The ugliness of my short game. ...

Par 3 3rd. Hit my 5i a bit thin into bunker short right. Thinned the Bunker shot right over the green to rough at the back. Caught the pitch a little thin, I think because of how it raced over the green, but that was also the story of the greens today so wasn’t much in it. Chipped back and then 33 putted from 8 feet, with the second putt from 2 feet pulled horribly! Very ugly quadruple bogey 7!

The the par 4 6th – 336m. Hit a great drive but was left in the middle of a fairway that was on an extremely steep angle, 110m out to a beef perched on the other side of the gully. Took gap wedge expecting extra distance from major deloft. Felt I hit the ball well but distance wasn’t there and ball perched on the opposite up slope.

Pitched short and it rolled behind me to the bottom of the gully. Next pitch was also just short but stayed up. Chip and 2 putts for another 7!

Some very poor shots and poor thinking used up half the handicap on 2 holes! Ugly!

That’s wolly world in a nut shell mate. but playing there more often will heap your short game and aproch shots. I had a blast today. It was Great to out drive you a few times. Look out next year i will be unstoppable after my time with Zen at Xmass. Bring on Redcliffe..

Ahhh weetie we have all been there done that….

It never ceases to amaze me how some of my best drives become my worst scored holes AND that’s when it hurts the most too …....

That’s wolly world in a nut shell mate. but playing there more often will heap your short game and aproch shots. I had a blast today. It was Great to out drive you a few times. Look out next year i will be unstoppable after my time with Zen at Xmass. Bring on Redcliffe..

El Presidente

www.gailesgolf.com.au/

You were hitting it solid today mate. The only fly in the ointment was the pulls. Old patterns I reckon – like Tiger’s pushes! I need to get more aggressive! :-) You gunna be a gorilla!

Ahhh weetie we have all been there done that….

It never ceases to amaze me how some of my best drives become my worst scored holes AND that’s when it hurts the most too …….

H,cap 2010 22-24-20, 2011 20-21-22-21-20-19-18-17-16-15 w00t(14.7 new PB 19/10/12) (Next Goal 15 h,cap (Reached 19/10/12) & Break 80 (Shot 80 19/10/12 dammit)
http://www.golflink.com.au/...

Yeah, very frustrating. Follow up a top drive with a piece of rubbish.

As they say, a 3cm putt count the same as a 300m drive! :-)

That’s wolly world in a nut shell mate. but playing there more often will heap your short game and aproch shots. I had a blast today. It was Great to out drive you a few times. Look out next year i will be unstoppable after my time with Zen at Xmass. Bring on Redcliffe..

El Presidente

www.gailesgolf.com.au/

You were hitting it solid today mate. The only fly in the ointment was the pulls. Old patterns I reckon – like Tiger’s pushes! I need to get more aggressive! :-) You gunna be a gorilla!

Starting 2012 on unofficial 17, target 12 then single figures
Inaugural Official Handicapper and Treasurer of the SEQ Golf Guys
LEARN then PERFORM – Geoff Mangum

Aggressive to the ball.. It makes sense on what you were saying today after the game. A bit like deaccelarating with chpiping.

Thanks for the vids. Very interesting. Definitely somethings to work on. Very inside and throwing it away. Losing a lot of speed through impact.

No wonder I was hitting pulls and draws today – I am throwing the club head at the ball.

Just going back over my swing today. Video was very good, showing how I was swinging my arms instead of the club. A very timely reminder of a critical aspect of Manuel’s approach. You cannot be swinging your hands or arms – it must be the club.

Thanks sandy.

Just going back over my swing today. Video was very good, showing how I was swinging my arms instead of the club. A very timely reminder of a critical aspect of Manuel’s approach. You cannot be swinging your hands or arms – it must be the club.

Thanks sandy.

Starting 2012 on unofficial 17, target 12 then single figures
Inaugural Official Handicapper and Treasurer of the SEQ Golf Guys
LEARN then PERFORM – Geoff Mangum

Too easy mate.. Thanks for the impact bag. This one should last forever. It looks like its built to be bashed.

Manuel writes about the club passing through points where it is parallel to the target line when it is parallel to the ground. Pretty conventional stuff. But what I definitely need to work on. It’s about swinging the club and not the arms.

It’s the mental barrier I need to get through – the club. Not the arms. Not the hands. Not the shoulders.

