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The THP Range/Practice Thread

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Off to the range for some more work
 
Hey Mikedean441,

Virtual high five brother. I'm proud to see what you're doing right now dude. You're busy busy with the Insanity and all the practice.
 
Awesome work 441, keep at it brother and your game will be where you want it to be.
 
My putting stroke hasn't really been very good this early in the year. I've made some putts, but my stroke just doesn't feel right. Same with the set up. I worked on both a bit tonight and got things in a better spot for the time being. I haven't even stepped on a practice green up here this year, so just need a little green grass to solidify what I was doing.
 
Hawk said:
Hey Mikedean441,

Virtual high five brother. I'm proud to see what you're doing right now dude. You're busy busy with the Insanity and all the practice.
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Thanks dude just throwing everything i got at this man, closer to the "aha" moment.

War Eagle said:
Awesome work 441, keep at it brother and your game will be where you want it to be.
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Thanks man once I get these irons dialed in its back to working on the tee game and hitting beagsbombs
 
mikedean441 said:
May not be saying much but had my best range session of the year tonight. Worked on getting away from the inside which has killed me. Was successful on the majority of the shots and the only real bad ones is when I rushed the transition to my down swing. Still not exactly where I need to be but I'm close I can feel it.

Short game work as well, feeling pretty good about that area, continuing to focus on taken wedge shots straight back on my take away as well. Only a few "flips" and maybe 3 bladed shots from looking up early but out of 45 or 50 shots that's not bad for me.

Off day tomorrow after 4 straight days of range time them I'm back to a lesson and range wednesday.
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Mike, way to go brother man. Love seeing you work your ass off, it's all going to pay off buddy.
 
The THP Range/Practice Thread

Hit the range tonight to work on two things: a takeaway/not-casting thing with my 6 iron; and s l o w i n g down my driver swing looking to stay more on tempo and find some control and consistency. During my first lesson, my instructor immediately pointed out that I took the club back far too inside, getting off plane and then casting from the top to get the club face back to the ball. He gave me the old tape on the mirror drill (which I didn't do because I don't have a mirror big enough...yet), and also put a smash bag down behind the ball (about a 6 iron distance away) so that if I were to cast the club from the top, I would hit the smash bag. At the range tonight, I did my best to stick an alignment rod into the grass on plane, and placed the smash bag in place. I then took about 20 swings or so with my 6 iron. This picture was taken at a weird angle, but you get the point:

7BCC67AD-9EA5-4EB1-AF42-88D2B22526BF_zpstf5qw133.jpg


I strugged in the beginning, but got the hang of it after a few balls, and hit some of the best 6 irons of the year.

I then pulled out my Voice Caddie SC100 and hit some 3/4 length driver swings. Those thoughts are in the SC100 thread, but in summary, shorter swing-better contact-same distances as a week ago...but STRAIGHTER. Super pumped about that.

Lastly, I rolled about 20 or so putts with my new-to-me SmartSquare. I rolled in a few long ones, but I'm not sure the grip (a ginormous Winn AVS) is right for me. I'm leaning towards throwing a Super Stroke Ultra-Slim 1.0 on it.

All in all...MUCH better than last week's range session. Really looking forward to my round on Thursday.
 
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I was so down on my session earlier today that I dropped my son off after his baseball practice and went back. Things were a bit better, just started with wedges and hitting with my feet together, then gradually moving them apart and keeping the feeling of my torso controlling everything. The tip I got from the guy at the range earlier was about my sternum, he said I wasn't close to being linked up and my hands were so far ahead of the clubhead. This goes back to what Tadashi said when he saw my dreadful winter swing I taped in my garage. So I just tried to hit wedges and short irons feeling like everything was linked up, short backswing with a bit of wrist hinge and then backhanding the ball. I did ok, very few fat shots tonight but a few thins. Strangely enough, my driver was on fire, I hit the last 6 balls I had with that.
 
Hawk said:
My putting stroke hasn't really been very good this early in the year. I've made some putts, but my stroke just doesn't feel right. Same with the set up. I worked on both a bit tonight and got things in a better spot for the time being. I haven't even stepped on a practice green up here this year, so just need a little green grass to solidify what I was doing.
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Same here man just a smudge off I think mine is alignment more than anything. Fortunately I think that's my easiest fix.
 
mikedean441 said:
Same here man just a smudge off I think mine is alignment more than anything. Fortunately I think that's my easiest fix.
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Yea, no sweat. I rolled putts occasionally indoors, but figured it wasn't as valuable a use of my time as other things could be. I'm basically a month behind at this point thanks to weather, so it just feels weird.
 
Hawk said:
Yea, no sweat. I rolled putts occasionally indoors, but figured it wasn't as valuable a use of my time as other things could be. I'm basically a month behind at this point thanks to weather, so it just feels weird.
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Yep..can't have it all dialed in yet...what's the fun in that
 
mikedean441 said:
May not be saying much but had my best range session of the year tonight. Worked on getting away from the inside which has killed me. Was successful on the majority of the shots and the only real bad ones is when I rushed the transition to my down swing. Still not exactly where I need to be but I'm close I can feel it.

Short game work as well, feeling pretty good about that area, continuing to focus on taken wedge shots straight back on my take away as well. Only a few "flips" and maybe 3 bladed shots from looking up early but out of 45 or 50 shots that's not bad for me.

Off day tomorrow after 4 straight days of range time them I'm back to a lesson and range wednesday.
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Solid work. Love to hear the progress and keep it going.

My range session was interrupted by swarming gnats. Spent most of my time working on distance control with my wedges before being run off the range.
 
