Latest Update

Played final comp of the year. Got another .1 back so finished the year of 12.6. Not the best of years after last year.

Work continues for next year.

Screenshots below are my swing in June and my swing last week..

As you can see I'm getting my hands much higher, above my shoulders, and the club is much steeper on the back swing.

Glen want's me taking the club up on a much steeper angle so it almost points inside the ball on the way back and then outside on the way down. Apparently that will stop me coming over the top. But all it's doing right now is making me come in steep and chopping the ball.

So at the moment everything is starting right and going right most of the time. So more work to do there.

However my short game is shit hot right now. Put a wedge in my hands from anywhere within 100 yards and I'm sticking it into 1 putt range. It's the only thing that is keeping my scores reasonable.

Last two Sundays shot 83 and 82 respectively. That's with driving the ball all over the place and my way wood irons. I think both Sundays I only hit about 16% GIR !!! But still put a score together.

Drove the ball better this Sunday when I reverted to my older, flatter driver swing. Hit every fairway on the back 9!!

So I'm going to get this swing working with my irons first, then try and transition my driver.

My last lesson was about 3 weeks ago now and I think I probably need another week on the range with this change before I go for another. My backswing is now looking much better, but I can't seem to get the club on the right plane on the downswing. So I think the next lesson will need to look at the transition.

Finally Happened

After fighting it for the past 3 months it finally happened.

Got that .1 back to take me to 12.5, playing off 13 now. Back where I started at the beginning of the year.

Scored a pitiful 27 points in the October Trophy a week back.

To be honest I'd decided not to play any more comps and start working on my swing for next year. I'd had a couple of lessons with Glen and made some changes, things felt OK, put in a good amount of practice in the week so I decided to play in the comp.

It was just shockingly bad.

Everything started right and carried on going right with a push slice. Good chipping and putting kept me in it for a bit but the inevitable happened and I just put too much pressure on my short game and started to miss a few putts.

So I'm now playing off 13.

There's another comp this weekend. Last one of the year and I'm going to play. Worst that can happen is I get another .1 back and am still playing off 13, best, I might put a round together and get myself cut back down to playing off 12.

Started the year playing off 13 (13.4) might finish the year off 13 as well. Bit depressing even though my exact is 0.9 lower.

I'll cover the recent changes in my next post so you can see what's going on.

100th Post

Couple of practice sessions this week just concentrating on keeping my legs quiet.

Help the Hero's Charity comp today at the club.

Team event. Shotgun start off the yellows. 4 players a team, best 2 stableford scores a hole score. But we only had 3 players which makes it a bit tough :-(

We put together a pretty good score of 80 considering we only had 3 players. I think the winning score was something like 91.

I played pretty good. I was the lowest hcp in the team off 12. The other two were off 24 and 28 and we dovetailed our score pretty well. I kept my score rolling along and when one of the other guys didn't score, the other did.

Individually I shot and 81 which is 2 under net, with two birdies on the drivable par 4 Th and the long par 3 Th. 17 was pleasing as it's a tough hole, even off the yellows. Still 175 yards !!!

Drove the ball OK. Had a few thinned iron shots, but in general they were ok. And again neat and tidy on and around the greens with no 3 putts.

So pretty pleased. Plenty of work still to do. But feel it's going in the right direction.

Bit of practice this week and I might play the comp next Saturday if I can get a pass from the girlfriend. If not then it's be a round with Dave on Sunday.

Bit of Practice and a Round

Hadn't had much time to practice the new change to keep my feet planted on the floor this week. Managed to get up the range Friday afternoon for 45 mins and hit 50 balls, just focussing on keeping my feet firmly planted to the floor in my back swing and maintaining my knee angle.

It still feels a bit odd as it restricts my backswing and feels like I get no turn, but I know there is more turn there than I can feel.

Started just hitting a few wedges then started to jump around the clubs to see how the change feels.

My shot shape seems to have changed, my bad ones are all going left now. I'm either drawing it, or the bad on is a pull.

Played Sunday and hit 25 on the range beforehand to warm up. All of a sudden my old shot shape is back, fade, or slice. But I'm still keeping my feet down. Odd.

During the round the only swing though I had was keeping my legs in control. tbh, I didn't strike the ball that well. Sliced a lot of drives and irons.

Thank got my scrambling and short game was spot on.

