What/How Did You Practice Today?

[JerryB]

Spent the better part of two hours hitting little chip shots into a net a couple yards away.  I have a milk crate of junk balls and hit until the crate was empty, using a few different clubs and just trying to get a better feel for things.  

On a side note, I didn't pay much attention last season but it's pretty wild how different all the balls both feel and sound.  

[russtopherb]

Most of the ranges around here open March 1, so I spent some time with the Orange Whip trying to get loose today. 

[CarlH]

Worked on a better move through the ball on short chips/pitches, trying to achieve a better angle of attack and brushing the grass rather than my usual steeper move.  Awkward, but necessary, change I'm working on.  Seeing some positive results, so far.

[Tom the Golf Nut]

4 minutes ago, russtopherb said:

Most of the ranges around here open March 1, so I spent some time with the Orange Whip trying to get loose today. 

I did the same thing. Orange Whip session in the living room (20 foot celing helps). Then I added some elliptical work, then back to the OW again. Putting up next.

[PMookie]

Went to hit balls and play on the sim. Hit the ball well, enjoyed playing all 18 of TPC Scottsdale, and the back 9 of TPC Sawgrass.

[Tom the Golf Nut]

2 hours ago, JerryB said:

On a side note, I didn't pay much attention last season but it's pretty wild how different all the balls both feel and sound.  

It's amazing the difference in the way balls feel and react. You will eventually find a type of ball that just feels good to you. That will also inspire confidence. I am a feel player and prefer a ball in the mid 80's compression. If I find a different brand ball out on the course and want to try it, I'll know right away if I like it or not. 

[JerryB]

15 minutes ago, Tom the Golf Nut said:

It's amazing the difference in the way balls feel and react. You will eventually find a type of ball that just feels good to you. That will also inspire confidence. I am a feel player and prefer a ball in the mid 80's compression. If I find a different brand ball out on the course and want to try it, I'll know right away if I like it or not. 

Some of my balls are decent but a little scuffed, some are obvious water balls... and one is a Macgregor Tourney from 1977, lol.  I have a yellow Wilson Staff Duo that feels and sounds insanely soft.  I like it but have no idea how old it is and if this particular one is still sold.  

I've picked up a few assorted boxes that I've gotten cheaply over the winter.  They likely aren't good per se, but hopefully the consistency will be beneficial.

[LeftyMatt89]

Grass today at my range. Only twice a week unfortunately so I took advantage and did a full bucket of all pitch and short game 120 and in. Then a little driver and mid irons and back to short game to finish. It is such good feedback when on grass compared to mats for touch shots. I hope it translates to my rounds this week. 

[Tom the Golf Nut]

58 minutes ago, Tom the Golf Nut said:

I did the same thing. Orange Whip session in the living room (20 foot celing helps). Then I added some elliptical work, then back to the OW again. Putting up next.

Putting was interesting. I put a new grip on my putter (Super Stroke Flatso 3.0). I have a 10 foot Odyssey putting mat. Drained everything so I needed a bigger challenge. Went back to the living room and putted on the carpet. It rolls to a 9.5 on the stimpmeter (yes I have my own stimpmeter). I set up for 12 foot with one of my daughters hair bows ( the elastic type black 1-3/4" diameter) as the cup. The ball must roll in the hair bow and either stay in or roll out the back by an inch or two. First attempt was 4 of 6, I had to get the green speed dialed in . On my second attempt I made 6 of 6. It's the little things that make you smile!

[Hobert]

I played my first round of the new season on President's day. Irons needed a lot of work (often leaving the club face open sending many right). Driver was off too. Hit the range yesterday with my son to work on fixing things. Irons dramatically improved with respect to squaring the the club face. Also got my fluidity back with the driver. All-in-all a good day at the range.

[JerryB]

Another near hour spent hitting little chips.  This time I used one club and altered my hand position (grip up, grip lower down, etc).  Much more consistency compared to yesterday.  One odd thing was that most of my misses were right of my target whereas yesterday they were mostly left.  Need to figure out why...

