Today is a rest day, although I will spend about 30 minutes working on putting and chipping.

There’s a lot I could say, but the TPC Sawgrass experience all sums up to one word: amazing. The practice facilities are top-notch, and the professional atmosphere makes you feel like you’re playing with the pros.

We had a forecaddie for the round. It was my first experience with a professional caddie, but I have to say I could get used to having one of those every round I play. While being catered to is nice, what I enjoyed most about having a forecaddie was having someone to help me pick targets and the best line for my putts. It’s amazing, albeit not surprising, how much better you can play when you focus on a target instead of worrying about what might go wrong.

As mentioned, the course had been recently aerated, so it wasn’t the best conditions for scoring. The greens were pretty slow and very bumpy. Putting was more luck than skill, and chips would barely roll across the green. Fairways were also aerated, which really made things difficult even if you had a good drive. I can count 5 times I hit a great drive into the fairway, only to find my ball resting in a pile of sand repairing the aerification. Basically, I was hitting out of a bunker in the fairway. Makes it kind of hard to get the ball close.

Even so, I didn’t play particularly well. Since returning from vacation I’ve been struggling with my driver and hooking more irons than usual. I think I know what’s going on, so I just need to work on it, but the erratic shots made for a difficult round. TPC Sawgrass isn’t exactly a course with a large margin of error.

While my score was pretty rough, I was happy with how I played given the conditions – at least until I got to 18, the 3rd most difficult hole on the PGA Tour. (I par’d 17) When we arrived at 18, our caddie said to aim for a certain tree way down the fairway, around where the dogleg left starts to bend. Instead of listening to the caddie and focusing on the target, I started thinking about everything but the target.

Specifically, I eliminated the thought of the water on the left from my mind completely and didn’t even consider it in play for my tee shot. That was good. But as I said, instead of focusing on the target I started thinking, “Hit it at the target, but don’t push it right”, with right being on a hill in rough or in trees. Sure enough, I hook my tee shot left into the water. Three times.

There’s something about the view from the tee box that puts these silly thoughts in your head. I noticed that a lot of the course is that way. I learned from attending THE PLAYERS that the course layout requires you to hit your targets, but what’s not as obvious until you play is that the view from the tee box creates illusions that try to distract your mind from the task at hand. I suppose that’s what the most difficult courses do, though, and it’s also why I’m starting to enjoy and appreciate the mental challenge some courses can provide.

This Friday I’m heading back to TPC Sawgrass to play the Valley course. I’ve looked at it on Google Maps, and it looks like there’s water on just about every hole, if not every hole. What was I just saying about the mental challenge?

As for tournament preparation, I’m continuing to focus on my shoulder turn, hitting all my woods off the tee, shoring up my putting, and getting comfortable again with my greenside short game, especially bunkers and rough with odd lies. I feel like I’m close to where I need to be. All I can do at this point is keep working every day until the tournament and try to put myself in tournament-like practice conditions. The goal by tournament time is to be able to focus on executing my strategy and not worry about mechanics or having other non-competitive thoughts.

As mentioned in my last post, earlier this month I competed in a qualifier for the state amateur championship. I shot an 83 and didn’t qualify, but I left the tournament feeling confident about my game. Despite a quadruple bogey on the 6th hole, I was only 4-over after the first 9 holes and was otherwise playing well. Unfortunately, my putting fell apart on the back 9 and I had a bogey on 7 of the last 9 holes to finish with my 83.  It wasn’t necessarily the result I was looking for, but it’s a lesson learned. I decided to take the positives with me to the next tournament and focus on strengthening my weaknesses.

Apparently that strategy worked pretty well because I just shot my best tournament score yet – a 1-over 74. I was actually 2-under and tied for 1st place heading into the 18th hole when I had difficulty making a club decision off the tee. Even though I hadn’t committed to my tee shot, I still swung and ended up topping the ball into a hazard. I tripley-bogeyed the hole to take 2nd place. Again, lesson learned. I left the place very excited and confident about my game. In fact, that may be the first time in my life I’ve been so happy about getting 2nd place. Finally, the results of hard work are starting to show. Perhaps the best part is that I didn’t even feel like I played close to my best – I felt like I played well, but I could have played much better.

