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So have bought the first mental book for the challenge – Every Shot Must Have a Purpose which you can find here https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B000OVLIQ0/ref=pe_1007802_166382322_TEM1DP.
Will line it up to read after I finish my current book – and will give a review in due course.
Maybe play a practice round with couple of balls. One ball you consistently go for it. The other you consistently lay up. See which scores better. Even have a third in between sensible but not overly safe ball too. My understanding is that this third ball is often the best.
I would love to do this, but it is a huge investment of time (and the sacrifice of a handicap round) where I normally only am able to play one round per week or less. So for now I will stick with the stats and see if I can discern some patterns.
Mr Deege is working a fair number of weekends in February which should enable me to schedule a couple of lessons on top of my golf rounds, and I am actually going to get to play two rounds on the OOM weekend which should be nice.
I have a voucher from *ahem* winning an OOM grade last year for an all round game assessment at the PGALP which I want to schedule and I also want to schedule another lesson with my normal coach Matt to check in on my swing changes we have been working on.
Good stuff Deege
I love some golf stats!
It will be interesting to see how the course management test pans out, – Piggy and I had a good chat about that subject a little while ago and it’s an interesting one
I think it is a pretty important thing for me to figure out. For me, as you can see, having an approach of more than 130m puts a fairway wood in my hand, where for *some* people, that might be a 9 iron. So it’s going to be an important issue to know whether my scoring is likely to be better from laying up or from going for it and dealing with the consequences. Significantly improving my bunker play in the last 12 months has made me more inclined to go for it unless there is potential water hazard problems.
But will be interesting to see first whether this comes up terribly often in a round, and secondly whether there is any significant difference in outcome depending on the choice made.
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Put your goals in the “Setting Achievable Goals” thread as well.
Will do, thanks Commish.
Good stuff Deege
I love some golf stats!
It will be interesting to see how the course management test pans out, – Piggy and I had a good chat about that subject a little while ago and it’s an interesting one
I think it is a pretty important thing for me to figure out. For me, as you can see, having an approach of more than 130m puts a fairway wood in my hand, where for *some* people, that might be a 9 iron. So it’s going to be an important issue to know whether my scoring is likely to be better from laying up or from going for it and dealing with the consequences. Significantly improving my bunker play in the last 12 months has made me more inclined to go for it unless there is potential water hazard problems.
But will be interesting to see first whether this comes up terribly often in a round, and secondly whether there is any significant difference in outcome depending on the choice made.
I have believed for a while that learners need to prioritise being able to confidently get out of bunkers to allow them to take on approach shots with bunkers as a miss saver (and also when you need to punch to a green the bunker can be a great short or back stop).
Everyone needs to play to their strengths and weaknesses but having that sort of safety net can be a huge benefit for riskier shots.
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Good stuff Deege
I love some golf stats!
It will be interesting to see how the course management test pans out, – Piggy and I had a good chat about that subject a little while ago and it’s an interesting one
I think it is a pretty important thing for me to figure out. For me, as you can see, having an approach of more than 130m puts a fairway wood in my hand, where for *some* people, that might be a 9 iron. So it’s going to be an important issue to know whether my scoring is likely to be better from laying up or from going for it and dealing with the consequences. Significantly improving my bunker play in the last 12 months has made me more inclined to go for it unless there is potential water hazard problems.
But will be interesting to see first whether this comes up terribly often in a round, and secondly whether there is any significant difference in outcome depending on the choice made.
I have believed for a while that learners need to prioritise being able to confidently get out of bunkers to allow them to take on approach shots with bunkers as a miss saver (and also when you need to punch to a green the bunker can be a great short or back stop).
Everyone needs to play to their strengths and weaknesses but having that sort of safety net can be a huge benefit for riskier shots.
Well to be fair, to get your handicap lower, it helps if you don’t have any particular shot that causes you major conniptions, cause that is going to cause a problem. But agree that for many higher handicaps, bunkers is often a weakness.
From observation I would say that many higher handicap male players, learning to stick with a shot off the tee that more reliably gets you in play rather than just chasing ultimate peen distance would have an equally big impact.
But I am very pleased to have improved my bunker play to the point that I don’t automatically assume hitting a bunker will kill my hole.
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No question – golf will find your weakness and shove them in your face!
Of course you’re not a learner so my thoughts about bunkers was out of context in your thread – it’s just a topic I find interesting and your comment about bunkers triggered me!
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No question – golf will find your weakness and shove them in your face!
Of course you’re not a learner so my thoughts about bunkers was out of context in your thread – it’s just a topic I find interesting and your comment about bunkers triggered me!
Not really out of place because bunkers was something that was a real weakness of mine until about 12 months ago. I am still not great, and it’s still a weakness compared to other parts of my game.
