JP's 2024 Goals

[Josh Parker]

Jumping on the bandwagon here for some accountability.

2024 Goals:

1. Fix the Woods Swing 

2. Get Handicap to a 2

3. Compete in a Local Tournament

4. Break 70

Having the ability to play golf year-round, I feel like the goals I have set out are achievable by putting in the work.

Goal 1:  The Woods 

Many have seen my post on the struggles I have had with the driver and I have had a ton of advice and assistance through the forum which has been great, however, the time has come to find a swing coach and buckle down for the long haul.  I have started to interview coaches and will be choosing someone to help me get this one checked off.  I have put a ton of time into practice and have made some great improvements with the driver, but in order to reach my goals, I need this extra boost.  

I am currently gaming the Paradym TD with Newton 5 dot for driver and the Paradym TD 3W.  I do have the Titleist TSR3 that I plan on putting the Newton shaft on as soon as Angelo let's me know that the FW woods shafts are ready and plan on adding it to the TD 3W as well.

Goal 2: Handicap 2 or Below

I am currently sitting at just over a 4 handicap so getting to a 2 is not unreasonable but will come down to putting myself in position off the tee more consistently and minimizing the scrambling.  My irons and short game have always been strengths and I honestly feel that once I sort out the driver that my goals will be achieved.  

One thing that I love to practice is choosing different tee boxes for the day and playing irons only.  I feel like doing this at least once a week, keeps all the irons in my bag sharp and can say that I don't fear hitting any club in the bag.  I know my usual misses and need to continue to sharpen the skills so that I can reach the goal of hitting a 2 handicap.  

Focus Points:

Work thru the bag with irons and utilize the Mevo+ for path and specific targets/ranges.

Work on having 3/4 shots with all clubs

Continue to focus on different elevation shots with all clubs.

Goal 3: Compete in Local Tournament

This one should be relatively easy to accomplish, but for me it goes beyond just entering.  I want to compete, I want to build the mental side of competing.  My plan is to enter into an open without handicap counting and see how well I can do.  I know of one course currently that holds a 2 day tourney and the course is challenging.  

I know I need to dial in the above two goals if I have a chance of competing and being in contention but it's a goal that I will be putting in the work to accomplish.

The 2024 Hill Country Amateur Championship is scheduled for June 8 & 9, 2024. 

If you want to check out the course, click HERE

Goal 4: Break 70

My best score from my normal set of tees was 70.  I want to beat that this year and know that I can/will before the end of the year.  

Focus points:

Daily Practice of some sort

Swing coach for driver/woods

Keep irons sharp and dialed in

Continue to grow the number of shots with wedges

Putting practice 

 

So, there we have it folks, my goals for this year.  

[Northern Monkey]

Good luck Josh, sounds like you’ve planned this well and I wish you all the best in achieving it

[Rob Person]

Good luck on your journey to better golf!!!

[GolfSpy_APH]

I am looking forward to following along your journey!

[Karls0991]

Love it! One of my practice goals is to go through and get my distances for irons at different swings. The dang driver haunts me as well, hoping that we both can find the thing that clicks so we can crush our goals. 

I have the MLM2Pro and have been using their approach mode on there to pick random greens and hit them instead of just pounding the same club over and over again. Will also have to try doing an iron only round from different tee boxes for more practice as approach is my weakest link at the moment. 

[Cfhandyman]

Josh, great plan and it will work. One additional piece for you. Since you are working on your woods and have the Mevo +, is to optimize your driver launch conditions. See below from Ping in terms of optimal launch with respect to swing speed, angle of attack, launch and spin. General rule of thumb, multiply your club head speed by 2.7 with positive angle of attack to determine optimal distance.  Hope this is helpful to you and good luck. 

[Josh Parker]

7 minutes ago, Karls0991 said:

Love it! One of my practice goals is to go through and get my distances for irons at different swings. The dang driver haunts me as well, hoping that we both can find the thing that clicks so we can crush our goals. 

