January 2010 Entries
I've had a great three days of golf. I finished reading The Game Before the Game on Friday morning and so headed off to Sandford Springs to do some practice. I spent 1 hour hitting 40 balls doing some of the drills outlined in the book. Before I hit about 100 balls in that kind of time frame - but in 40 balls and these few drills I learned so much about what I had been doing wrong. I'll go through the details of the drills and what I have figured out after a few more sessions down the range...
Since the start of this year I've been reading and participating in the Golf Monthly Forums. One of the posts over there was about practice - how long people could spend at the range in a single session and what they did. This made me think about the practice I have been doing this year so far. All I have been doing is 'scrape and hit' practice - drag a ball over and hit it, drag a ball over and hit it. I've been good at taking a practice swing most times but I know this isn't how I should...
Had a busy 2 days at work - I am quite motivated right now so must 'make hay while the sun shines' (I love that saying!) I still have been managing to go to the gym though and down the range 3 times in 2 days.
Yesterdays range practice was a bit of a waste of time. It was so frickin freezing I couldn't warm up at all. I forgot my bobble hat and changing into cold golf shoes didn't help. The gym in the evening was much better though. 25 minutes biking at level 12, and 30 minutes running mostly...
I've been using my Skycaddie SG2.5 now for over 13 months and think it is one of the best purchases I have made other than new golf clubs. Many people are still unsure whether a GPS device will be something they find useful - I hope this review will convince you!
Buy a Skycaddie on Amazon.com
Buy a Skycaddie on Amazon.co.uk
Almost all golf courses have markers of some sort to indicate how close you are to the green. Every one that I have played has had a 150 yard marker, and most have had 100. They do differ though in that some...
Today is my day of rest from the gym and driving range. Around lunch time I really started to get the urge to hit some golf balls but I managed to suppress it! This enthusiasm should spill over to tomorrow and the rest of the week now :-)
Ever since starting to play golf again two and half years ago I've been reading books on the mental side of golf and also NLP. Reading something is easy, actually putting it into practice is much harder. As NLP really interested me I had considered for sometime speaking to somebody about it and...
On Sunday next weekend Theale Golf Club is having a 3 club golf competition. We need to each choose three clubs to take round for 18 holes of medal play plus our putter.
What clubs would you take?
Currently I'm thinking of taking
1, Driver
2, 4 hybrid
3, PW
+ Putter
I'm thinking of taking the 4 hybrid just because of it's versatility. I think most people will be swapping the 4 hybrid and taking a 6, 7 or 8 iron.
So how would you decide what and which clubs to take?
Had some great range sessions on Thursday and Friday. Sticking to the 60 ball limit each visit. I much prefer hitting this number of balls as it certainly doesn't feel like such a chore. I use around 20 balls to warm up, 20 balls for working on something technical, and then 20 balls for 'playing' practise. The playing practise is either going for a different target with each shot or visualising holes and playing them as you would in real life - either way requires going through the full pre-shot routine before hitting the shot. I'm leaving the range really...
Hit the gym yesterday and hit it hard! 25 mins on the bike again but I went one level higher this time and really pushed myself. Same with the running - 25 mins. Gentle warm up for 10 mins and then did interval training for a further 15 minutes. Am really starting to get some fitness back and can push myself harder and longer. Took today off from the gym to recover but will be there again tomorrow to work on core and arms.
Went back to the driving range again today. I am only going to get 60 balls each...
Bit of a weird day yesterday. Was sitting at home working away pondering whether to go to the driving range. I was having a break from the gym today, but thought to myself if I want to meet my goals I need to be hitting golf balls.
At the range I wasn't swinging or hitting the ball very well. I got 100 balls to use, if I hadn't paid for them I'd have just walked away but that is difficult when you feel you need to get your money's worth! Days like this are horrible as they make you think that...
We received notice that Theale Golf Club was open yesterday, so I arranged to meet with Jason, Matt and John at around 11am. The greens were still pretty much covered in snow and ice but the fairways were OK. There were a ton of people out playing even though you couldn't really putt at all. This shows how keen everybody was to get out in the fresh air and swing a golf club again!
