Success

After yesterday’s promising short-game session, I returned to the practice area today to see if my takeaway from yesterday (slow backswing, stop, and turn while holding the backswing) would translate to the full swing. I’m happy to report that it did.

I warmed up with some chips and pitches, achieving results similar to yesterday. After that, I went to the range, hitting wedges, short irons, and driver on video, and for the flightscope mevo. I recorded 89 shots on Mevo and hit another dozen or so on video.

Below was the Mevo data for the 9-iron of the day.

Below was the data for the driver of the day (Part of the secret of this particular shot was slightly lighter grip pressure.

Not every swing was great. I hit a few low/thin, and with the 8-iron (the longest iron I hit) I struggled to hit good shots, making a lot of heavy contact.

One more negative is that my left shoulder and elbow are sore, although some of that is definitely attributable to a tough workout I did after the session.

Still, it was nice to hit good full shots for the first time in a few weeks, and the solution that got me to this seems repeatable/ingrainable, plus the low speed of the takeaway makes it seem more amenable to customization down the line if I need to adjust trajectory for a certain shot.

I was particularly surprised by how well the super-slow backswing and pause worked on the driver, with the (theoretically) minimized conscious downswing with the arms. I carried a number of nice, straight drives over 215, and a few over 220, and I did so very efficiently. The contact felt good.

Next step: Let’s ingrain this swing, carry it over to longer irons and woods, and regain some shortgame feel, continuing to focus on raising the floor.