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Sticking with the Status Quo and Your Expectations for Improvement

#Cookie said:
Just because someone doesn't see a pro means they are just "banging away". There can be a happy medium as to how they choose to improve and what works for them.

Heck I'm reading pelz short game bible now for example.
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Easy there cookie, just a term for practicing. If you take stock in your game over the past three seasons? Have you gotten better or worse? This is a general question for any one.

The flaws that plague your game may be listed in a book but proper implantation is also needed. Without pelz himself directed you it just a guess on anyone's part. I'm not saying to stop I'm saying maybe another set of eyes can help and that goes for anyone.
 
#Cookie said:
Just because someone doesn't see a pro means they are just "banging away". There can be a happy medium as to how they choose to improve and what works for them.

Heck I'm reading pelz short game bible now for example.
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This I agree with, although I think it depends on the player quite a bit. I do believe that every golfer can benefit from instruction, but not everybody is going to go down that path.
 
Tadashi70 said:
Easy there cookie, just a term for practicing. If you take stock in your game over the past three seasons? Have you gotten better or worse? This is a general question for any one.

The flaws that plague your game may be listed in a book but proper implantation is also needed. Without pelz himself directed you it just a guess on anyone's part. I'm not saying to stop I'm saying maybe another set of eyes can help and that goes for anyone.
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Over the past 3 years, my game is a good 3-4 strokes better. Since 2012, it hasn't changed much. But I can also say that practice for me has been non-existent, I just go and play - and play a lot.

I think the biggest change I needed was a different mindset. More mental managing around the course in addition to some short game practice.

I've always improved via self taught for lack of a better term versus lessons. I'm not opposed to lessons but I first MUST know what I'm trying to improve upon. I don't want to schedule a lesson and just tell the instructor "I need to play better". I need to identify what needs to be improved and then determine what's the best and most efficient way to fix that.
 
#Cookie said:
I've always improved via self taught for lack of a better term versus lessons. I'm not opposed to lessons but I first MUST know what I'm trying to improve upon. I don't want to schedule a lesson and just tell the instructor "I need to play better". I need to identify what needs to be improved and then determine what's the best and most efficient way to fix that.
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Cookie,
I wont get into the should you or shouldnt you in regards to lessons, but I do not agree with the above. Most coaches will watch you swing and watch your game and know what you need to improve on. At least from where I have been, seen and experienced.
 
JB said:
Cookie,
I wont get into the should you or shouldnt you in regards to lessons, but I do not agree with the above. Most coaches will watch you swing and watch your game and know what you need to improve on. At least from where I have been, seen and experienced.
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That's fair. Not having taken lessons perhaps I mistakenly assumed that I needed to have an idea of what I needed to improve on before walking into the lesson.
 
#Cookie said:
That's fair. Not having taken lessons perhaps I mistakenly assumed that I needed to have an idea of what I needed to improve on before walking into the lesson.
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Its funny, we all give you garbage about the swing, but truthfully its like one tweak off from being grooved (according to a far better player than me that has played with you). Im not saying go in for a rebuild, nor would I say anybody needs to take on instruction, but I do believe that "practicing more" is not necessarily the answer despite what people want to believe. I am sure it will work for some however.

I have seen swings from people that are in #THPMC this year. I can tell them point blank that depending on their goals, those swings wont hold up to a weekend long event. Again completely goal dependent. And this goes for both good and bad players including some veterans.

But this is only my opinion and for the most part is meaningless.
 
Well Im defiantly taking my method of improvement a different direction than what I have done. I already started lessons now and that started in January, got a net so I can practice at home working on my swing daily. Also got a birdieball putting green to practice my putting game. Defiantly a change for me instead of just waiting till its golf season and working on my game on the golf course. Yeah it's costing me more but it is well worth it.
 
#Cookie said:
That's fair. Not having taken lessons perhaps I mistakenly assumed that I needed to have an idea of what I needed to improve on before walking into the lesson.
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I think we are pretty similar Cookie. I went for a swing evaluation and within 10 swings my instructor identified what I needed to work on most. There will ALWAYS be things we can get better at but I will say I have never hit irons better in my life. I can say that without going and having someone evaluate my swing I would have never been able to get there. Doesn't mean I don't have a long road ahead but I have an idea of what I need to do.
 
JB said:
Cookie,
I wont get into the should you or shouldnt you in regards to lessons, but I do not agree with the above. Most coaches will watch you swing and watch your game and know what you need to improve on. At least from where I have been, seen and experienced.
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I'd agree with this JB. I can remember my first lesson with my current instructor - before starting the lesson, he told me to warm up and hit various clubs ( driver, 7I, PW ). When the lesson started, I figured he was going to ask me what I wanted to work on. Funny thing was, I remember him telling me what problems he thought I was coming to him for rather than me telling him what issues I was having - and he was exactly correct. Now obviously, if I was coming to him to work on my short game, I would have to tell him...
 
I don't even care about the way cookies swing looks. He is solid where is counts 18" in front and after the ball. And I have seen improvement in his game. I just think there comes a time in every golfers life spam where self analysis and fixing reaches the tipping point.
Are lessons the answer, not always but another set of eyes, a tweak and boom your cook'n with fire.
 
