 70-75 on my lowest launches.

[Kenny B 32,353]

2 hours ago, edingc said:

We're in the middle of a decent blizzard today, so I decided to work from home. Pulled the car out of the garage at lunch and wanted to focus on driver setup and ball position. I've been struggling with low launching hooks and through trial and error narrowed it down to having the ball too far back in my stance. On Saturday I put the ball really far forward and increased my AoA to something like +4 and launch to 14+ but that came at the expense of ball speed as my dynamic loft got all screwed up.

Anyway, today I placed the ball even with the outside of my front shoulder and also lofted my driver back up to 9 degrees. Dispersion was incredibly better today. Launch angle was still a little low (around 10 degrees) on most shots, but almost everything would have been in play on the course. AoA also stabilized between 0 and +2.

I did manage to get my launch angle up closer to 14 on a few shots and they were excellent, 270+ carry. Realistically, I'd just like to see my peak height get above 100 as right now it can be as low as about 70-75 on my lowest launches.

So now the garage floor is all wet after putting the car back in the garage, but it was worth it.

[PMookie 16,993]

Went to the range again today and hit a large bucket. Some good, most poor. Ugh. I need another lesson SOON.

[Syks7 921]

Go figure.  Make a post about going stir crazy and my wife decides she's going to watch our daughter all day and take the day off.  I think she is much more observant of my mood than I give her credit for.  In any case, I took the opportunity to run around to some job sites then stop at the range on my way home.  I had kind of two purposes today, to work on my strike and turn, and to see whether or not I could hit the 639cb's even though they still have X-flex shafts.  To work on turn did a drill that I saw Ian Poulter teaching Carlos Sainz on youtube.  Holding the club at 90 then rotating hips and torso to the top of the swing then releasing through the ball.  It works shockingly well (which is probably why Ian Poulter & Sir Nick do it).  To work on strike I did a lot of partial swings with a variety of clubs -- basically like my chipping swing but full speed with stronger clubs.  Surprise, surprise by the time I built up to 3/4 swing I was basically hitting my target distances and making clean ball contact.  Mostly straight too, but accuracy is for another day.  Finished it off by chipping/pitching a few shag sleeves.  What felt so hard to do a few months ago feels pretty natural now and today it felt like I was threatening to hole out ever shot, though I didn't drop one).  Overall a very good session. 

Can't wait to fall apart tomorrow in my first lesson after I used up my good strikes today.  

[cnosil 24,354]

Loving the fact that I have driver testing sessions everyday as it gives me some opportunity to practice.   Phillip gave me a couple of setup tips and as a result my swing is getting better everyday and it is nice to be able to see launch monitor data.    After driver testing,  I will probably dig into my driver setup a little bit to see if I can optimize launch and spin information.  

[Lacassem 16,156]

11 minutes ago, cnosil said:

Loving the fact that I have driver testing sessions everyday as it gives me some opportunity to practice.   Phillip gave me a couple of setup tips and as a result my swing is getting better everyday and it is nice to be able to see launch monitor data.    After driver testing,  I will probably dig into my driver setup a little bit to see if I can optimize launch and spin information.  

How many swings a day?

[cnosil 24,354]

1 minute ago, Lacassem said:

How many swings a day?

I hit about 15/20 warmup shots with an iron.  There are 3 drivers in each session with 14 initial shots for each club.  Switch drivers after 4 shots for 3 round and then after 2 to get the 14.  The data is then reviewed for sever outliers (way off line, really bad launch angle, spin, etc) and then fill in to get to 14 good shots.  Generally 2-3 per driver.    I'm generally one of the last testers so I may hit shots after the session is complete.  

[cnosil 24,354]

14 hours ago, Lacassem said:

How many swings a day?

I have an Instagram stream with Scott Fawcett and Mark Crossfield running in the background and they mentioned the Bryson and Kyle need about 150 swings to start reaching maximum club/ball speeds.   I’ve noticed that as well,  when I first start the tests, my club speed is 102ish and as I near the end I am 108ish

[Shapotomous 4,787]

15 hours ago, cnosil said:

Loving the fact that I have driver testing sessions everyday as it gives me some opportunity to practice.   Phillip gave me a couple of setup tips and as a result my swing is getting better everyday and it is nice to be able to see launch monitor data.    After driver testing,  I will probably dig into my driver setup a little bit to see if I can optimize launch and spin information.  

I am so jealous. 

I need to rethink my retirement home location and figure a way to get in on this club testing gig!!  

[cnosil 24,354]

18 minutes ago, Shapotomous said:

I am so jealous. 