This past week I’ve really been focused on keeping my arms and shoulders connected through my takeaway. Lately I’ve been getting more snap-hooks and strong draws, neither of which is my natural shot path. Also, my driver has been either a serious draw, snap-hook, or straight and low – none of which is particularly desirable off the tee.  So, obviously, something has been off with my swing.

A friend of mine noticed that I was hinging my wrists early, leading to my hands “manipulating the clubface”, as he called it. It only took one swing on video to confirm it. To correct the issue I’m focusing on the feel of only turning my shoulders, leaving my lower body quiet, while also keeping my hands in the same position as they were at address up until the club is parallel to the ground. Note that this is only feeling – what actually happens may be slightly different.

Also, I’ve incorporated a grip tension count in my pre-shot routine. Basically I start with a tension of 1 in my hands on the club, increase tension with each count up to 7, then decrease tension back to 2 or 3 before addressing the ball. This helps me reduce tension in my hands and wrists, allowing the club to move freely and build lag in the swing.

The end result is my shots are more straight, dispersion has been reduced, and I’ve gained the distance I had lost the last few months, especially with my drives. When I execute this properly, my drives reach the 290 yard range with little to no effort. In this past tournament, I even had drives over 300 yards and came within 10 yards of driving the green on a 340 yard par 4. Wedges and short-irons are also more consistent, and I’m able to translate the same swing thoughts to the other clubs. It’s good stuff.

I’m still deciding on my next tournament. I may play in one next weekend. If not, I’ll be taking a short vacation before I play in another one in about 3-4 weeks. This week I plan to (re)start my strength training program for golf to help in injury-prevention as well as to build strength for distance and consistency. For the golf game, I’m going to continue working on the “connectedness” in my swing and spend more time working on green-side bunkers and pitch shots less than 100 yards – both are areas that I struggled with the other day.

The lesson was awesome, again. After adjusting to a grip change and learning the importance of various rotations through the takeaway, this lesson focused on shortening the backswing – not with less power, but with less arm movement. It’s going to take some work, but I’m excited about the improvements I was already seeing during the lesson.

It turns out that Victoria Hills has just been ranked in the Top 50 courses in the country by readers of Golf Digest (41st overall). I was certainly impressed. Rolling greens, strategic holes, and a lot of elevation change – especially for Florida. It’s the first time I’ve looked down on a green from the tee box.

Given that I had a lesson in the morning, I didn’t play bad, but I didn’t play well. I started to score for the first few holes, but after a while I realized that my swing just didn’t feel right, mainly because I kept trying to work on the things I learned in the morning. So, I stopped keeping score and settled with focusing on good shots and putts the rest of the day.

It was fun, though. The course can be tough if you make stupid choices or try to get too aggressive. The greens were very receptive to ball spin – sometimes too receptive – but they left challenging putts for anything more than 10 feet away.

This week I’ll be working on the new swing tweaks from the lesson. I have to get better by the weekend. Both Friday and Saturday I’m participating in two separate best-ball tournaments. I think this means I’ll have some sort of swing practice every day this week.

My GIR was better this round. I was able to hit my approach shots on target to get on the green. And when I didn’t do well to get on the green my short game was mostly strong. Overall a pretty good day, but I know I’m just a few strokes away from making par.

We started on the range for a few shots before heading into the bay for video analysis. I think video analysis is one of the best ways to improve body motion for any sport. For one, video doesn’t lie, so what you see is what you did. Also, with the right software it’s possible to draw lines to better understand angles and the geometry of body movements. And probably most important, if you have the right setup it’s a quick feedback loop, meaning you can see what you did and make adjustments in a matter of minutes.

My lesson is a good example of the adjustment benefits of video analysis. The picture below is a capture from my video where we were looking at my takeaway. On the right side is what I was doing when I arrived at my lesson (the before), and on the left side is what I need to be doing on my takeaway (the after). The red line is the swing plane my clubhead should be on during the takeaway and downswing.

As you can see, in the before (right) it’s well above and outside of the swing plane, which my body translates into an above and outside-to-inside downswing. But in the after (left) you can see that the clubhead is pretty much on the swing plane, with the clubhead nearly perpendicular to the plane, which is how it should be at this stage of the swing.

When I execute the takeaway as I’m supposed to, I get near-perfect, straight shots. It’s really pretty amazing. I do have a few other small problems in my swing, but right now if I can get the takeaway down I should see a lot more accuracy in my shots.