Tadashi70 said:
I just think there comes a time in every golfers life spam where self analysis and fixing reaches the tipping point.
Are lessons the answer, not always but another set of eyes, a tweak and boom your cook'n with fire.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly.
 
For me it is continuing to work on the areas that my instructor has pointed out that I need to address. I felt like I made some great headway in the fall, only to enter winter and have time off. Tempo is key for me and I am taking additional steps like the Orange Whip to work on it this offseason and spring. It will continue to be a major focus this spring for me as well. After some pointers from a fellow THPer Maddog - I straightened out my short game last year and want to spend a good amount time this year working on it.

Last summer I did take a lesson from another instructor in my area who was left handed as I thought it would be great to get another set of eyes on my swing. He made a couple of great suggestions, but he also tried to completely reconstruct my swing and that was not the route I wanted to go. So it was helpful, but threw me off at that same time.
 
#Cookie said:
I'm not opposed to lessons but I first MUST know what I'm trying to improve upon. I don't want to schedule a lesson and just tell the instructor "I need to play better". I need to identify what needs to be improved and then determine what's the best and most efficient way to fix that.
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I hear what you are saying Cookie - I mentioned elsewhere that I wasn't taking lessons this winter, at least in part because I don't know what I want to work on. I definitely understand the sentiment of not wanting to take lessons w/out a particular purpose.

Maybe you don't mean it this way but your sentence reads to me like you want to self diagnose swing specific stuff. I think it can work well another way - come to the lessons with goals (improve dispersion, change trajectory, gain yardage, get better off the tee, etc.) - and let the instructor ID what specifically needs to be addressed to achieve them.

Freddie's new forum section thread can be illustrative on this point. Many of us with some amount of knowledge about golf can diagnose or know a drill to use but it is usually a bit hit or miss and inefficient; teaching pros come at it from such a different place - they see causation, they can sequence the changes we should work on so we achieve better results, they (hopefully) don't mis-diagnose, etc. Those skills are incredibly helpful.

I am of a like mind about practicing short game. I have a working theory that this should be more controllable by us hackers. There are fewer moving parts so knowledge about what to do should translate to performance better than the full swing, where it can be hard to get your body to move the right way regardless of how much we know. I'm taking a similar approach as you this season on this front, should be interesting to see how it pans out.
 
Great topic Hawk.

Isn't doing the same thing and expecting a different result the definition of insanity? In that vein, I am trying something different with my swing (going back to basics) and trying to improve my fitness level. The plan is to get more distance through increased strength/flexiblity and hopefully more consistency through better endurance and balance/coordination.

Besides that I have a plan for practice improvements that will most likely get tweaked as I go. Once I hit some of my weight loss/fitness goals, plan is to go through a thorough fitting and only then look at new equipment. Let's hope I can stay on track!
 
Hawk said:
Stay with me here, because this is a pretty pointed question, but something that's been on my mind regarding myself and regarding others due to the atmosphere.

Lots of guys talking about their plans for this year, whether it's the Morgan Cup, another event, or just for the sake of getting better. My question is if you have expectations for improvement this year, what are you going to do different to make it happen? Do you think that doing the same things you've always done are going to make you better? Are you going to hit a couple extra buckets week or putt on the birdieball for an extra 15 minutes or are you looking at changing how you practice.

In a nutshell, do you believe that doing the same old thing is going to get you where you want to be? If not, what sort of changes are you making?
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I've always been one to go to the range and pound balls in the thoughts of "practice". While I have found that I did know most of the time what I was doing wrong I did NOT know how to address it and fix it. I put off lessons for YEARS for fears of "rebuilding" my swing as well as just stubbornness of being "sure" I could do it myself. This led to status quo for me. Did I play some good golf the past few years? Yes, every year has been better and I put up a 73 last year at one point, but I also know that its always way more hot and cold than I feel it should be, status quo for me there. So, this year I have embraced lessons and LEARNING. First thing I learned is lessons aren't what I thought they were going to be at all, they are giving me direction and TOOLS to improve.

I know now the same old doesn't work for where I want to be, improving a few strokes every year is what I have done the last 3 but I KNOW in my heart I can do better and more, so I am doing that this year. No more status quo, I'm taking lessons, I'm learning how to practice, and I'm expanding my mental side. I'm sick of status quo.
 
I am not sticking with the status quo. Lady year I had the opportunity to play probably 4 times as golf and practice as I normally would. I thought if nothing else I would gain constancy just from shear repetition.
It turns out I was wrong. I ended the year no better than I started. Even though I was reading and trying to get better it didn't happen. This year I'm starting with lessons, and I can already tell seeing myself on video has been huge. What I felt I was doing in my swing was much different than what I was actually doing.
 
