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Stryker’s 2021 commitment to better golf

Stryker

Stryker

#NothingFeelsLikeAMizuno
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So I have had this idea floating in my head for a few months now to achieve a more consistent game and better scores. This thread will serve to follow along with my journey.

First a little background. I started playing golf around August 2017. I was 37 at the time and had never picked up a club in my life. I went to a young local pro because he offered package lessons of 4 for $100. $25 a lesson is pretty cheap so I handed him $200 and scheduled one per week to start. I won’t go too much into old details about old lessons other then to say we built an understanding of basics and I was happy to hear he thought I picked things up faster then anyone he had seen and I progressed pretty quickly. I got to the point that I was taking lessons from him and another pro off and on as I felt the need and over time those lessons got less frequent and I also reverted back to just seeing the original pro.

I thought starting out I would be happy just playing around bogey golf or a little better like mud 80s. I was wrong. I finally broke 80 early last year a couple times but the. I was back to bogey golf or just below. My game is so inconsistent it is driving me nuts.

I started thinking about what I can do to play better more consistent golf. I came to the realization that I used to go to the range a lot and take a lot of lessons hen I first started playing and have gotten away from all that. So I decided more practice time was in order and started going to the range a couple times a week again to work on issues I was having. I have seen some positive impacts from that already.

I came to the realization that the only true way for me to make a big impact was to make a commitment to do so. I had a long talk with my pro about this and told him if I was going to do that then I needed him to be a large part of this journey and he needed to be on board with a commitment as well. Fortunately for me he loved the idea and jumped on board.

I have never kept a handicap but since the club was going to require one for member events this year anyway I went ahead and signed up and paid my $30 to establish one and have a better way to track progress. My pro and I decided that he needed to just follow me around the course for 9 holes not saying anything but just listening to me talk about what was in my head about each shot and watching me swing. In this way he gets an idea of not just where I am having swing issues but also course management. From there we could formulate a plan on what we need to focus on and in what order. My next post will document that. I also decided to do some fitness training. I am not a small man and don’t do a lot of exercising but that is going to change as well.

I hope you guys will enjoy my journey and take an active part. That was part of the plan too. To have my friends here involved as I know there will be times I can use the extra encouragement.
 
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I look forward to following along @Stryker
 
Well done; sounds like you have a solid plan.

I too am planning to recommit to working harder and devoting more time to the game.
 
Last week my pro and I made it out on the course for 9 holes for him to evaluate where we need to focus. It was pretty cold and I was had a bit of a head cold so I knew it wasn’t going to be my A game. I have also had a few issues with the driver show up in the last week as well. The pro was just going to follow me around, take notes, and not really teach me anything. That sorta did not exactly happen. Let me explain.

We started off on the back 9. I would select a club and he would make notes on distance from target, lie, etc while I was explaining what I was seeing and why I was deciding what I was trying to do. This went on for a few holes but at some point he couldn’t take it anymore 🤣. I figured to begin with that was going to happen as we know each other pretty well.

We didn’t do a lesson on the course so much as talk about things I do he hates. For one, and I have known this a long time, my pre-shot routine sucks. It t is basically non existent. There is some history there that goes back to a ton of people telling me how bad I was going to suck at the game when I first started playing and telling me I had to play fast. It has always been in my head that I have to hurry up and pull a club and hit the ball. We talked about that some and also what he would rather see me do. Including in the range of course, I am going to stand behind the ball and think about the shot I want to hit then step up aligned to target several feet behind the ball and make some small practice like swings getting g a feel for club face and path as well as release. Then step up to the ball and hit it. Pretty simple and quick but also improvement.

We also found, and I already knew, there are short game shots I just do not have the knowledge or confidence to pull off. This leaves me in positions sometimes where I can get the ball on the green but not close enough to the hole for a high percentage chance of scrambling successfully.

The other thing we came up with was a small change in putting stroke. I putt decently as far as how many putts per round and such but I had no hinge at all with my putting stroke which he wants to see. Not a huge hinge mind you but a small one. A quick fix and my putting stroke drastically improved. It will take some practice to learn distance control for me changing the stroke but it will also help me with really long putts where as before I felt I would struggle to get enough speed to get the ball there and in trying to do so had no control over the ball.