Had a pretty good front 9 up until the 8th. Was only 1 over gross. Hit straight drive right up the middle. 8i into the green and pulled it slightly, hit the side of the bank next to the green and shot sideways like a bullet into some knee high rough. Searched but couldn't find it. Took stroke and distance and ended up with a 7 (triple Bogey). Bogeyed the last and ended up 5 over gross 40, 1 under nett.

Back 9 was a horror show. With a 10 and an 8 on my card I came back in 50 for a 90. Just a combination of 2-3 bad shots that I got heavily punished for and my short game wasn't quite as sharp.

tbh, after the score started to leak away I don't think I concentrated as much around the greens and that probably cost me 3-4 shots.

I managed to just focus on the change during the round and not let other swing thoughts come in. I suppose it's not a bad round with a new change after probably hitting less that 100 balls with it.

I'll probably try and get a couple more range sessions in this week to try and bed it in, then go back and see Glen maybe next week to work out what to work on next.

New Coach

Made the change covered in a previous post.

Bumped into Glen up the range on Monday and had a good chat with him about what was going on and what we could do and got a good feeling that we could work together.

It's a shame as I liked working with Bryan, but it's just to much of a problem getting to see him given the distance and diaries.

I had my first lesson with Glen today with him and went really well.

Went though a bit of my golfing background and what I was looking to do. Then done the usual video swing anaylsis. Usual stuff for a first lesson.

He confirmed my setup was pretty good. Good grip, posture, ball postion  etc.

He then started to look at the swing and spotted something he had never seen before in 20 years of coaching.

What I'm doing is as soon as I take the club away both my heals come off the floor and I'm on my toes, this continues and my right leg straightens, which allows my hips to turn to far back and also allows me to rotate my upper body too far. In my backswing I develop a huge turn, but no real resistance between my upper and lower body.

We worked on keeping my feet planted and keeping flex in my right leg. Now when I take the club away I can really feel the resistance beetween my upper and lower body. It feels like I get no turn at all, but I am getting a full 90 degrees.

After a few swings, although it felt odd, Glen got me just shiifting my weight right in my backswing slightly, so I was turned behind the ball as well.

From a shot point of view everything was pretty much down the middle with a touch of draw. Ball flight was a bit lower than usuall as well. Very Nice.

I'm going to just practice this and nothing else until I've got this embedded before I change anything else. hopefully a couple of weeks will do it.

Next Year - Planning Already Started

As mentioned in the last post my attention has already turned to next year.

This year hasn't really panned out the way I envisaged.

I need to learn from this year. Over the winter I'm going to have more lessons but not change so much in as short a space of time. Wait for the changes to bed in before I change something else.

I've also been thinking about the coaching situation. I should have probably had more lessons through the summer with Bryan rather than wait for things to start going wrong. But the problem is as he's 30 mins away, getting to see him can be tough and he has quite a full diary, as do I. So it's hard to get a lesson in when I really want one.

I don't really want to go back to Keith as I had similar problems, Keith doesn't teach everyday, so it's hard to get a lesson when I want. But my club's facilites are close by and some of the best in the area.

I don't really want to swap from Bryan as I really like him as a coach (and he's Tom Lewis's Dad :-) ),  but he's just that little bit too far away.

I'm thinking about giving Glen at go at Chesfield, he's one of the other pro's up there. I chat to him quite a bit and we get on pretty well so I might book a lesson and see how it goes. If it's ok I'll book up a course of lessons and see what we can acheive over the winter.

5 Days Running

Got back from a week in Turkey sitting by the pool and managed to play 5 days running when I got back.

Mixture of mainly bad, but put together an 80 on Saturday morning over at Whitehills.

Started Birdy, Bogey, Birdy, Par. Then OB'd the 5th and double bogeyed. Still finished the front on 38 shots, 2 over gross. Solid back 9 as well, double bogey on the par 3 11th, and 3 putt the last 2 greens for an 80. Best I've played in ages. Just seemed so easy.

Played yesteday at Chesfield and I was truly shocking again. Shot 94. Drove ok. But everything else was off. No real big scores apart from 16 when I took and 8 on a par 5. Just bogey after bogey and only a couple of pars.

I'm probably only going to play 1 more comp this year, last comp of the season at the end of Oct. We have 2 comps this and next Saturday and I'm probably going to skip them and call this year a bust.

I guess planning starts for next year now.