[pulledabill]

Busting my butt hitting balls and doing a variety of drills to correct years of a bad swing. Diidnt touch a club for a little over 4 months to let my body heal from a wrist injury and fractured ribs. Finally feeling a change but have good sessions and bad sessions. Tonights was good and really for the first time for a bit of control swing out instead of over the top and out. I will say Ive gained distance for sure and I love that. Still got a ways to go but feeling encouraged. 

[Haro]

using a yardstick on the ground for putting alignment 
After a while I notice outside path to inside path developong and I was making a cut stroke 

replace the yardstick with a homemade Visio putting arc mat and trying to follow more arc path give me a better end over end roll on the ball  

Changing the practice drill to more arc pattern seems to automatically change my grip by extending my  index finger  and spreading it from my middle finger

This slight grip change gives me  a better feel for rolling the putts   

 

[MattWillGolf]

I’m on the mend from back and sciatica issues. I feel so much better and took a drive to the indoor driving range. It was a nice range session. Nice and easy wedges and irons. Felt so good I tried my favorite club. My 3 wood. It felt great.

They also have a great pro shop onsite. I tried a couple of Scotty’s. I was surprised to see a couple of Champions Choice Newports, A My Girl and a Phantom X 9.5 Triple Black. The Triple Black looks great in person. But at $899 it’s out of my price range.

[JerryB]

Finally a decent day!  Wanted to hit the course but we had to work and everything is still incredibly soggy, so the lad and I went to a field near our house with a small basket of junk balls.  He'd gotten a new driver and I had a different shaft in mine, so we took them and an extra club and hit away.  

Hitting in a simulator or into a net is good, but to actually see the ball flight was great.  Plus just being outside was a mood boost.

Now the drives were...less than stellar.  I realized that my alignment and stance were both poor, so I spent most of my time trying to rectify all that.  Small steps, but enough to bring the excitement back!

[Kenny B]

3 hours ago, JerryB said:

Finally a decent day!  Wanted to hit the course but we had to work and everything is still incredibly soggy, so the lad and I went to a field near our house with a small basket of junk balls.  He'd gotten a new driver and I had a different shaft in mine, so we took them and an extra club and hit away.  

Hitting in a simulator or into a net is good, but to actually see the ball flight was great.  Plus just being outside was a mood boost.

Now the drives were...less than stellar.  I realized that my alignment and stance were both poor, so I spent most of my time trying to rectify all that.  Small steps, but enough to bring the excitement back!

When I read this, I could only think of Kramer on Seinfeld...

 

 

[RDel90]

I've really been struggling with finding that consistent address routine and comfortable setup. Recently purchased the 5star Perfect reaction mat to hit off in my yard. It has been awesome. Feel is great, easy on the hands, and can still feel if I thin or chunk one (saw a difference of about 20yds on my Mevo Flightscope with a fattie). Been trying to swing for an hour and half or so at lunch time each day the past week. Stocked up on a few cans of foot spray and been working through the bag. First focus was honing in on consistent routine to get the right distance from the ball at setup more consistently. With the spray, I was able to play around with setup and see what the effect was on clubface strike location. Initially, I noticed I was hitting really high on the club face...so too steep. Worked on combination of stance width with various clubs in conjunction with tempo and hand path. After a week now I've settled in on a comfortable routine and am finding the center of the club face more often than not. Not perfectly consistent yet, some strikes a little towards heel or little toward toe in center of face, but no more blatant heel or toe strikes! With more consistency, next I'll go back through the bag to re-benchmark carry distances.

Now that I'm getting settled in with my setup and swing finally, I plan in the near future getting a few different sleeves of balls doing my own ball fitting testing to find the best ball for me and compare results with the MGS Ball Test data. 

