Weekend practice

Yesterday was painful. I went to the range late in the day, after the successful Spacex launch, and struggled, and struggled, and struggled to hit long irons. I hit 150+ balls in the hot, muggy, buggy dusk, but all I managed to do was hurt my forearms. I was utterly defeated, and I knew I needed to update my approach.

When I got home, I wrote a postmortem of sorts, and came up with a plan for playing and improving without (temporarily) the problematic clubs.

Today, working within the constraints of the plan I developed yesterday (basically ditching the section of my bag from 8 iron through hybrid temporarily), was much better.

I had mild residual pain in left arm from yesterday, but I made good contact, and felt like my shots got genuinely got better as the session progressed (I again hit around 150 range balls).

I started in the short game area with pitches for 15-20 minutes. My goal, as a part of yesterday’s planning, was to develop feel with my 60 degree wedge from 10-30 yards. My dispersion definitely got better as I hit 7 balls at a time from a variety of distances. At first, I hit 2-3 balls per round either thin or heavy/short. By the end, I was consistently hitting at least 6-7 within 2-3 yards of my target, and at the desired trajectory.

From there, I moved over to the range, where I concentrated on the shots I identified in the plan yesterday as essential. My driving was outstanding (See Flighscope data for best drive below). My 3-woods off the tee were pretty decent, and off the deck I made some progress in making better contact. Starting with short wedges definitely led to shorter, more efficient/on-plane swings. This translated to my 9-iron too, which, in my best swing, I was able to get to carry 124.4 yards with a 25-yard apex (and really nice feeling contact and a compact backswing). I didn’t bring my iPad for video today.

For the most part, I stuck to the clubs in yesterday’s plan, although I hit 5-10 8-irons at the end of the session for evaluative purposes.

Afterward, I worked on putting for about an hour. I started off working on 3-footers and 10-footers, then practiced two-putting from various lag lengths. I worked a bit on technique, making sure to rock the club back and forth, rather than pulling with my hands. This helped with consistency of speed. I also worked on using my right hand (just gripping a bit firmer) for stability. This helped with consistency of aim.