I had this discussion with Cookie a week or two ago . I was tired of working my game to a certain level each year, then losing it at the end of the year. I am not losing it from not playing, I'm losing it because I was able to learn how to get around with a bad swing.
This year I want to get a better game, by learning how to swing the clubs better. I started lessons at the beginning of January and have them scheduled for 6 months. I would like to believe that there will be some improvement by then and that I can enjoy the rest of the summer golf season playing some decent rounds. Then come fall, I would like to get right back into the lessons.
This is not a short term fix. This is what I need to do to improve, if I am going to play this game the rest of my life.
 
This is a great topic and one that I have put a decent amount of thought toward in the past couple of months. I am in a rut with my status quo. Given my pattern of both play and "practice" (which I use the term loosely), I know that if I did nothing different, I would show up to the Morgan Cup and shoot in the low to mid 90s, maybe breaking 90 if my timing was good. For both the team, and for myself, while I can't guarantee anything score-wise, I don't want to just accept the status quo.

Where it gets tough for me is budget...it's not expanding (or at least not by much), so much like a soul trying to pay off debt, one of the things I realized is that in order to spend money on things I needed to spend money on (lessons, playing more, practice) I needed to cut other areas to accomplish that (equipment purchases and regrettably number of THP events).

With money reorganized, I had to focus on my next issue which was instruction quality. I have taken spot lessons locally over the past couple of years, but due to the quality of the instructor, the quality of the facility, and the limited frequency, I mostly got a few swing thoughts out of it. As I researched local instruction (again putting effort into something I didn't put effort into before), I found limited options available without club membership...so I expanded the search to a larger radius and have found someone with better recommendations, and better facilities. I'm going in with the plan of six lessons (which exceeds my career total) and an open mind toward how he thinks I can get better given the destination timeline. Start Wednesday.

The other important step for me is how to measure improvement. I don't normally play in any tournaments or anything, so I've never had a reason to establish and monitor an official handicap. Obviously, the Morgan Cup has that as one of the requirements this year, so I have set that up and am working on getting a number established that I can work on improving. I have been tracking my stats for a little while now (even prior to working on the handicap), so I do have an understanding that it is FIR and GIR that are keeping the handicap up there, while the short game and putting are doing their best to lower it. This just emphasizes that it is full swing issues (mechanics) that need to be the primary path to improvement. The combination of the FIR/GIR stats and handicap are the primary set of metrics I plan on monitoring.
 
I think a fresh set of eyes every once in a while is good, it's so easy to develop a flaw and find a compensation method for it while at the range. The problem is that the compensation usually creates another flaw and it just continues the cycle. I think I heard somewhere that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The psyche usually breaks down before the swing though.
 
Thanks for all the thoughts fellas. If anything, I hope it got people thinking a little. Like I said, just something that is fresh on my mind after The Granddaddy and with the Morgan Cup on the horizon.
 
I will be adding a few lessons to my game for 2014. Plus working more on putting with weekly practice.
 
For me it is continuing to work on my putting with my PGA teacher. I drive the ball well, I hit fairway woods and hybrids well and I'm good enough with irons. It all comes down to more putting work and more short game wedge work.
 
Bit late in replying to the Panda from earlier as been out all night

I have an idea of what is broken but like Cookie, I like to have some numbers so that I can prioritise the things I want to work on - I may well try to get a video of my swing at some point for everyone to pull to bits but my.biggest issue has been consistency due to not playing or practicing as much as I wanted to

I do have a voucher for a lesson at a club near where I work and as soon as the weather picks up enough I will be using it to see what the pro has to say and if there is anything obvious that can be tweaked to improve what I am already capable of

Despite the lack of golf last year I was still able to shoot mid 80s a number of times with the odd blow-up hole so I am hopeful that some more focused short game practice will help drop my scores that bit more, especially when it comes to putting which I know is my biggest weakness
 
TheDoctor said:
Bit late in replying to the Panda from earlier as been out all night

I have an idea of what is broken but like Cookie, I like to have some numbers so that I can prioritise the things I want to work on - I may well try to get a video of my swing at some point for everyone to pull to bits but my.biggest issue has been consistency due to not playing or practicing as much as I wanted to

I do have a voucher for a lesson at a club near where I work and as soon as the weather picks up enough I will be using it to see what the pro has to say and if there is anything obvious that can be tweaked to improve what I am already capable of

Despite the lack of golf last year I was still able to shoot mid 80s a number of times with the odd blow-up hole so I am hopeful that some more focused short game practice will help drop my scores that bit more, especially when it comes to putting which I know is my biggest weakness
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Forgive me, you say you work on things you want to. Are your warns and needs the same? Meaning do you work on your driver because you want to or because you need to? Because of you don't need to, your wasting time when you should be working on 'need to' items. Am I making sense?
 
Biggest thing for me this year is I will be practicing on the range with a purpose. I've always got into a routine where I just pound balls on the range and really that's not accomplishing anything, so I will be more focused on practicing with a purpose. Also what I will be doing new for this year is playing practice rounds. If I have a tournament on Saturday or Sunday, the night before I'm going to go out and actually have a practice round. Hit shots from all over the course, hit 2 or 3 balls off the tee with different clubs to set myself up with different shots into the green, that way I don't just fall back into playing just the routine rounds.
 
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