After we finished, we talked some more and decided the plan would be to start with bi-weekly lessons and work on getting some of my big misses corrected first and then move on to working up more knowledge and confidence around the green. My putting stroke change we made was minor and something I can work on myself during my practice sessions.
 
I have also started doing some work out things that will expand as time goes on. Nothing huge to start. Mostly just some resistance band training at home to strengthen muscles most used. I am also going to start doing the 100 push up a day routine soon but have not yet. I will probably be throwing in 100 crunches a day along with that.

My job does give me flexibility in my time and I can easily make time for more. With that in mind, my wife works at a location that has a very nice gym family can use for no cost. It is a bit of a hassle to get it set up though as, and I can’t say much about what she doesn’t, there is quite the security there and I have to go through a process to get access. I am not sure how long that will take but I have already received the paperwork and just need to get it filled out and returned which I hope to do today.

First bi-weekly lesson will be on Thursday and I know we are already talking about working in my arm structure in the backswing. Something I knew was an issue but one that should not be difficult to correct.
 
Stryker said:
It will take some practice to learn distance control for me changing the stroke but it will also help me with really long putts where as before I felt I would struggle to get enough speed to get the ball there and in trying to do so had no control over the ball.
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Starting out years ago but also starting as an adult (25) I found controlling how hard to hit the ball with the putter to be the most frustrating part of the short game. 10ft short on one putt and 10ft past on the next. After 35 years, it's second nature now and I rarely do either of those anymore. It just takes thousands and thousands of putts and you'll continue to get better at it. It's really hard for the first few years.

...and yeah, an efficient and purposeful pre-shot routine will also be a great benefit.

Again, best of luck. You're at a point where you can really improve this year~
 
Thank you for sharing. Your game is a lot like mine in the sense of being up at one point and down at the next, but I am much older at 66. I can play around 80 or high 90s. Just depends on the day and my main goal is more consistency. Like you I have always felt rushed and not a good setup routine. I am currently working on some things to steady my game more.
 
Stryker said:
So I have had this idea floating in my head for a few months now to achieve a more consistent game and better scores. This thread will serve to follow along with my journey.

First a little background. I started playing golf around August 2017. I was 37 at the time and had never picked up a club in my life. I went to a young local pro because he offered package lessons of 4 for $100. $25 a lesson is pretty cheap so I handed him $200 and scheduled one per week to start. I won’t go too much into old details about old lessons other then to say we built an understanding of basics mad I was happy to hear he thought I picked things up faster then anyone he had seen and I progressed pretty quickly. I got to the point that I was taking lessons from him and another pro off and on as I felt the need and over time those lessons got less frequent and I also reverted back to just seeing the original pro.

I thought starting out I would be happy just playing around bogey golf or a little better like mud 80s. I was wrong. I finally broke 80 early last year a couple times but the. I was back to bogey golf or just below. My game is so inconsistent it is driving me nuts.

I started thinking about what I can do to play better more consistent golf. I came to the realization that I used to go to the range a lot and take a lot of lessons hen I first started playing and have gotten away from all that. So I decided more practice time was in order and started going to the range a couple times a week again to work on issues I was having. I have seen some positive impacts from that already.

I came to the realization that the only true way for me to make a big impact was to make a commitment to do so. I had a long talk with my pro about this and told him if I was going to do that then I needed him to be a large part of this journey and he needed to be on board with a commitment as well. Fortunately for me he loved the idea and jumped on board.

I have never kept a handicap but since the club was going to require one for member events this year anyway I went ahead and signed up and paid my $30 to establish one and have a better way to track progress. My pro and I decided that he needed to just follow me around the course for 9 holes not saying anything but just listening to me talk about what was in my head about each shot and watching me swing. In this way he gets an idea of not just where I am having swing issues but also course management. From there we could formulate a plan on what we need to focus on and in what order. My next post will document that. I also decided to do some fitness training. I am not a small man and don’t do a lot of exercising but that is going to change as well.

I hope you guys will enjoy my journey and take an active part. That was part of the plan too. To have my friends here involved as I know there will be times I can use the extra encouragement.
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Looking forward to following your progress my friend!
 
I look forward to following along as well and hopefully getting to see your swing in person soon!
 