Swing the club. Back towards the right shoulder (still not totally clear what that means) and then towards the target. It’s a simple thing to say. I’m still a WIP in regard to making it a simple thing I do!

:-)

Hi Weetixbix,

for what it’s worth: I have to fully support you on chipping and getting the right motion. To this day I think it is one of the biggest drivers to lowering scores. I know some ppl on this forum are of the advice that if you practice your irons more, you’ll hit more greens and therefore won’t need to chip but it’s not a view I share.

Anyway back to chipping. I think it’s the easiest golf swing to master after putting. With a bit of guidance and practice you can very quickly get a consistent mechanical chipping swing that you can replicate 95% of the time.

At this stage I wouldnt even worry about varying lofts, backswing lengths etc. Just find a correct stance, position (ask your pro if unsure) and a shortish backswing that feels natural and you can replicate easily.

Once you have THAT chip motion down to a mechanical can-do-it-with-my-eyes-closed way, figure out what distances and roll you’ll get on flat surface with different clubs (say SW, Gap, P and possibly 9 and up). From that point on up-and-downs become so much easier!

So yeah, in a nutshell: keep doing those challenges on the chipping green, they will pay off if quickly if you take a structured approach to what you’re doing there.

Good luck on the rest of your game and jouney, I enjoy reading the updates!

Thanks Max. Chipping is definitely my equal number 1 focus going forward – along with putting.

I feel pretty comfortable these days with my chipping motion – just a very short version of my normal motion. And I am finding that on flat chips I am getting to where I am giving myself up and down opportunites. Bit more work on distance control will see that continue to improve.

Sunday was interesting test because looking back I can only think of a couple of times when I had a ‘standard’ chip. Wolston presents a lot of chips where you are on a very different elevation to the pin! I had a number of chips with lob wedge where I couldn’t see the putting surface. Others where there were significant slopes on the green to contend with.

I was actually very happy technically with my pitches and chips. There were a few I hit a little thin but most were good contact. But touch was the challenge. And putting!

Lots more practice for me. I really need to practice my lob wedge chips more because they were what was required a lot of the time. And they are definitely the biggest hole in my chipping game because I don’t have the touch.

Thanks for the insights. Nice to heat from you. Totally agree that chipping and putting is what will get my handicap down.

Headed to Mr Warren Park Golf Club today for a round with my mate. It’s a course I have always enjoyed playing. There is a good variety of holes, the greens are generally raised up so they put a premium on accuracy on the approaches, there are plenty of tree so you can get in plenty of trouble off the tees, but you can definitely score there too.

Well, sometime you can anyway! Not me today. 49 front 48 back for a 25 over 97, net 84 off 13! 5/14 fairways, 2 GIR, 35 putts. 3 pars 8 bogies 5 doubles 1 triple and 1 quad!

While it wasn’t good it wasn’t as bad as it seems. The greens were terrible. Putts would bounce up and down as well as side to side. Bumps that knocked the ball way off line were common. So it wasn’t a good day for scoring.

I’ll do a fuller write up later.

Like Wolston I hit a lot of hooks today. All part of getting my grip sorted. And now I’ve gone too far and have the grip too strong. Only a little but my alignment and mentality is still around managing the push, so a hook can get ugly! Lost a few shots today because of hooks. In trees and one in the water.

Went for too much on the 12th and hit it OOB off the tee. Had some tree trouble too so that was my quad bogey. Triple bogey was the hooked 5 iron off a ball under my feet that found water.

The total score was affected heavily by the condition of the greens.I do not think that I have ever played on worse. I’ve had ball bobble around, but never take 20 degree deviations on a bounce. There were a few greens on the back 9 that showed us how the greens will be once they return from the coring, cutting and some other reconditioning work they are doing. And they were fine, just a bit furry at the moment. But most were abysmal. Even though I really like the course I am at the point where I will give them one more round. If the greens aren’t good next time I will avoid the course in future. I don’t want to but it just takes too much away from enjoying the round.

Hopefully the work they are doing will pay off.

Only 1 up and down today. To be honest I can’t make any reasonable assessment of my short game today. The greens didn’t just effect the putts. Also the greens were very inconsistent. Many ran hard – like Wolston did. And then you’d have one check and stop very quickly and come up way short.

Realistically I think my short game is progressing but still has a long way to go. Hit a lot of chips thin, and a lot of full shots thin, which wasn’t a good idea with these greens!

