Me and My Golf 30 Day Swing Transformation

[mynerds]

Buckle up for a long one folks.
Summary

I participated in Me and My Golf’s 30 Day Golf Swing Transformation Challenge. Here is how my swing was transformed:

Before:

 

6-Iron

 

Driver

After:

 

6-Iron

 

Driver

I’ve gained around 20-30 yards in the carry of my 6-iron, and proportional gains through the rest of my irons. I went not being able to hit my driver at all to being able to at least make regular contact with the ball. Most importantly, I can recognize areas of improvement on my own and continue working towards a better golf swing. My best strikes are better than what I've captured on camera, but I feel this is a fair representation of my typical outcome. Overall, I can see a positive transformation in my swing and am satisfied with the results of the challenge.

Background

I am an early 30’s predominately right-handed-but-lefty-golfer in the Midwest. I’ve owned a set of clubs for ~15 years now but have played double-digit total rounds of 9-hole golf in my life. I’ve never played a round of 18. My golf outing of choice has been at driving ranges for social occasions or chipping whiffle balls into a net in the back yard.

I’ve had an on-again-off-again relationship with golf that is primarily driven by the number of friends I have who are interested in golfing too. I recently learned several of my neighbors are avid golfers, and decided to fully embrace the stereotypical suburban dad trope and pick the game up properly. I discovered Me and My Golf on Instagram and subscribed as a member in November of 2021. I’ve watched some lessons in their “How to Play Golf,” “Golf at Home,” and “Winter Golf” plans. Chicagoland weather is not incredibly supportive of winter golf so I had not been able to implement much. I therefore started the challenge as a pretty blank slate.

I saw Me and My Golf’s announcement of the 30 Day Challenge back in late February and registered with the intent to document my experience and better capture my own progress to see if the lessons were driving (no pun intended) meaningful change in my swing and improving my enjoyment of the game.

Goals

I have no illusions of going on tour. I am not looking to bomb 350-yard shots off the tee. I do want to improve my game to the point where I don’t feel like a liability to the people I am playing with.

During a round in March, I topped the ball with my first four swings on the first hole and limped my way down the par 5 fairway to finish with 11 shots. I was with friends, but it was embarrassing to take shot after shot while they waited for their second. On the second hole, I was on the green in 2 and 2-putted for par. This extreme feast-or-famine outcome makes it hard for me to enjoy the game and discourages me from playing with new people as I don’t know which version of my game they’ll have to endure.

Further, I love the short game and would have a more enjoyable time if I could close the distance to the green more reliably. Lastly, my bag is incomplete and made up mostly from second-hand purchases at Play It Again Sports. I never played consistently enough to warrant getting fitted. I would like to develop at least some foundational skill to warrant the cost and maximize the value of a fitting if the challenge materially changes my swing. To this end, I have three goals over the next 30 days:

1) Develop a basic driver swing

I cannot hit my driver, plain and simple. I’ve had three in-person lessons with professionals in my life and all were 6 and 7 iron centric. The club in my bag with the most distance is my rescue hybrid. It hits reliably straight, but only if I don’t top it. I have been told by playing partners that a driver swing is fundamentally different from an iron swing. I’ve been told to do more, do less, lean more, lean less, twist more, twist less. Nothing has helped from armchair amateurs, so hopefully professionals can offer guidance.

2) Improve reliability of iron striking

When things go well, I carry my go-to 6-iron 115-125 yards straight down Broadway. I know that’s well on the low end of average, but I’ll take short and consistent over long and chaotic. Often though, I end up striking the ball off the heel to Lord-knows-where or top the ball 10 yards at a time. I am not to the point where I am concerned with shot shaping. I would be happy to hit a straight shot up a dogleg fairway and leave a greater distance to the flag if I had a straight shot in my repertoire. Any distance increases would be a bonus, but not a primary goal of the challenge for me.

3) Improve intentionality of my swing

I have no illusion that I am going to remove all of my swing struggles in 30 days’ time. I will still top the ball with my irons and driver. I will still have heel strikes. My goal is that when these things happen, I will be aware of what went wrong and have an approach to address it. My goal is not to eliminate my problems in 30 days; my goal is to have a routine to strive for with each swing.

Approach

The 30 Day Golf Swing Transformation Challenge is a 4 week program with one topic of focus for the lesson each week.  The intent of the challenge is to follow the lessons each week, record your swing using the Me and My Golf app, and improve your swing based on self-developed and instructor-driven feedback. For self-driven feedback, the lessons provide instructions for using the app to recognize what is going well and where things can improve in the swing.

