That’s really my goal at this point: day-to-day consistency. I know I can play well. The problem is that depending on the day I can also play very bad. On the days I play well, my shot spread is very small (+/- 15 feet for a wedge). On the days I play poorly, that spread can be 3-4x’s larger, if not more. I also tend to see more pulls left on those bad days.

This weekend I’ve really focused on what I can do to get more day-to-day consistency. I pulled out the video camera and recorded some swings, and I’m starting to see a couple areas to work on after comparison with Tour player videos.

To start, I need to keep working on staying connected through the swing. I’ve made progress on this in the last two weeks, but it’s not quite where it needs to be yet. The benefit of staying connected has been less pull-hooks and more small draws. My misses are starting to trend back to slight pushes or small fades, which is what I want.

Next is the shoulder turn. Or perhaps I should call it “the coil”. When I compare my video to a Tour player’s video, it appears that my hips are turning way too much, Instead of a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of my shoulder turn to hip turn, it seems more like a 1.5:1 or in some cases even a 1:1 ratio.

Right off the bat, I know this means I’m losing power. I know that you leak out power if you don’t coil your body in the backswing. Basically, you want to get your shoulder turn to 90 degrees, but only turn your hips as much as is necessary to get your shoulders that far. From what I’ve read a 3:1 ratio is good (someone correct me if this is wrong).

A good example of the power I’m losing is some of the work I did today on the practice courses at LPGA. On the par 3 I was hitting from about 168 yards to the pin. I picked my 8-iron, which is usually around the 158-163 yard mark for me. I knew I hit the ball well, but I didn’t realize I overshot my target by about 10 yards until I got up to the green. So, by limiting my hip turn I hit my 8-iron somewhere around 170 yards instead of 160 yards.

While the added power is nice, I have another suspicion on the hip turn: consistency. I suspect that I’m over-swinging, partly due to my hip turn being greater than it needs to be (this also explains why I’m able to get my shoulder turn > 90 degrees). By over-swinging, I’m starting to believe that my entire swing has become dependent on timing.

Yes, timing is important in the golf swing, but having a timing-dependent swing can lead to pretty erratic results. Some days your timing will be good, other days it will be bad. And when the timing is bad… who knows where the ball is going to go.

As a result of this, I’ve also realized that I’ve started to keep my feet too close together at setup. Feet should be shoulder-width apart with a short-iron, and I’ve noticed on video that my feet are just inside shoulder-width apart. This would explain why I feel a little off-balance at times. I may video my putting stroke as well. I’m curious if getting a more stable base will translate into more consistent putts.

So, that’s what I’ll be working the next few days before going on vacation. I’ll be heading out of town for the 4th of July, and I won’t have golf course access so I’ll be working on drills and resting my body. The good thing is that the types of changes I’m trying to implement don’t require a golf ball, so by the time vacation is over I’ll be drilled-up and ready to go.

Physically, I’m still sort of recovering from the massive amount of golf I took in. Not only did I do a lot of drills and take a lot of swings each day, but temperatures were in the low to mid-90′s with a heat index around 110 degrees. I think I went through at least a dozen water bottles a day to stay hydrated.

I went into the academy with the mindset that I would only get out of it what I put into it, which I believe is generally true with anything involving education. We were allowed to get to the academy early to practice, so I took advantage of that. We were given a booklet of all the information we were learning, so I took notes. If I wasn’t sure about something, I asked questions. When playing on the course each day, instead of just “having fun”, I took the opportunity to practice the things I had learned. Besides, that was more fun for me anyway.

There’s a lot to say about the academy. I don’t really know where to start. For that reason I think I’m going to keep it simple for now and reference the academy over time.

So for now, I can say that I feel like my golf game is either much better or that I now have the building blocks to get much better. My swing is actually pretty messed up right now as I try to make a few changes, but with practice it will become more consistent again. The good thing is that I think my swing will be even better once I get that consistency back – I’m already noticing a 20-30 yard increase in distance for all my clubs, and when I strike the ball correctly my accuracy is excellent.

I now know how to practice more efficiently, which is important as I don’t have a lot of time to practice. My putting and short game are drastically improved – for instance, I have much more confidence in my chipping abilities, and pitching from 50-60 yards is no longer something of concern.

That’s probably the best thing I got out of this experience – my golf game confidence is much higher than it used to be. I feel like there isn’t a situation out on the course where I won’t be able to figure out a game plan. That’s a big difference from before where I wasn’t confident if I was doing the right thing half the time. It turns my game from one of guessing and then trying to execute with doubt to one of picking from options and executing the chosen option.

Despite a short vacation out of town without golf, I’ve already had two practice sessions since my time at the Academy was finished. And already I’m seeing huge improvement. My swing is starting to come around with the changes, and my short game is getting much better. It’s amazing the difference some good knowledge makes.

Tomorrow is Tuesday 9-hole golf, where I’ll get to try out some of what I’ve learned. I’m not necessarily expecting to play much better – particularly since I’m still figuring out my swing – but I do have a goal to shoot less than 45 for the 9 holes, which I think is reasonable at this stage. I’ll report how things go after the round is over.

Probably my favorite tee shot was on the Par-4 18th Hole where he pushed the ball right onto another hole’s fairway. For his second shot he had to hit it over the trees dividing the 18th fairway and the fairway he was on. He hit a solid shot right at a tough pin location, but he came up short and barely landed in a bunker. That didn’t faze him either – a great sand shot and a short 3 foot putt later, and Tiger was sitting with a par to finish the day. It was ugly, but it worked.

Granted, the phrase “bad tee shot” is relative for Tiger Woods. As long as he doesn’t have a tree trunk two feet in front of the ball he can find a way to get the ball to the green. That’s just talent.

Regardless, Tiger gives us non-pros some hope. We hit it into the trees, bunkers, and sometimes on the next hole’s fairway on a regular basis. We dip our head on the downswing and push the ball, as Tiger has been doing this weekend. Sometimes we get frustrated that we can’t just hit the ball straight, but Tiger is showing that it’s okay if you can’t hit the ball straight off the tee – as long as you can recover quickly and play with a strong short game you’ll be fine.

The importance of the short game is probably the one thing Tiger has demonstrated most this week. If he didn’t chip, pitch, hit out of the sand, and putt well then he wouldn’t be near the top of the leaderboard right now. He’s probably be somewhere in the middle of the pack or worse.

As for myself, I’ve put a lot of practice into my short game during two practice sessions at the end of this week. That’s a good thing because my driver just hasn’t been working during practice. I’m not entirely sure what happened there. My irons have been pretty solid, but I’m starting to push the ball more than usual. To compensate I’ve moved the ball a little more forward in my stance. I haven’t quite found the sweet spot there, though – too far forward and I pull the ball.

My next round is tomorrow. I’m not feeling super confident in my swing right now, so it could be a hit or miss kind of day.

From the mental standpoint I’m taking a slightly different approach. Already I’ve decided that I’m playing to break 80. I’m going to play and make decisions with that goal in mind. We’ll see if that makes a difference.