Playing a round or two next week so we'll see how much this work has paid off so far. Also scheduled a driver fitting since I'm up about 10mph in swing speed. Currently sitting at 17.5 hdcp and goal this year is to get down to around a 13.5 hdcp.   

[Kenny B]

I have spent the winter hitting balls into a net at home and playing golf when the weather was not miserably cold.  The indoor practice swings have helped, and I am seeing improvement when I play.  Still more work needed.

What has been missing is the short game practice and putting that I used to do.  I neglected them for most of this last year.  I used to be at the course 2-3 times a week practicing.  Now when I go to the course, it's warmup and play... and it shows in my scoring, or lack thereof.  So, today I spent 2 hours at the course just practicing.  

I started on the range with the same routine I do at home; wedge, 7i, with focus on compressing the ball.  Still hitting off mats until the grass starts growing again, but it was nice to see ball flight for a change.  Then a few hybrids and about a dozen driver swings.  

I took a small bucket of balls to the pitching green and worked on flighting my 60º high and low to front and back of the green.  Then hit a some balls from the bunker; sand was firm and wet since it has rained for the past couple of days.  It's a different shot than dry sand, and I don't get to practice that very much.

Moved to the putting green and hit chips off the fringe with my 60º and my PW.  Even though I can putt these shots on the course, I like to practice with my wedge from tight lies.  I rely mostly on my 60º when I play, but wanted to also get a feel for a PW bump and run shot.  Not bad, but it took awhile to control the distance.  Still needs work.  On to putting... started with 3 foot putts using right hand only and slowly moved back to 6 feet.  I've been struggling on the course with starting the ball on the correct line lately, and right hand putting helps.  Then moved to 10 foot and 20 foot putts for speed control.  I have been pretty good with those on the course, but I have been leaving putts short.  I focused on getting the ball past the hole.  Generally pretty good, considering all the worm guys lying all over the green that the ball rolled over.  

I need to do this more often this year.  Will repeat again tomorrow and see how this practice affects my play this weekend.

[edingc]

Hit for about 90 minutes last night in the garage again. Decent enough results, but took a few swings to get back into feeling right. I played a sim round with my brother-in-law on Tuesday and started to slip into some bad habits already.

With irons, I really need to feel a big hip turn and then a high finish to keep me from shutting the face down through impact. I don't think I'm actually finishing much higher. I'm sure it's more feel/intent than anything else. When I get it right I can consistently get 2-4 degrees in-to-out with a face-to-path of -1 to -2, so almost ideal.

I also hit about 35 balls with my gamer driver for the first time in a while, trying to find the success I had at the end of last season. Took about 20 balls to find the right swing. Started out feeling too much left in the swing, which was leading to pull-fades. Then went to try to feel more right, which was leading to overdraws and hooks. Finally got a nice feel of hands going more right but, like with the irons, feeling less hands in the release. I combined that with feeling really wide in the backswing. That got me hitting a bunch of nice ones around 165-168 ball speed with good height, accuracy and distance. 

Still have a ways to go, but I am starting to see more balls finish in the 50 yard margin with the driver. This also very much illustrates my left hooky miss.

Very excited to get out on the course here hopefully soon!

[sirchunksalot]

It's been busy around the house this weekend, couple that with the range being closed and I wasn't able to get out and play this weekend. Not to mention it's too windy to up the net and get some swing work in. I got out today just to work on a couple of little things.

My swing feels like an unfolded lawn chair, so my intent right now is to simplify and just swing the club and regain some of the confidence I've lost. My wife had mentioned I played my best while SuperSpeed training, so I did a session. 

The other thing I worked on was some differential practice hitting half wedges using the Divot Board for feedback. I would hit a shot off the toe, then off the heel and repeat. That went fairly well with just a couple of shots being wrong. I tried to hit in front of then behind as well, that was not as good as the heel/toe. 

I've got way too many thoughts standing over the ball and I'm locking up over it and I'm hoping this will help.