Here's a picture of the 2nd hole taken from the third tee!
We only played 9 holes, but it was nice to get outside again.
I managed to get...
Yesterday I had a lesson with Neal over at Sandford Springs. I thought I had been swinging and hitting the ball quite well, but the video we recorded doesn't look to good to me!
golf swing 15th Jan back view from Nick Swan on Vimeo.
I am over swinging - still, and I also think I am stooped over the ball.
I went to Leaderboard driving range today and hit quite a lot of balls. To stop the over swinging I need to be able to feel and understand where the club is in my...
The snow is melting hurrah! There is still a lot to get rid of, and it did take an hour to dig my car out of the snow - but it is a start! The range at Sandford Springs is open so I headed over there just after lunch and hit around 80 balls. There is still a load of snow covering the golf course which won't be gone by the weekend so it looks like I will have to hope the range machine has enough golf balls to keep dispensing them.
I was working on a few things today from...
Yesterday wasn't a good day - we got takeaway pizza and I didn't make it to the gym! The pizza did taste good, but I have felt quite sluggish all day. We got another couple of inches of snow last night. It looks like it might heat up tomorrow so hopefully the big melt will begin although all this snow will turn to water which might keep courses closed.
We finally dug the car out of the snow this afternoon as both Sophie and I wanted to go to the gym and didn't fancy walking again. It is really interesting that...
One of the things I have gone backwards and forwards with over the past 2 years is how many stats to keep track of on a round of golf. It is difficult for 2 reasons:
1, You actually need to capture the information which can mean writing down quite a lot about each shot
2, It is best to play each golf shot in isolation, so if you are about to play your second shot from a bunker - but remembering you need to write down the bad tee shot that got you there, it can only have a negative effect.
The kind...
Missed out day 13 - thought it might be unlucky, and still not much to report anyway. Yesterday I went to the gym again - twice in 2 days, motivation is still currently going strong. I went on the bike again, but also did a few weights for my arms. My god am I weak! I think even putting a little strength into my arms will help me a lot for 2010.
I took today off from the gym as 2 days in a row have made my body ache quite a bit. I am just getting use to going again...
Matt at 20th Hole Golf Blog has gone through and noted down his predictions for 2010 Major Championship Predictions. I thought I'd have a go as well
Masters - Padraig Harrington
US Open - Phil Mickelson
British Open - Lee Westwood
PGA Championship - Tiger Woods
I think Tiger will be back playing golf for the Masters, but don't think he will win any of the majors before the PGA. I might just go down the bookies and put £1 on this tomorrow :-)
Who does everyone else think is up for the Majors in 2010?
With all the snow around I've had a chance to do lots of reading over the past few days. I've just finished Golf at the Top by Steve Williams - Tiger Wood's caddy. I've bought a lot of golf books from Amazon so I was really surprised that this one was never recommended to me - and if you look at the Amazon pages the book doesn't have too many reviews.
I'm really surprised about this because you'd expect a book written by the caddy of the best golfer of our generation to be more widely read! If Neal Granville hadn't...
What happened to Day 11 you may ask? Well the snow meant nothing happened. No golf to be played and I didn't fancy walking for 30 minutes to the gym so there was nothing to update you with. Let's hope there are as few days like that as possible!
I had the idea last night that I'd get the spade and rake out and clear the area of snow around my practice net. Here's a picture of the scene before
and here is the scene after the hard work
this allowed me to have 20 mins of hitting balls and working on getting...
We are into double digits in the day count now - but I'm afraid today's update is nothing exciting. The snow is still 18 inches deep and it doesn't look like melting away anytime soon. May be it is time to dig out those Spanish golf holiday brochures again!
I did spend more time today swinging the club indoors, but there is only so much of this you can do. A very interesting stat posted on Twitter by Titleist:
Steve Stricker made every single putt 3' or less in 09 (662 of them!). In fact he started the round with a streak...