I have the MLM2Pro and have been using their approach mode on there to pick random greens and hit them instead of just pounding the same club over and over again. Will also have to try doing an iron only round from different tee boxes for more practice as approach is my weakest link at the moment. 

I love playing irons only for practice.  You see different parts of the course and can really work on shot shaping and dialing in from all different distances.  

I would say, start from front tees and then move back.  

[Josh Parker]

5 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

Josh, great plan and it will work. One additional piece for you. Since you are working on your woods and have the Mevo +, is to optimize your driver launch conditions. See below from Ping in terms of optimal launch with respect to swing speed, angle of attack, launch and spin. General rule of thumb, multiply your club head speed by 2.7 with positive angle of attack to determine optimal distance.  Hope this is helpful to you and good luck. 

This is great!  Thanks for sharing this.

[Preeway]

Are you sure the key to improvement isn’t to just stop playing backwards? Just kidding. Great goals and sounds like you have a good plan. Will be fun to follow along. 

Edited March 30 by Preeway

[Josh Parker]

Driving range was closed today because the picker was "broken" so I played a round and worked on the swing with driver and then played from different locations around the course.  Seeing some progress with the driver is encouraging but the work is long term and I don't expect instant changes.  What I do expect is progress and a understanding of what I doing right or not doing right.

 

[Josh Parker]

3 minutes ago, Preeway said:

Are you sure the key to improvement is to stop playing backwards? Just kidding. Great goals and sounds like you have a good plan. Will be fun to follow along. 

I play on the "right" side of the ball....  

[Preeway]

2 hours ago, Josh Parker said:

I play on the "right" side of the ball....  

No. But the correct side, yes. LOL

[Josh Parker]

One of the things I have struggled with on driver has been the negative AOA and hitting down on it. (coming over the top)

In my quest to find a swing coach and always trying to learn, I came across this video the other day and as much as the guy doing the video is a little much for me, the lesson he got clicked with the feel/motion.  I have been practicing this non stop this week and have already seen some improvement in path. 

I am still on the search for a coach, but until then the work must continue.  

 

[Samuel09152]

Dont know how I missed this til today! But im here for this! lets Go

[Josh Parker]

Got out to the range at daylight this morning and hit a bucket to work more on the driver swing.

Really focusing on tempo and path.  

 

[Josh Parker]

Been working on the swing changes and selected a guy to help with the swing. The assistant pro at my course and I chatted and I'm going to give him a shot. He's young but has watched my swing several times and has given some good pointers so we are going to see what happens. 

[THE GOLF GUY]

4 minutes ago, Josh Parker said:

Been working on the swing changes and selected a guy to help with the swing. The assistant pro at my course and I chatted and I'm going to give him a shot. He's young but has watched my swing several times and has given some good pointers so we are going to see what happens. 

I love getting a good evaluation or a “ look” from one of the great players at my course . I was struggling with my irons somewhat and Jimmy ( a plus 2 cap) looked at my swing and within 10 balls being hit , he said , toe your club in a little and subsequently starting dropping dimes again with my irons . A fresh set of eyes can see what we are really doing versus what we think we are doing !

[Josh Parker]

6 minutes ago, THE GOLF GUY said:

I love getting a good evaluation or a “ look” from one of the great players at my course . I was struggling with my irons somewhat and Jimmy ( a plus 2 cap) looked at my swing and within 10 balls being hit , he said , toe your club in a little and subsequently starting dropping dimes again with my irons . A fresh set of eyes can see what we are really doing versus what we think we are doing !

Absolutely!  I have seen him hit the driver and he crushes it. Budget wise he's by far the cheapest being fairly new but I figured I can start here and see where it takes me. Plus it's less than 5 min from the house. 

[Shrek74]

11 minutes ago, Josh Parker said:

Been working on the swing changes and selected a guy to help with the swing. The assistant pro at my course and I chatted and I'm going to give him a shot. He's young but has watched my swing several times and has given some good pointers so we are going to see what happens. 

I firmly believe in working with a swing coach who only cares about helping you swing the club better and wants to work with what you already bring to the table and not try and change everything. My current swing coach is basically just tweaking what I "brought" to help me fix the issues I have.