All of my work since I started has been trying to focus on the thing that causes me to lose the most shots – work on that until it’s no longer the thing that causes me to lose the most shots and then move on to the next candidate. At the moment one of the reason I want to do some investigating is because I am just not sure what that thing is at the moment – I could point to all the categories above which I know are doing me damage but I am just not sure if there is a number one candidate. My suspicion is that I will find I am losing the most shots with 3 putts, because I would still have one or two of those every round and while that is not 4 or 5, it is still happening every round. I feel more frutrated with my double chips but I would be suprised if I was having more than one of those a round, and not even that many some rounds.
It’ll be interesting to see what the stats say
At some point you will move past the clangers – like not getting out of bunkers and 3 putts and double chips – and on to shots lost from missing opportunities – like not getting up and down from a simple spot or missing a green with a wedge.
I’m thinking about how I need to tweak my shots lost system because it currently compares my short game to theoretical perfection of always getting up and down, but even the pros don’t do that and if I pmleave my approach short sided or in a bunker then the approach has to take a share of the blame.I think it’s good to have some clarity about where you can get the most bang for your improvement buck.
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Deege, at risk of breaking one of your rules, with your on course playing stat tracking, have you considered including any mental / mind / body / how you were feeling type of info?
Knowing when a bad shot happens and your mindset at the time may prove useful information.
This links with the on course playing lesson Mads mentioned. Having to talk through your pre shot thoughts to.soneone who knows better, can uncover interesting mental aspects.
By the time you realise this part of my signature doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Meditation makes doing nothing quite respectable.
Deege, at risk of breaking one of your rules, with your on course playing stat tracking, have you considered including any mental / mind / body / how you were feeling type of info?
Knowing when a bad shot happens and your mindset at the time may prove useful information.
This links with the on course playing lesson Mads mentioned. Having to talk through your pre shot thoughts to.soneone who knows better, can uncover interesting mental aspects.
That is a really good idea – thanks for the suggestion. I might see if I can find some space on the index card for that idea.
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So had a decent if not spectacular round at Rosebud on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day and I started decently well on the first, but quickly fell in a bit of a hole. Hit a cracker approach to the second which went through the green, was too tentative on the chip and ended up with a double. Complete clanger with the driver into the trees that I didn’t even look for. Almost scrambled a point, but just missed the putt. On the third I don’t get a shot and clubbed down seeing as I was hitting the ball well – just caught the bunker and couldn’t get up and down but saved the bogey. Lost another drive right on the 4th which is the number 1 rated hole and couldn’t get it back in play for another wipe. So just like that after feeling like I was playing okay, I had just 4 points after 5 holes.
Steadied the ship a little for there, going bogey, par, double, par (with a lovely sand save) to have 9 points from the last 4 holes of the 9 to turn in 13. Better than I was heading, but definitely up against it. Started the back with 2 pars and a couple of bogeys and I was looking okay. Stood on the tee of the 14th and thought to myself that I just needed 2 pointers on the way in and I would be in good shape. Didn’t manage that, but ended up with a hard fought 17 to bring me to 30 to the day, which felt like I had rescued the round a little after the start.
So that flagged for me, but I lost a better flag, so the handicap crept out. Have one more flag to lose next week and have two rounds on the cards for the weekend including the OOM.
Stats review
So my stats recording identified 10 errors which lost me shots – worst among them was unforced errors – basically just poor shot execution which I had three of. I had two each driver errors and club selection errors.
33 putts for the day and no three putts (though I had one where I was putting from off the green which I counted for error purposes as a three putt).
I had 9 holes where I had to make an election between going for it or laying up. I chose to go for it 9 times and ended up 2 under nett par for those holes. On the one hole where I didn’t go for it, I ended up one over nett par (though still the right decision on that hole).
So the stats were interesting but will be more interesting to see as time goes on.
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Practice
So I had a full practice before the round but also took some time afterwards to do some more intentional practice. I have purchased a short game practice plan which includes 10-11 levels of drills for both putting and chipping. It is designed that if you do one level of each it will take about 2 hours. I had about 40 minutes and managed to complete 3.5 sets out of 5 from the putting drill. The deal is that you have to get a certain number of outcomes (eg hole the putt, leave it within 3 feet etc) from each set of drills, which are between 20-50 shots per set. You need to pass each of the sets in the level before you can move on to the next level, which is a new 1 hour session of drills. If you don’t pass, you do the same level next time.
I have completed 3.5 of the sets but have good enough results in the 4th set that I have already passed it. Which means that when I finish the level, I only have to pass the last set to advance to the next level. Which is causing me some angst. Never having done intentional tracked practice like this I don’t actually know whether I am going to manage to get 14 out of 20 lag putts from range within the target area. So I think I will be introducing some pressure into my practice on some of these exercises.
Next week if I have time I will start on the first level of the chipping drills. They seem very intimidating as they are all built around outcomes requiring you to put the ball in an area one foot square. And, never having done planned practice, I have no idea how consistently I would be able to do that.
Anyway, so far very impressed with the practice plan, which should keep me busy all year even if I do both levels in full every week, which is unlikely given that I will likely have some other practice priorities at different times.
All in all a good first week of the challenge, albeit on that has seen the handicap go in the wrong direction.
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