93civiccpe said:
I look forward to following along as well and hopefully getting to see your swing in person soon!
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Hopefully on one of my good days haha
 
Way to go man! Keep posting on your progress.(y)
 
No lesson today. That will be Thursday but I did go to the range. My back was a bit tight so not my best day with full swings but worked on the greens putting for a bit with the minor change made last week on the course. I love how it feels I just need a bit more time getting speed down. I am probably backwards most people as I struggle more on the short putts. I tend to run them too far and this change actually makes that a bit worse at times but will improve with time I am sure. Longer and really long putts were fantastic. I holed a bunch of putts that would be low percentage just from the distance and break. That alone is enough to shave some strokes off the card here and there.
 
And so the journey begins....... First lesson was this afternoon. There are some things in my swing I have always known were an issue but never been able to correct. One of them is how far I take my hands in the back swing. I just always end up with them straight above my head kind of John Daly in his 20s type look. The issue there is it doesn’t need to be there and makes it much harder to shallow out the club path. That was leading to me doing a bit of a sliding move in my downswing to try and compensate and shallow out the club. I was also, and had no idea, lowering towards the ground a bit on my backswing instead of staying tall.

We worked on getting my backswing in a better position to start including staying tall. I would set up to the ball, flip the club up to rest on my shoulder, make my turn, and then extend the club out off my shoulder to proper position. From there finish the swing at a ball. I am not going to lie at all. I couldn’t even make contact with the ball like that at first. Everything felt awkward. After a few times, I suddenly hit a nice little shot. A few more and we were on to working on some more things while still incorporating the same starting drill.

The next thing was my wrists at the top. I was not really letting them cup to allow the club to start falling behind me well. This was even more awkward for me for a bit but after a while I started to get it to work every now and then but had no control of the ball. That of course led to some work on path and face which was not too difficult to pick up well.

I stayed on the range a while working on it. I am firm believer in muscle memory and the more you do something the easier it gets. By the time I left, everything was feeling much more natural, relaxed, and easier to pull off. I was not really even thinking about it much just doing it which is not always easy for me or anybody for that matter to accomplish.

I also noticed a few other things. I have a habit of hitting out towards the toe. So much so that I am very close to the heel and hosel at setup. That changed pretty quickly and I am back to setting up square to the ball because if not it is going off the hosel. I also noticed it appeared I was actually hitting the ball further then normal consistently. I am not swinging hard by any means and I had actually been working on slowing down my tempo about a month ago because it has always been a bit quick and jerky. I feel like the changes were not just helping me shallow out the club and get in better position but also allowing me to compress the ball better.

The current plan is to stay off the course for another week or two and just make as many practice trips to the range as I can to continue to develop that muscle memory and get rid of the old bad habits. I will of course have another lesson in two weeks as planned, weather permitting, to work on the next issues he has identified.

The pro seems to believe by this summer he will have me down to a solid single digit handicap. That was encouraging to hear. I also got cleared for gym membership at the wife’s work and will go by there next week to watch a required video and get my pass. I am not planning on going all Bryson by any means but I do want to lose some weight and tone some muscles. I broke my resistance band this morning and had to order more but am looking forward to getting some more work in on the fitness side of my game as well.

I also started a little healthier diet. Nothing tremendous by any means but some little things. When I first had my stomach surgery I was not allowed to drink any soft drinks for at least a year. For about 2-3 years I never had a single one. I drank a lot of water with raspberry lemonade Crystal Light. Then I got sick one day and everybody knows a good coke always makes you feel better. Next thing you know I am back to drinking way too much coke. I am not going to try and cut it out completely but I am going to limit how much I drink and have gone back to drinking the Crystal Light. I do most of the cooking in my house too and I am trying to fix meals that are bit healthier more often.
 
Back to the range this afternoon for a little bit. Still a bit cold and windy but I have committed to fixing issues and improving and I can’t use that for an excuse not to work on it. Today I had a specific goal in mind. I have know for a while that quite often I have a terrible bad habit of flipping my wrists before impact. It’s not all the time but when it shows up it sticks around forever and I have a tough time stopping it even when consciously trying to stop it.