One of the "odd" things I do is with my grip. I use a traditional grip without any interlock or overlapping of pinkies, also known as a baseball grip. He has zero issue with it and hasn't ever asked me to change it. As long as I feel comfortable with it and I get the proper V's aligning with my shoulder, he's good.

[Josh Parker]

1 minute ago, Shrek74 said:

I firmly believe in working with a swing coach who only cares about helping you swing the club better and wants to work with what you already bring to the table and not try and change everything. My current swing coach is basically just tweaking what I "brought" to help me fix the issues I have.

One of the "odd" things I do is with my grip. I use a traditional grip without any interlock or overlapping of pinkies, also known as a baseball grip. He has zero issue with it and hasn't ever asked me to change it. As long as I feel comfortable with it and I get the proper V's aligning with my shoulder, he's good.

For sure!  Currently I'm coming in to steep and have a negative AOA. My practice sessions the last two times I have corrected the AOA quite a bit but still at -2.  Just need to get it worked out. 

[Karls0991]

Man I’ll take some of the negative AOA on driver. I sometimes get to 7-10 up

[Josh Parker]

2 minutes ago, Karls0991 said:

Man I’ll take some of the negative AOA on driver. I sometimes get to 7-10 up

I can deal with -1/+1 because it's better than the -7 I have been having. 

[Wheelieb]

I’ve been working on not trying to swing out of my shoes for the past 7 months. What I’ve found is that when I don’t do that, I actually have a higher swing speed. Makes no sense. But what it also causes me to do is come over the top. This is why the water bottle drill has helped me from the last session I had. It made me stop trying to murder the ball and focused on not hitting my water. I played yesterday morning and went well. Shot a 92, so that wasn’t bad. Especially with how wet it still was. But now my 7 wood, which used to be my go to club for layups has now given me issues. That’s not good. On the other hand, I can now hit a 3 wood pretty good

[Josh Parker]

1 minute ago, Wheelieb said:

I’ve been working on not trying to swing out of my shoes for the past 7 months. What I’ve found is that when I don’t do that, I actually have a higher swing speed. Makes no sense. But what it also causes me to do is come over the top. This is why the water bottle drill has helped me from the last session I had. It made me stop trying to murder the ball and focused on not hitting my water. I played yesterday morning and went well. Shot a 92, so that wasn’t bad. Especially with how wet it still was. But now my 7 wood, which used to be my go to club for layups has now given me issues. That’s not good. On the other hand, I can now hit a 3 wood pretty good

It's funny how you fix one thing or work on it and another pops up. 

I have been hitting my 3w and hybrid well lately since incorporating the changes. 

I am stubborn enough to work thru it and put in the time. Haha. 

[Wheelieb]

2 minutes ago, Josh Parker said:

It's funny how you fix one thing or work on it and another pops up. 

I have been hitting my 3w and hybrid well lately since incorporating the changes. 

I am stubborn enough to work thru it and put in the time. Haha. 

You are not wrong. And now that I am hitting long irons more consistently, I might as well see if I can find a 4 iron to replace the 7 wood. Hahaha….that is a stretch. I’ve only ever hit a 4 iron well maybe 5 times. 

[Josh Parker]

I had a great lesson yesterday and some major swing changes on the horizon. He gave me some great drills to practice and focus on and while I know this change will take time and lead to some frustrating rounds, I'm taking it head on. 

 

 

[Josh Parker]

I have played 3 rounds now after my lesson and here is what I am seeing.

1.  My confidence with my driver is better but has a long way to go before I feel 100% about attempting certain shots on our course. 

2.  My confidence in my 4w and hybrid are 100% there and I don't hesitate now to fire away on the par 5s or play them on a couple holes that are placement shots. I'm able to trust that I will get up and over trees or shape it around. 

I will say that my trust in the woods has been better lately, but it's skyrocketed since my lesson. 

3.  The iron swing change is coming along nicely and still reverting to some old habits at times, but overall I am pleased with the progress.