Had an abbreviated range session this evening. Intention was to hit balls for a while to try to find the groove I was in on saturday. Worked for about 30 minutes before my daughter came to the range looking for some help on her swing. She has her HS Regional tourney tomorrow morning so spent the next 45 minutes with her.

I hit a few solid balls tonight but still had quite a few bad ones. It comes from thinking too much. The best balls I hit were when I stepped in and just swung. The bad one's came from thinking to much at address or even during the backswing (sure kiss of death to a good shot) about the changes I've been working on.

Lesson tomorrow to be followed for sure with some range work.
 
I was at range, and struggling little bit with some terrible ball striking. It wasn't till my daughter came and started posting videos on Instagram did I realize I was crowding the ball......worked on getting back away from the ball and fixed my little issue.
 
Medium bucket tonight just to try some things. Didn't pan out, but going to revisit later this week. May have to hit it again in the morning, playing with a couple awesome dudes tomorrow. Need to be sharp!
 
Went to the range today to get a feel for the X22's I just picked up. I was very happy with the feel, very similar to the hawkeyes I have been using. They do seem more forgiving and consistent as far as yardages go.

I also worked on drawing the ball, my natural shape is a fade that sometimes slices badly. I was able to draw a few but not real comfortable yet. I also changed my grip, made it a little stronger and that helped reduce the slice, but I did have a couple snap hooks.
 
I was struggling the other day with drawing the ball a little too much when I was doing my "stop and go" drill where I take the club back to 9 o'clock, stop, and then swing through. I took a couple of swings that felt like I was taking the club to the outside, and the draw was gone. I wondered about what I was doing, and then I saw this video. The concept really works for me, it gives me a checkpoint to look at when the arms are in the 9 o'clock position. It's nice that this video talks about helping cure a takeaway that is too far to the inside, and also helps with shortening the swing, which are 2 things that I struggle with. MikeDean, I know that you struggle with an inside takeaway, thought about you when I saw this video, it could help you as well:

[video=youtube;Z-s99Jlq0Mc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-s99Jlq0Mc[/video]
 
Lesson today was good. Spent first half of the lesson with my instructor watching and then videoing my swing. Went inside to compare video from my first lesson to now which showed I'm doing three of the four things he wanted me to work on: stronger left hand grip, keeping weight from shifting too far right, club face is rotating through impact with my right arm/hand rotating on top in the followthough. The one area I haven't really fixed was a slight chicken wing of the left elbow at and through impact.

Instructor did not want to add anything new with #theking coming up this weekend but he did go ahead and point out what his next steps for my swing are and gave me a drill to work with starting next week. Our next task is getting my takeaway on plane and getting real wrist hinge. I'm flat on take away which is leading to bowed wrists instead of hinged wrists. Its a power drain. I get the swing back on plane on the downswing so its not quite an over the top maneuver but it is very close. A little bit of casting in there to. Getting take away and followthough on plane with the wrist hinge combined with the items from lesson 1 should get me more power and much more consistent ball striking.

Really wish I had been able to start lessons 4 months ago so that I'd be further along for #theking. Can see the beginnings of real change already with actually taking divots and hitting a solid draw now.
 
arydolphin said:
I was struggling the other day with drawing the ball a little too much when I was doing my "stop and go" drill where I take the club back to 9 o'clock, stop, and then swing through. I took a couple of swings that felt like I was taking the club to the outside, and the draw was gone. I wondered about what I was doing, and then I saw this video. The concept really works for me, it gives me a checkpoint to look at when the arms are in the 9 o'clock position. It's nice that this video talks about helping cure a takeaway that is too far to the inside, and also helps with shortening the swing, which are 2 things that I struggle with. MikeDean, I know that you struggle with an inside takeaway, thought about you when I saw this video, it could help you as well:

[video=youtube;Z-s99Jlq0Mc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-s99Jlq0Mc[/video]
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Thanks for posting that, will definitely work on that drill next time out
 
Took the boy to the range after work. Legs are still too jacked up from my last workout to really do much, so I just hit pitch shots while he banged away. Then hit the putting green for some chipping and putting practice, which went really well. Got my stroke back.
 
This thread is packed with motivation! It's really kind of cool to read along, and join in on taking the game to higher levels.

I spent and hour tonight working the impact bag, really working on making a solid move to the ball and eliminating the wrist action. If I don't do this regularly the bad habits creep back into my swing. Getting into the impact bag with the appropriate shaft lean is really starting to feel more natural.
 
I'm in finals week right now so I've pretty much been stuck to doing drills inside the house. I'm doing everything I can to ingrain these changes and so far I am happy with my progress. I'm looking to schedule another lesson late next week or early the following week. Once school is out I should have a little bit more time to get after it.
 
I took a coworker with me to the range today. He'd never swung a golf club. I did my best to teach him the basics and he was hitting fairly decent. He and I hit about 3 buckets together and I lent him my old cobra AMP so he could practice his swing at home. I mainly worked on my long irons while he hit.

I'm no where near good enough to be teaching anyone btw lol. But i love getting new people introduced to the game.

uploadfromtaptalk1398214849136.jpg Plus I got home to this surprise. It's official fellas! Hope to be playing with you all soon!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 
Range today. Over the top monster back! I kept toe striking several shots with the occasional sweet one. I started moving towards the ball, no luck. So I stopped, took a slow backswing and took a look at my position at the start of my downswing. There she was, right elbow out, hips turning nice, and nowhere to go but outside in. I made the correction and beautiful. But still had some over the toppers to finish the bucket. Oh we'll, keep on working.
 
Finally able to get back to the range today. But today I was only there to play around with the SC100. Had fun playing around with it. Tried a few things to see what it showed me and I was extremely pleased. Can't wait to incorporate this into my practice sessions.
 
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