Well that showed up in a big way a few days ago and no matter what I tried I could not stop it. I also get a bit disconnected at times so I had one thing to work on that I thought would help both. I took a $1 kids toy ball from Dollar General and placed it between my forearms. Making half swings until I felt like everything was connected well and I could not flip my wrists over. After about 10-12 half swings with a PW, everything was 100% better.

I took the ball out and like magic probably the most connected and best finishes I have had swinging clubs. Accuracy was so much better then I normally see thanks to no flipping of the wrists.

I talked with my pro about it when I came off the range. I was always told to stay loose but felt like there was just a bit of tension from my shoulders all the way down to my forearms but wrists were nice and loose. I had taken some video on the range and sent that to him prior to this conversation. He told me that is what he wants me to feel and other then just a tiny bit too steep, everything else was exactly where he wanted to see it.

Pretty happy about the progress in such a short amount of time and just 1 lesson so far. Our next lesson is Tuesday as that is probably the only day this week the weather will allow for one. I am feeling like a couple more weeks and we can start working on some other aspects like short game and such.
 
Way to stay with it!!! Can’t wait to see the results.
 
Good luck on your journey!
 
Yesterday was lesson 2. The range was in crappy condition after a day of rain Monday and rain yesterday morning. I knew going in we were going to work on shallowing out a bit. This is something we worked on a year or so ago and I knew it was going to be more of the same. Looking back at old video we had, I have a tendency at the top to raise my hands in transition. I think subconsciously it is like a cocking move that is backwards of what I should be doing.

The attempted move here was to change that to more of my wrists cupping more and bringing the club a bit lower behind me to work around the body more shallow. This to me is probably the most difficult move to make as there is very little time in the transition to make what feels like an unnatural move. The second part of this is to make sure the right elbow is moving forward to also create that drop as the downswing starts.

As I said this was something we worked on a while back and I never could make it work correctly. I was able to pull it off sometimes but struggled to do it consistently. It wasn’t helping that the range was so soaked your feet would literally push puddles of water out wherever they are planted. This is definitely going to be my biggest challenge on full swings and is going to take a lot of practice and frustration to make it work but I am committed.

It’s going to be rough practice for a bit though. Ground is over saturated with water and high temps in the 30s the rest of the week and snow Sunday and Monday are not going to help. Today is going to be a rest day for me. Between work outs and the number of balls I have hit the last couple weeks my body needs a recover time. I am hoping to get some time in Thursday and Saturday but Friday looks like a bust with my schedule.
 
Time for an update. The weather has kept me inside for about a week unable to practice on at the practice facility. This royaly stinks because I really need to work on this shallowing out move and have not really been able to do so. I have been continuing my workouts which as of right now has really focused on shoulders and arms with a little bit of core. I have also been stretching especially in my shoulders and wrists to add some more flexibility. I noticed this morning that I can already see a difference in muscle definition and tone in my arms and shoulders. I finally made it by the wife’s work today and watched the safety video to get a gym pass there so I can start working on cardio and back/core muscles soon.

Being stuck at home with the practice facilities closed, I broke out my cheapo putting mat and have been working on my stroke the last couple days. I have probably made around 300 putts the last 2 days. Stroke is feeling much better now. It showed on the practice green but still has a ways to go to get distance control more precise.

While there, I also did quite a bit of chipping. I have not practiced that in a while with my focus being in other places. Hands felt really good and soft today and it showed. I holed out quite a few and left most within a couple inches. That was a bit of a surprise to be that good but I know I still need more practice there to be consistent with my chipping.

Now the full swing story is interesting. I have been working on some things in the yard with no ball and an old wedge trying to figure out how I could get my body to do what I am trying to do. I tried a lot of different things and some were not horrid but not not quite right either. I finally found a feel that felt right but of course no ball was hard to tell. I also knew I would have to adjust some as I could tell I was not consistently finding the low point.

On the range today was a bit of a mixed bag with my swing. For the most part, my shallowing move is really good. The bigger issue was low point as I suspected and a consistent left miss. It took a while but I realized I was focusing too much on this maneuver and was not as holding back too much on the rest of my swing. I happened to have the SC300 courtesy of THP and True Temper out at the time and had been pretty consistently around 84-85mph CHS with my 8i. When I quit holding back I suddenly flushed one with an 89mph CHS for 166yards carry. That’s a full club length longer then I usually hit it. Still some work to do here to get more connected and consistent but it is getting close.