In fact, even though I haven’t had a lot of chances to practice the takeaway, during today’s 9-hole round I started to notice more accuracy with my shots. For the most part I was hitting the ball where I wanted to, and if I didn’t, then I knew it was my takeaway and more often than not I could feel my arms separate from my body as you can see on the right side of the picture.

The instruction continues to be awesome, and I’m glad I signed up for more lessons. I won’t share my instructors name on here for privacy reasons, but he’s good at what he does and I’m thankful he’s willing to share as much technical information about the swing as he does. I feel like I’m learning all about golf swing mechanics to the point where I can understand the how’s and why’s behind the swing. I even caught myself analyzing other golfers during the 9-hole round today.

Speaking of the 9-holes, I scored a 41, which I’m somewhat happy with considering I’m going through swing changes. My main problem today was putting and short pitch/chip shots around the green with my sand wedge, but I can’t complain too much because I really haven’t been practicing any of my short game in favor of solidifying my swing.

I also played on both Saturday and Sunday over the weekend. Saturday turned into more of a practice round as I tried to learn how to do the new takeaway. Sunday was a little less of a practice round, and I scored an 80 at LPGA International’s Champions course – my best score at that course so far. As of today my handicap has dropped to a 6.2, but as I work through these swing changes and such I expect it to level off for a little bit until I get some consistency in my swing and start working on my short game again.

Last post I recapped last week and how I finished off Sunday with a 78 (+6) round of golf. Well, I did better this week. You can see my scorecards on oobgolf:

• Tuesday, Indigo Lakes: http://www.oobgolf.com/golfers/score.php?id=676556
• Friday, Cypress Head: http://www.oobgolf.com/golfers/score.php?id=683623

On Tuesday I shot a 39 (+3) during the 9-hole round, which is my best Tuesday score so far this year. To add to the great score, I made an eagle on the first par-5. I started with a 280 yard drive, leaving me about 196 yards to the pin (pin in the front) and about 210 to the center of the green.

This is where SkyCaddie is useful. If I didn’t know the yardage to the front of the green, I probably would have used my 5-iron, which would have put the ball on the back of the green or over it. But SkyCaddie let me know that I really only needed a 6-iron. So, I went through my pre-shot routine, put the one swing thought I’m working on right now in my head (keep the right wrist hinged through impact), and let’er rip. I came on top of the ball just a little, but it had a small fade on it leading the ball right at the pin. It landed about 10 feet short of the pin, took a bounce to the right, and came to rest.

As I got up to the ball I realized that the putt to the cup was fairly simple – not much break left or right, just uphill and straight. The green did seem to have a slight lean to the left, so during my preshot routine I aimed my ball mark slightly right of center of the cup. For once, I wasn’t all that nervous about one of these putts – I’ve had eagle chances before and missed them. Once I did my preshot routine, I pulled back, let the putter clubhead go, and watched the ball roll into the center of the cup. Eagle. My first one ever.

After 5 holes I was even-par, which got me excited about possibly making par for the 9-holes. That was dumb of me. I shouldn’t have even thought about my score because I ended up getting a bogey on the last 3 of 4 holes to end +3. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Which brings us to today: 18-holes, same course as last Sunday, shot a 75 (+3). The new best round ever and very close to the whole goal of me starting this blog (how funny will that be if I make par this year – I won’t be “going for par” anymore!). I made two 30 foot putts, had 3 birdies, had my highest green in regulation percentage, and didn’t think about the score much at all. Instead, I focused on “winning” each hole (par or better).

My focus was so good today that I didn’t even realize I made even-par on the front 9 until I added up the score before starting the back 9. That’s another first: even-par for 9 holes. Awesome. I only had 13 putts for those 9-holes too – real awesome. I finished with 28 putts total for the 18 holes.

The only unfortunate thing about today’s round is that I started getting tired as I got to the 10th hole. I attribute the tiredness to the 2 hour practice I went through in addition to the lack of food before playing. Plus it was a hot 90+ degrees Farenheit. Oops.

But I went into grind mode after I got tired of making bogeys and even got one back with a birdie on the 17th hole. It’s unfortunate that I got tired because for this particular course the back 9 tends to be much easier than the front 9. I usually average 3-5 strokes less on the back compared to the front. Today was a reversal of that statistic.

I took two days off this week (Monday and Thursday), but I had a nice practice on Wednesday. I’ve learned to stop when my body starts feeling fatigued, and it’s interesting how well it bounces back with just one day off – not just in strength but also in muscle memory.