For instructor-driven feedback, one available element of the challenge is that you can upload your swing videos to a private Facebook group and the instructors (Piers Ward and Andy Proudman) will review and provide feedback. Participation in uploading videos to Facebook isn’t required for the challenge, but it is highly encouraged.

My plan was to take videos of my iron and driver swings to establish a pre-challenge baseline. I then watched each lesson and implemented the recommendations for a session of at least 50 balls. I then took a video at the end of the session to capture any immediate changes. I tried to capture my "typical" shot for the session instead of my "best" shot - this was a pain point for me in previous lessons. Many coaches would film me several times until I made a quality strike. If I hit it great 1 out of a hundred times, I assure you I care more about the 99 misses than the 1 success. In this way I am trying to capture an honest view of my swing and (potentially lack of) progress. Any yardages stated here are as measured by the technology at Top Golf if that’s the range I find myself at. Perfectly accurate? No, but I’m not yet skilled enough to warrant purchasing my own launch monitor. I’m a big believer in “fake it ‘til you make it” so any golf terms used are based on my limited knowledge and google-fu abilities. If I use a perfectly cromulent word incorrectly, please feel free to correct me!

The challenge is structured in a 30-day time frame, but work and family commitments made it so that I couldn’t play on a regular schedule.  While I didn’t take the classes on a strictly week by week basis, there were at least 4 days between sessions to try and create a clean break between integrating new lessons and focus areas.

I won’t share the content of the lesson as that’s ultimately the product being sold, but I mention the topic of the week as the “challenge checkpoints” are listed on the public page of the challenge and talk generally about my experiences. Additionally due to timing issues, I wasn’t able to upload any videos to Facebook for Piers and Andy to review. Honestly, I don’t think my brain would have been able to handle additional feedback anyways, so this serves as a review strictly of the digital lessons and not their personalized coaching.

[mynerds]

Baseline/Week 0

Prior to the challenge, I played a 9-hole par 36 and shot a 61. I plan to play that same course at the end of the program and compare the results. Unfortunately, I did not keep the scorecard, so I won’t be able to compare hole-by-hole.

For week 0, I warmed up at the driving range and recorded what is a typical shot for me with my 6-iron and driver:

Not setting any distance records, but I can play a round with that shot and not be completely embarrassed.

Yikes.

Week 1

After warming up and recording the Week 0 video, I watched the Week 1 “setup” lessons. One video discussed set up with irons and the other focused on set up with the driver. They also discussed how to upload the video into their app for analysis using their drawing tools. For the most part, set up with the irons did not introduce any new concepts to me except for some nuance on foot angles. For the driver set up, everything was new. Here is where I ended up after about an hour of slow, mindful practice:

(If I can figure out why my iPhone wont let me export my rear-view Week 1 videos, I'll update them here)

 

I immediately recognized some things to work on after reviewing my footage. In terms of my goal to be more intentional with my swing, I'm already seeing progress!

First and probably least important is that I felt like I could do a better job with camera positioning and lighting. This is less an issue of A/V OCD and more recognition that I don’t really know what’s happening with the club once it’s above my waist.

Second, I’ve known for a while that my baseline swing is mostly arms and that it severely limits the distance of my clubs. After a minor change to the angles of my feet, allegedly to improve rotation, I saw an increase carry of my 6-iron from 115-125 yards to 125-135 yards. Perhaps those gains were merely from warming up more. However, If a such a small adjustment has a measurable change in distance then I was very curious what the next 3 weeks would look like.

Third, while I’m glad to finally have a routine for setting up a driver, it is clear that the set up isn’t the only issue I had. I nearly always top or duff with the driver and I still don’t feel like I know what I’m supposed to be doing. It doesn’t feel smooth, it doesn’t feel natural, and it clearly doesn’t get results. I trust the process and look forward to improvements in Week 2’s lessons.

Week 2

Week 2’s lesson focuses on sway and rotation during the backswing. Competent golfers who watched my initial videos likely saw my sway and rotation issues, but I am only now aware of what to look for (and how). Again, score more points toward swing intentionality.