I need to rethink my retirement home location and figure a way to get in on this club testing gig!!  

Been doing it since 2017 and I love every minute.  Great people, latest equipment, and lots of other perks.  They are always looking for testers so come on down.  

[RichL85 584]

I made the mistake of trying to get my SuperSpeed in this morning before my day got chaotic. Didn't sleep well and I was sore the entire time. It was definitely not my best effort, but it did help to wake me up a little bit. My coach wants me to work on hitting mostly little half swing shots slowly working up to 3/4 swings to get the right feel of closing the club face early and rotating through the shot instead of having to stall rotation at the bottom and flip my hands through to close to face. He also wants me to work on dropping my right shoulder a bit more at the top so that I can just rotate through. That is something I've been working on based on the feel of just pausing at the top and allowing my hands to drop naturally. He just wants a little more drop than I currently have. The important thing is that between my first videos and the latest ones there was a lot of improvement in the areas he wanted. Definitely still a work in progress. 

[Syks7 921]

Had my first lesson ever today.  I wish I'd done it sooner.  I felt really comfortable and was hitting the ball well warming up before the session.  When we started we discussed my game and where I wanted it to go then hit about 5-10 balls so he could see my swing.  Then we went to work.  The big adjustment was to my swing path --  I tend to stay in plane with the back swing which leads me to either come over the top or swing from outside in.  To adjust we did some drills focusing on P5 & P6 that were about getting my weight transitioning properly and dropping the club into the slot.  (Something I will confess I have been unsuccessfully trying to do for months).   Basically I'd do my backswing, hold, shift my weight and drop the club into the slot, pause again and hit the ball.  Contact was not great (at all) or super important at first since we were just trying to find the 'feel' of the right position.  From there we started some full swings at a tempo of my choosing where I just focused on hitting my marks and making small adjustments.  Contact got better.  Then we eventually worked up to full swings going from my 8I into the beginning of the long irons at 6I.  While there's a lot of work to do to find consistency  I did pure a few and it felt exceptional -- the swing felt smooth, contact was solidly in the center of the face, and the ball flight was great.  We also did some chipping work at the end, again working with a lot of what I've been working on, but making subtle adjustments to improve the strike and flight.  Really looking forward to working on these drills over the next two weeks and really excited for future lessons.

We'll see what this does to my round tomorrow...  Need to remember to banish the technique thoughts for 18 holes.

[PankaGolf 406]

I practiced bad golf it seems. 
 

pulled every iron 10 yards off line and pushed every 3 wood 20 yards off line. 
 

bad day at the office but it’s winter so hey ho. 

[JerryB 924]

Finally had the opportunity to try out an indoor golf place that opened up in town last year.  They have a couple of Trackman bays so my son and I went to pound some balls while we wait for Spring.

We'd been swinging at the net we set up in the basement, and it showed in ways both good and bad.  First the bad...Owen definitely has a bit of a mental block when it comes to swinging indoors.  The ceiling in the basement is just low enough that he isn't comfortable swinging his longer clubs.  Swinging today, he was cutting his follow through short and pulling everything to the left.  Near the end of the session he had finally gotten out of his head and was swinging a little more freely.  Going forward he won't be hitting in the basement anymore besides maybe some partial swing wedge practice. 

At the same time, he had just bought a set of Sim Max irons and was trying to get used to them.  They look a little different at address compared to his old Srixons; where he thought his club face was lined up pretty neutral, we later discovered that the face was still pretty closed. 

Now me, on the other hand...I take away all the complaining I've been doing while practicing in the basement.  I'd been working on rotation and better power transfer and generally trying to get it all more fluid.  There's little feedback hitting into the net but the Trackman info was eye-opening!  I had a few really ugly mis-hits, but my shot dispersion is generally getting tighter and my distance increase was huge.  We were hitting roughly the same distances but his were because of power while mine were generated more through efficiency.  Point is, while I may feel like I'm not getting results in the basement, I need to learn to trust the process.

Still need to make some decisions regarding the top half of my bag.  I like my driver well enough, but the next five clubs are all pretty inconsistent. 

[Haro 522]

I have not touched a putter or a club for almost 3 weeks.  I been trying to work on my quads and footwork to improve my ground forces.  
upper body strength my forearms and more flex in my shoulder blade muscles 

Also trying to squat and jump and trying to let my head move with my squats  improve my sequencing better ( starting from my legs up) 

Boring  rather be hitting balls but I believe this will improve my distance 

Edited January 9 by Haro