It’s been a blissful few days since my last post, on May 22nd. First of all, “the Match 2″ featuring Tiger, Phil, Peyton, and Brady was fantastic. Second of all, Barstool Golf’s scramble match with Kevin Kisner was another delight, extending the exhibition fun. But most importantly, my club rolled out the revised schedule for this year’s tournaments. The club championship is happening, in September, with plenty of time for me to practice and improve.
I took every opportunity I could in these past few days to practice. On Saturday, the 23rd, I hit 150 balls on the range and in the chipping area, then played a casual 12 holes with a few people I’d never played with before. Aside from a nice par on four, my game was a little messy (probably tired), but it was nice to see how some of the things I’d been working on translated into on-course performance.
On Sunday I skipped playing golf to watch golf (The Afformentioned Match).
On Monday, Memorial Day, I went to the range and hit another 150 balls, then practiced some pitches from 30-50 yards out of various lies. On the range, I was concerned primarily with fundamentals, and continued the glove drill I started working on last week, also focusing on drawing an imaginary circle/arc in the dirt with my clubface in the backswing (e.g. not lifting it).
The range was closed on Tuesday, and I needed some rest, so I took the day off. Today, Wednesday, I went to the range after work and hit another 150 balls or so, still working on the fundamentals. My contact was really good and my distances, particularly on my wedges and my driver, started to approach pre-pandemic levels. The shot of the day was a soaring draw driver with a 225-yard carry from only 93MPH of clubhead speed (which I caught on video to analyze later).
In some ways, I think the “draw the arc” swing thought caused my swing to be a little too shallow, so I started adding in a bit more shoulder movement to get the club upward on the backswing (and, thus, down, at impact), which helped me a bit with improving the trajectory for my mid-irons. I also continued to focus on swinging to right field and added in a bit of knee bend at setup for stability.
After my time on the range, I went to the practice putting green and practiced putts from 3, 6, 9, and 12 feet around one of the cups for 15-20 minutes.
I think that the swing changes I made in recent weeks are good for my health, and will be good for my game, but I still need to figure out my mid-to-long-irons. I lost around 10MPH of clubhead speed on my 7-iron with this new swing. My contact is much better (as measured by smash factor), but that alone isn’t enough to make up for the speed loss. That, along with continuing to work on consistent, pure iron swings, will be the focus of my practice for the next few weeks.
Once my irons are consistent and decently, reliably long, I’ll work on regaining lost feel on my wedges, and my game should be in pretty good shape as we move into early July.
Keep swinging,
Michael
Michael Golfs 