The Odyssey 2 ball White Hot putter has been serving me very well for the last 6 months. I'd tried out a few friends Odyssey 2 balls before purchasing my own so I knew what I was getting once I handed over my cash.
About 8 months ago I read Dave Pelz Putting Bible and it had a big effect on my putting. I really like the analytical material that was presented and the actual tests he performed to back up his suggested methods. I'd never really thought too much about my putting stroke before reading this book, but after I'd...
The snow came down last night, and it came down in large quantities
There is nothing worse than being stuck inside when you know you can't go out and hit any golf balls.
Being inside is giving me a chance to work on what I mentioned yesterday - getting the club over my right shoulder. I'm able to swing indoors, and I've often read how it can help ingrain new things by making very slow deliberate swings of the club.
Here's a pic of my old/bad swing
The club is going right around me. Here's a picture of my new/good swing
Much more upright and...
My muscles were a bit stiff today when I woke up as I pushed myself a little harder at the gym yesterday. Drinking plenty of water and the stretching exercises in Golf Rx should help.
There are warnings of snow coming later today so I headed down to the driving range just after lunch and hit 100 balls. I would have hit some more but it was so cold the balls had ice attached to them again. This was affecting the flight quite a bit, but also the actual temperature itself makes it not very nice to be outside!
I've been practising...
It seems the cold weather is here to stay for a while so I might as well get used to going to the driving range. This isn't such a bad thing though because if you are going to work on technical aspects of your golf swing this time of year is the time to do it and the driving range is definitely the place to do it rather than the golf course.
I actually started the day off by hitting the gym. 20 mins bike, 20 mins running and also a few squats thrown into the mix. Doing some exercise is...
I headed over to Sandford Springs at 9am expecting to spend some time on the driving range today as there had been a frost again the night before. It was also the captains drive in so thought I'd watch the new captain for 2010 hit his drive from the 1st tee! There was also a 7 hole cross country texas scramble to help celebrate the new captains, someone had dropped out so I took their place rather than spending the day at the range.
Cross Country golf is a lot of fun - if you ever get the chance to play...
Apart from golf balls, golf clubs and the usual things - what else do you need to make sure you have in your golf bag?
Luckily I have a large golf bag and so am prepared for all situations! :-)
Plasters
Last year during a club game I picked up a rake that had been driven over by the grass cutter and as I raked a bunker a shard of plastic gave me a nasty cut in the palm of my hand. Luckily my playing partner had some plasters in his bag and after stopping the bleeding I was able to put one...
Woke up early to find a very light snow covering on the ground and that Jack Frost had visited and made everything icey! I was so keen to get out there and play again that I didn't think that the ground will be as hard as concrete! Hitting the ball on the green meant it bouncing 30 feet up in the air and going absolutely everywhere! I gave up keeping my score as it was pointless. I'd have been better off spending 3 hours at the driving range rather than playing around on a frozen golf course, and this is...
Hope everybody had a good New Year celebration last night. Sophie and I headed over to London to spend the evening with friends and had a great time. Due to getting up late and traveling back though there wasn't any time for playing golf today and being 1st of Jan and a bank holiday in the UK the driving range was closed today.
So today was really a rest day. I used the time this afternoon to get my training aids out from the shed and put my rota net back up in the garden. I hit a few balls into...
There are a couple of golf swing practice aids I have purchased over the last 2 years that I am going to start using again this year. There are so many different things out there that can miraculously improve your game it is very often difficult to know which to chose! I'll give you a quick overview of the practice aids I currently have and will review each in more depth after another few months of using them.
Leaderboard
I bought the Leaderboard last year as Neal had me using it down the driving range during lessons. One of the first problems...
In the past I have been very vocal announcing to the world all my goals and projects that I have set myself only for them to never be heard about again. I read this great article by Derek Sivers:
Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them
and immediately saw myself as one of these people who came up with many great plans and schemes, announced them to the world - and then did nothing.
This is why I am keeping the actual goal of my 2010 golf challenge to myself. I'm sure you can may be have a...