I may be playing one more round this weekend, but so far I’m having a great week with my scores. I have to credit the Tour Academy instruction I received for helping with the improvements. I’m just applying the information I learned, and it’s paying dividends already.

To start, the 9-hole Tuesday round went fairly well as I shot a 43. It could have been, or really should have been, less than 40. I’m still in the process of applying what I learned at the Tour Academy, and sometimes that application doesn’t go so well. On Tuesday it was the chipping and short pitch shots. I can count at least 4 shots I screwed up on pretty bad (the ball went anywhere from a few inches to 2 feet), but right after the screw up I would try it again and get awesome results. So, take away those 4 shots and I’m at 39. Good stuff.

I was happy with the round on Tuesday and felt that I played better than my score indicated. I’m happy with the progress. On the negative side, Tuesday was the day I realized that with the new swing my club distances are all messed up, and I need to re-evaluate/learn them. For instance, I hit a PW (pitching wedge) 150 yards out of the rough on a downhill lie to land over the green and in bushes on one particular hole (another shot that shouldn’t have been added to the score). My PW used to be 125-ish yards. Now I use it for shots between 140 and 150 yards – at least, that’s what I’m learning to do now.

On Saturday a couple of us went to LPGA International to play on the Champions course. A few weeks ago we played on the Legends course, but until Saturday I had never played on Champions. From what we hear, Champions is the easier of the two. I can agree with that. I think it’s the links-style, which makes it more difficult to lose your ball unless you hit it in the water or really screw up on your swing.

I had a few saucy shots at LPGA International, and perhaps the one I’m most proud of from that day is the 6-iron out of a fairway bunker (something I learned how to do at the Tour Academy). I know it doesn’t sound like much, but hitting out of a fairway bunker is a difficult thing to do and I’m proud that I was able to do it – it’s progress, and I’m all about progress in the forward direction right now. I shot an 84 at LPGA, which I’m very happy about. It’s a challenging course with fast greens.

And Sunday I decided to play another round at Cypress Head, a course a few minutes down the road from me. Despite the rain and horrible practice at the range beforehand, I played my best round yet with a 6-over par 78. Very happy about that. I’m finally starting to swing my 3-wood more consistently, and my driver started to show some promise. Of course, now that I’m hitting my 3-wood 270-ish yards, I almost feel like I don’t need my driver right now.

The short game is keeping my score lower than it probably should be right now. I attribute that success to what I learned at the Tour Academy. Because I’m struggling with my club distances, I tend to hit the ball either short of the green or over the green, which keeps my GIR percentage low. So I’m often hitting a little chip or short pitch, but with the techniques I can get myself to a makeable putt distance easily. And with what I learned about putting, that makeable putt distance has increased to about 6 feet. I’m not missing any putts less than 6 feet often anymore, and my scores are starting to reflect it.

You can view the scorecards for my two rounds this weekend at oobgolf:

• Cypress Head – http://www.oobgolf.com/golfers/score.php?id=669731
• LPGA International Champions – http://www.oobgolf.com/golfers/score.php?id=665708

In addition to the rounds, I practiced every day this week. For that reason I’m going to take Monday night off and let my body soak in the hard work of the past week. I’ve found that sometimes my body’s muscle memory really kicks in after heavy use if I take a day or two off from physical activity. And if that isn’t enough reason, then the excuse that I just need to rest will have to do.

Probably the best thing in my golf game right now is my confidence. Before the Tour Academy experience, I would run into situations on the course where I wasn’t sure what I should do or how to execute the shot I was trying to make. For instance, pitching. I didn’t have a framework for how to control my distance, so I just thought I needed a lot of practice hitting at different distances until I “got it”.

Since the Tour Academy, I know what to do in every situation, or at a minimum I know my options and can pick one. I’m not afraid to be 50 yards from the green, or buried in the bunker, or in deep rough. I know what to do now, so instead of trying to figure out what to do I can focus on execution. With this kind of confidence I’ve already noticed a difference in my attitude and abilities on the course. It’s exciting, and I am starting to believe that these last couple weeks may be the true beginning of my journey toward playing par golf (and better).

Well yesterday I forgot to do that, and I played a round without my putter. I was able to use my playing partner’s putter, but the feel was much different than I’m used to. So I missed a few putts I should have made, and usually because I hit the ball too hard.