This week’s lesson also came with a drill to help encourage a better pivot. I practiced the drill a few times at home and noticed a lot of stiffness in my back and hips. I’ll go ahead and blame the I’ve-been-carrying-around-a-toddler-for-nearly-2-years-dad-bod for that but it is clear I will need to supplement this challenge with regular stretching exercises. I have access to stretching, yoga, and Pilates classes through services like Apple Fitness, but that could impact progress made in the swing. Would my swing be benefiting from the Me and My Golf program, or by a third-party stretching routine?

Because the challenge was available to anyone with a membership to Me and My Golf, I decided it was fair to participate in their “Full Body Freedom” plan which is also available to members (I reviewed that in a separate thread for anyone in a similar boat). At worst, any combined benefits will be the result of a single membership program. Not ideal for evaluating the merits of the lessons in isolation but I think it meets the spirit of the challenge.

After a few days of stretching and of the recommended drills, I headed back to the range to practice. The first balls I hit were… awful. No problem, we’re making changes, there is bound to be a learning curve. 10 balls, still terrible. I re-watched the videos to see if I missed anything and don’t see anything obvious. 20 balls, and something starts to hurt during the early follow-through that didn’t hurt before. 30 balls, I’ve slowed my swing WAY down and the follow-through is no longer painful but I’m still chunking shots. 40 balls, 50 balls, this is the worst. I’ve yet to hit a ball straight, or over 30 yards. I’m so frustrated and about to leave the range, and then something mentally slips into place as I’m trying to deliberately engage my trail leg:

Zero points to myself for framing the full swing, but I was focused on the "pivot" anyways. I’ve heard people talk about the “fluidity” of a swing, but I don’t think I’d experienced it up to this point. My legs and hips felt for the first like they were a part of the swing rather than just a point of stability for my arms to swing around. Additionally, the club head felt like it was sweeping the ground instead of clunking just before the ball.

Two things that I hadn’t been previously mindful of were my hamstrings and my follow-through. For my follow-through, I’ve always thought “anything I do after I hit the ball isn’t going to affect the ball in the air, so what does it matter?” As my pivot changed, my follow through started to hurt so I was forced to slow things down and smooth it out. If that changed anything earlier in the swing, I am not yet conscious of it. For my hamstrings, I had been coached to take an “athletic stance” during previous in-person lessons but my quads tended to dominate my hammys as a general rule. If I’m mindful to drive my heels down in the same manner that I would during a squat, I can fully engage my back leg which seems to engage my lower and upper back in a manner that I had not felt before.

I still see a long way to go. I was getting clean contact maybe one out of every 3 balls and I clearly can still increase my pelvic range of motion. However, the contact I made felt GOOD and I would carry my 6-iron between 135-145 yards. My driver is still a mess, but now I’m seeing a filthy slice instead of topping and duffing.  Any change to the driver is progress in my book.

I am VERY sore but feeling VERY encouraged.

Week 3

This week felt a little bit more intimidating, as I hadn’t fully committed the new backswing pivot to memory. I spent a few days practicing the pivot sans clubs at home before watching the move away lesson and headed to the range.

The good news: My initial move away was not as bad as I had originally thought, and I was close enough to meeting the recommended checkpoints that I didn’t have to make too many adjustments. I also performed a stretching session from “Full Body Freedom” before going to the range. I felt a noticeable difference in my range of motion during the backswing pivot and did not have the same pains during the previous range session.

The bad news: I hit terrible shots. I warmed up with some chipping which went well enough. Swings became progressively worse as I moved up the bag to my trusted 6-iron. Out of 50ish balls with the irons, I think I had 3 clean strikes at no more than 60% power. My max carry with the 6-iron was 120 yards. The adjustment to mindfully include the backswing pivot has thrown my (albeit terrible home brewed) downswing out of whack. Unlike the previous week, things never clicked for at least a short amount of time. I also picked up on issues with my head movement, my shoulder position on the irons, and hips/arm sequencing. I probably need to step back and commit the pivot to memory or else I’m going to get swing-thought-overload.

The neutral news: My driver is still unplayable, but I’m slowly getting it a little bit higher off the deck and not completely topping it every time. Generally, I’m either striking with an open face (see first) or hitting a poor-man's stinger (see second):

 

I plan to keep practicing some drills at home to help with the backswing pivot and move away until the next and final range session but my mood this week is significantly lower than last week’s. C’est la vie in the life of golf though!

Week 4

Hot off the disaster that was week three, I was anxious to watch the final lesson of the challenge. On the one hand, I knew I needed more help to fix my new issues. On the other hand, I didn’t want to add another thing to thing about to my already busy mind. Fortunately, the downswing lessons seemed to dovetail nicely into the backswing pivot lessons I was still working to commit to memory. Again, I spent time working on drills at home before heading to the range for the last time.