I also finally figured out the left miss. In trying to shallow out the club, I was not finishing with a good path and had my hands coming to a finish too low. When I corrected the path issue I magically corrected the left miss as well. Again, still a lot of work to do. I am trying to work on committing all of this to muscle memory which is going to take a lot of good reps to get it there.
 
Love the commitment and thanks for sharing your journey. I picked up golf lets say later in life (couple of years ago, I was 38) too and last year I was able to play quite a bit during the summer and fall (thanks covid). My regular 4 some and pretty much everybody I play with started playing golf when they were like 5 years old or at least when they were much younger. Great to see that I am not alone. Been getting better, but too slow for my liking with work, family and life in general getting in the way (yeah yeah, I know, excuses). Best of luck to you and will be following along!
 
bogeynbirdies said:
Love the commitment and thanks for sharing your journey. I picked up golf lets say later in life (couple of years ago, I was 38) too and last year I was able to play quite a bit during the summer and fall (thanks covid). My regular 4 some and pretty much everybody I play with started playing golf when they were like 5 years old or at least when they were much younger. Great to see that I am not alone. Been getting better, but too slow for my liking with work, family and life in general getting in the way (yeah yeah, I know, excuses). Best of luck to you and will be following along!
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Thanks. I get it. At 41 now and I wish I had started as a kid. All my buddies been playing since they were little and I just want to give them some competition haha
 
Update: I was supposed to have another lesson this week but the weather has been so awful the last 2 weeks I had not really been able to practice and I felt like we would just be doing the same lesson over again so we postponed. The other factor is the extended forecast is calling for snow 7 of the next 10 days. :mad:

Fortunately today was in the mid 50s and while still soft the range was at least not saturated with standing water. I did make it out to the range and oh boy it was a hot mess to start. I am really struggling to get this feeling in my wrists at the top of the club shallowing out. I can do it but contact is usually all over the place and I can’t seem to do it and not leave the club face wide open.

I decided to backtrack a bit and just started making a steeper swing and like magic the ball was going where I wanted. I then started working from there on trying to find a feeling that worked for me and shallowed out the path. Half and three quarter swings were on full display for a while.

I finally just stopped trying to feel it in my wrists and focused on taking a nice extended deep backswing and leading with my trail elbow and hips. Bingo! All of a sudden a stripe show appeared. Now they weren’t all perfect mind you but as long as I did those things it was shallow. My wrists were also flattening out a bit but without me thinking about it and trying to force it and nowhere near as much as I was trying to force.

For fun I pulled out the SC300 I received from THP a couple weeks ago to see what kind of numbers I would see. I was hitting my z785 7i. I typically see an average of about 163 carry on well struck balls before working on this swing. My worst contact was giving me those numbers. I hit quite a few in the 172 range and absolutely demolished a few push draws that carried 180. Smash factor was surprising on those with the number being 1.45. I need more of that in my life. 🤣

There is still quite a bit I have to think about to hit those good shots. For starters, that backswing has got to be really extended and deep and my wrists do need to set correctly at the top. If I do not feel that trail elbow leading or if my head tries to drift back(bad habit but getting better), it is fat city. I also need to feel the back of my lead hand is trying to point towards the ground and make sure I don’t reach a bit. Like I said, it is quite a bit going on in my head but I am going to try and commit the good backswing and leading with the trail elbow to muscle memory to eliminate some of this variables. The head issue is rare now and should be gone completely soon. That just leaves path and face and I can focus more on getting those committed to muscle memory once the others are there. I definitely like this feeling much better then trying to feel it flatten at the top with my wrists.

My pro’s dad, a former tour player, stopped by the range right around the time I started hitting a lot of good shots. He has seen me hit balls and play many times before. He said it was night and day the difference and could not believe how much it has changed. When we got back to the clubhouse, he told my pro when asked that it was definitely more shallow and working around from behind as it should be. All good signs and now of course I am just frustrated the weather is going to make it hard to continue for a while.
 
Stryker said:
I am just frustrated the weather is going to make it hard to continue for a while
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If it makes you feel any better, I am in Wisconsin and it's 2 degrees right now. Tomorrow we have a daytime high of a whopping 12!
 
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