I called yesterday’s round a practice round. It didn’t affect my handicap, and I didn’t play within the rules the entire time. Part of the reason is that I wanted to try out some shots I might not normally try without thinking about my score. Another reason is that I forgot my putter.

So, I finished with a practice round 9-over par 81. You can see the scorecard by clicking here. The split was 44 on the front and 37 on the back – that’s right, +1 on the back. By hole 14 I realized I was -1 on the back, and of course that’s when I got two bogeys in a row to mess that up. I’m still starting off slow and finishing hot, but I can tell it’s getting better – instead of taking me 6 holes to start playing well, it’s only taking me 3 holes.

If I had been following the rules it would probably have been around an 84, so my practice score wasn’t terribly different from reality. Not bad, really, and I’m happy with my play for the most part. I just wish I had brought my own putter.

I did well hitting the fairways with a 64% hit rate, and I did better than usual with greens in regulation with 50%. Statistically, the back 9 was much better than the front nine.

Since it was a practice round, I used my driver much more than I usually would from the white tees. I can tell that something is way off with my swing when I use the driver. To hit it straight I have to do a few things I know I shouldn’t have to do. From looking at pictures I have some guesses on the problem, but hopefully the lessons at the Tour Academy will put me in the right direction.

Speaking of the Tour Academy, I’ll be driving my way there later today with my first lesson starting around 9:00am tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to taking a break from the daily grind. From a learning standpoint I’m going to try to absorb as much as I can, but besides that the next three days should be a fun golf vacation.

In fact, if it wasn’t for the double bogey on Hole 2 or the triple bogey on Hole 3, it would have been a pretty decent day, especially since even with bogeys on those holes I would have been at 81, and if I played those holes like usual it could have been even less.

True to form, I started the round out slow. For some reason I had trouble concentrating and relaxing those first four holes. Then my tee shots were all over the place, and I was playing out of trouble most of the time on the front 9. Once I got past the first few holes I started playing pretty well – relatively, anyway.

My short game continues to be an issue. I just need to practice more to get the feel for it. I’m getting much better results since I started practicing more, but instead of getting within 3 feet of the hole like I want, I’m chipping to within about 6 to 8 feet of the hole. Which leads me to putting…

Putting is an issue. While I am keeping my putting average below 2, that statistic doesn’t show the number of 4 to 8 foot putts I’ve missed and should have/need to make. I can count 6 extra putts this round alone from missed putts in the 4 to 8 foot range (that’s a 78 with better putting).

I’m noticing that for the most part I’m putting it straight, but I’m misreading greens way too much. I account for too much break or not enough on the longer putts, and I can’t seem to find the right balance.

I think what I’ll do is practice straight putts at home for technique, but I’ll practice breaking putts only at the course. I’ve come across a number of drills and games for practicing breaking putts, so I’ll start trying them and see if I get any improvement.

Possibly the most frustrating time of the round was at the end, which might be why I felt worse about the round than my score indicated.

While I had a par on Hole 17, I was in perfect position to be on the green in 2 strokes by cutting the corner of the dogleg left. I had a great 300 yard drive down the fairway that set me up about 165 yards from the middle of the green, which is perfect yardage for my 7-iron. My 7-iron is my most consistent iron – until I’m trying to get on the green in 2 on a par 5. I ended up pushing the ball to the right and down a hill, setting me up for a long chip and 2-putt to finish the hole with par.

Hole 18 was similar. Great 280 yard drive that cut the dogleg right to land in the middle of the fairway with a clear view of the green at about 175 yards to the pin. With a gusty wind at my back, I decided to hit my 7-iron, thinking the wind will carry it at most to the back of the green. Of course, I was wrong about the wind, and to make it worse I pulled the ball to the left, past the green from the wind, and down another hill. I had a decent chip back onto the green for the 3rd shot, but my lack of concentration there as the round ended left me with a 3-putt bogey. I wasn’t happy about that ending, especially after my play on the previous 8 holes.

So, I played better overall, but I had a few moments that hurt. I think overall the bad moments are less often than they used to be, but they’re painful.

Tuesday golf is next. I may try to play one more round Friday or Saturday before I head to St. Augustine for the PGA Tour Academy. I can’t express how much I’m looking forward to learning more, especially since everything I know about playing golf at this point is entirely self-taught. While I’m proud of that, I know it’s also preventing me from getting better.