We’ve had some gross weather in Chicagoland for the better part of a month now. Since we managed to have a sunny day in the low 70’s, I decided to give a smaller driving range a try over Top Golf. Maybe it was the change of environment, maybe it was the at-home drills, but I had a much better time here than any of the other sessions. Unfortunately that means I don’t have a readout of my carry distances.

Some swings were better than others, but here are typical examples of how the sessions went:

 

6-Iron

 

Driver

Focusing on the good, I’ve never hit my iron in a way that felt this good. More often than not in the past, I would feel a shock in my hands and wrists with my irons. I’ve never been able to make contact with the ball on the downswing despite my best efforts. Now my hands rarely feel like they’re slamming into the ground. Occasionally, I’ll make contact with the ball seemingly without feeling it. Swinging at what feels maybe 70% power, the ball was making it just shy of the 150-yard sign. Is it the different mats? Is it the different swing? Whatever the cause, it is a deeply, deeply satisfying feeling to make clean contact.

Also, I’ve never struck my driver with any regularity before. Heck, previous videos should serve as proof that “shankapotomus” would have been far too kind of a nickname. I don’t care that the ball carries 200 yards at best. I’m hitting it significantly better than a month ago and I am hopeful that it will build to a reliable swing in the coming weeks and months.

Despite the swing feeling much better and getting some consistent contact, I can see some areas that have regressed. The sway has returned, I’ve introduced a hip slide with my downswing, I can get more consistency in my setup, and my head is much more mobile than ever before. The swing is workable in the meantime though, and I have a few drills in my pocket to help tackle those issues.

Overall, this was the most confident at the range I’ve felt during the challenge. A good note to end on for sure.

Results & Final Thoughts

Overall, I can see a positive transformation in my swing and am satisfied with the results of the challenge.

The aspect of my game that most changed is my ability to review and assess my swing with even some basic competency. This mostly contributes to my goal of improving my swing intentions. Before the challenge, I could tell you that my swing wasn’t perfect but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what was wrong or how to correct it. Now, I have a method to evaluate my swing and some drills to start improving. I also have a means to identify relevant lessons from the Me and My Golf catalog (or anywhere else for that matter) to further improve my swing. If this had been the only improvement over 4 weeks, I’d have been content.

As far as improving my iron striking goes, I was pessimistic going into Week 4 with the frustrating Week 3 session. Once I incorporated some changes in the downswing, the previous 3 weeks of lessons seemed to all slip into place. I now feel that I am making better, more consistent contact with my irons. While my videos only showed my 6-iron, I was able to reliably hit up to my 3-iron by the final week. I still see room for further improvement but in the meantime, I am extremely happy with how my irons feel now. Whenever I end up scheduling a fitting, I will feel less self-conscious about my fully homebrewed arm-centric swing.

The goal that I still need to work on the most is my driver. I think I could make an argument that I now have a functional driver swing, but I want to work on it a bit more before feeling confident taking it out on the course. I might risk it on a wide-open par 5 fairway, but probably nowhere else in the meantime. I am happy with how far my driver has progressed though, so this goal is a mixed-bag result.

Again, due to timing constraints, I wasn’t able to upload any of my swings for analysis by Piers and Andy. I am not upset about it though and honestly I don’t think I would have been able to absorb any additional feedback during the timeframe. I can see how more experienced golfers with more nuanced issues to correct would get value from individual analysis, but it was beyond my needs and capacity at this time.

I think the program is appropriate for casual players like me with an existing swing to correct, but extreme novices would be well served to have completed at least the early lessons of “How to Play Golf” before taking the 30-day challenge. In that way, this being a “Swing Transformation Challenge” and not a “Swing Development Program” is right on the money.

And for whether or not the transformation on the range translates to the course, remember that I shot a 61 back in March on a par 36 9-hole. In April, I shot a 62. You'd think that would count as a resounding failure, but the 62 felt better than the previous 61. For one, I forgot my putter at home and had a few 4-putts using my PW on the green or my playing partner’s putter. For another, I felt that I knew what went wrong with each mistake and had a mental note for something to drill the next time I was on the range. A weirdly positive feeling for a decidedly worse round. Nevertheless, I feel like I’m on a better track than a month ago.

[cnosil]

Good luck and I hope you achieve you goals.  Keep us informed on how it goes.