Work at the range will be on checking how I now feel I need to set my grip, and continuing to work on swinging the club.

Had a bit of rain on the course today, and last night, so was muggy and sticky. But loved getting out and having a hit.

I love this game!

what had they done to the greens? It was nicer in the afternoon.

They had the cut marks all through them so they’d done that. Not sure if they’d cored or not. Or what else they were doing.

Scary how bad some of the surfaces were. Literally 3-4 inch high bounces and the sideways bounces! They weren’t doing 90 degree turns but they were having a go at it. I’ve played on newly cored greens and these were a long way the worst I’ve played.

On the first hole my 20 footer bounced a few times, then took a knock and moved about 20 degrees left, then took another bounce a few degrees right. Finished well left and well short.

I have absolutely no idea, based on today, what the state of my putting is. I think I was hitting it more accurately where I was aiming but the movement even on short putts made it hard to tell.

You played well today?

sounds like Scoured ?

I played ok better than i have but but i know i can do a F load better there is more in my little thread.

http://golfshot.com/Rounds/...

is my round stats. we started on the tenth

Been having a think about my swing. I play my best when I keep my eyes focussed on the back of the ball, and don’t think about my back swing path. I have been told a number of times that my back swing is too flat but I can hit solid and consistent shots with it, I don’t have to try and make myself do something – I just let my body do what it chooses, and I don’t have a sore back afterwards.

So I am just going to play with what I bought! Swing it back and then swing it through on whatever path my body works with.

One of the things that I was thinking about is what Brad Hughes and John Erickson talk about with a lower path in the downswing. Whether it I is optimal or not it is a legitimate option, and something that I get without trying because at the end of the back swing my hands are at best across my shoulder line and maybe lower.

So I’m going to just stick with that for a while and learn better what it achieves consistently.

Maybe push draws! :-)

Push draws it is!

Hit the range tonight for a very quick bucket and a half. As always I couldn’t help but tinker but in the end I just worked on swinging the club with my upper arms, back and through towards the target.

Feels fairly short on the back swing. And contact is very solid. Consistent and solid. I really love it. And the distance is good too.

Did a fair bit of pitching practice too and was doing well at that too with the same approach. Hopefully I can have another hit on Saturday before the game at Redcliffe on Sunday with the SEQ Golf Guys.

Finally got back into some putting practice. Geoff Mangum was writing in his forum about the left side dominating in putting, with a shoulder stroke action.

The two bits that got my focus were the left hip and left hand.

Geoff was writing about the bottom half stability and focussing on keeping the left hip totally still during the putt. This provides the guidepost that your upper body can return to on the forward swing to ensure everything lines up. The top of the guidepost is the throat line. Although I focus on keeping my vision on a single spot on the back of the ball rather than my throat line at this stage.

Ensuring that the left hand dominates the right is a focus for Geoff’s teaching. The grip he suggests has the right hand just sitting over the left and so barely touching the actual grip. The left shoulder provides the movement.

So been working on those two aspects and has sorted out my problems with changing face angles.

Let’s hope it fixes it on the greens at Redcliffe tomorrow! They may be a bit damp – has rained all night and all day so far today.

Can’t wait to play though!

Although the forecast has 40km winds predicted for tomorrow so it could be a very challenging round.

Bix
Whatever these guru’s recommend, the important elements in putting are line and distance. The common element is the ability to start the ball on the line selected. The ideal is a clubface and swing path square to the line. Don’t forget the new ball laws which also apply to putting – the clubface has 85% influence on direction, swing path 15%. Maintaining the sweet spot plane throughout the stroke is the key to returning a square putter face through the ball position.

What does all this mean? It means that the putter should control us. We need to fit, mould and move our bodies to give the club control. That is what it is designed for. Anything else is beating our head against a brick wall.

Getting the ball to start on the line you aimed at! Totally razaar.

Geoff teaches 4 skills for putting, reading greens with touch, aiming the putter at address on your read line, starting the ball on the line you aimed for, and distance control.

Swinging the club … it’s interesting you mentioning that. That is my focus for all swings now. With putting I am thinking about swinging the club with good rhythm. And not adjusting the face angle when it returns to the ball. The issue in my last couple of rounds has been changing the face. So it’s been good to start getting the swing sorted so I can return the face back to where it was aimed.