Anyway, it’s a good sign. I have roughly 3 days to get ready for the TPC Sawgrass tournament, and I’m feeling good about my game.

After last night I decided to change up my practice plan a bit. Instead of banging around balls at the range, putting green, and short game area, I’m going to try to either work on the practice course or play a round today, play my round at Sawgrass tomorrow, then keep it light Friday. Yesterday’s 9 holes really helped me from a mental standpoint in terms of my course management and pre-shot routine, and I realized I need to get a little more comfortable being on the course with the latest changes to my swing and swing thoughts. So, “play, play, play” will be the game plan heading into the weekend.

I’m going through some intense practice sessions Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. I’m focusing a lot on two key areas: working the club through the impact zone and separating my shoulder rotation from my hip rotation. My goal by Friday is to start making these feelings more of a habit in my swing, so when I get into the tournament I can focus more on shot execution than the mechanical movements of my swing.

I’m also working on my short game in the rough around the green. Sawgrass has some thick rough, and I’d hate to lose a stroke because I can’t get the ball out of thick rough and into a reasonable putting position on the green.

Putting doesn’t feel quite as comfortable as I’d like it to, but I know it ebbs and flows. Hopefully by the weekend I’ll start draining the putts again.

I’m also working on my driver and woods off the tee. Unless you’re a glutton for scrambling, accuracy off the tee is extremely important at Sawgrass, and based on my practice round I need to be able to hit my driver, 3-wood, and 5-wood equally well off the tee. I’ve put more attention on my pitching wedge, also, especially since #17 at Stadium is roughly a PW for me. Besides #17, I noticed during my practice round that I was pulling out the PW pretty often for my approach shots.

After the intense practice days, I’ll play another round at Stadium on Thursday before having a light practice on Friday and heading to Ponte Vedra that afternoon. Hopefully that will help my body recover by tournament time - between the heat and the hard work I’ve been putting my body through to improve, my body is screaming exhaustion.

Oh, and I have a story about bees. I’ll save that for next time.

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.

It’s been a busy 5 months, though. I’ve now played in 4 tournaments, won 1 one of them, and am getting ready for my 5th and 6th in the next week or so. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my golf game in the process, and while my scores aren’t necessarily reflective of it, I believe I’m a much better player now than I was 5 months ago.

My problem lately has been my driver off the tee. It’s erratic, and I never know what I’m going to get on a day-to-day basis. When it works - my mishits are still in reasonable locations – I can be on fire. For instance, recently over the course of 27 holes where my driver was working well I was 5-under par.

When it doesn’t work – as in my mishits get me in trouble with water, fairway bunkers, out of bounds, lateral hazards, or trees – then I have to scramble, usually to save bogey. On the positive side I’m getting better at scrambling. According to oobgolf my scramble percentage is 47.4%.

So, in tournaments, where nervousness exacerbates everything, my tee shots have been less than desirable. I’ve taken a lot of penalties off the tee, leading to scores running up quickly. My challenge right now is to control my mental state and focus on playing against the course, not other players.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my driver swing, trying to treat it as if I’m swinging a 7-iron. A old man at the range recently mentioned to me that I have excellent rhythm and footwork with all my irons, but as soon as I pulled out my driver all that went away as I started using my upper body more. So my focus now is to start using my lower body more for my driver.

I have had some success and won a tournament. While I didn’t play well, I played better than my competitors, so I got the win. Being focused on my mental state, now I’m interested in not just winning, but playing well in tournament play and constantly giving myself a chance to win.

So that’s where I’m at now. This coming Tuesday I’m in a qualifier for the state amateur championship. If I play well and maintain a good mental approach then I know I have a real chance at qualifying. I also need to play smart and not take unnecessary risks. Based on past history for this qualifier, if I can shoot par or possibly even 1-over, then I can qualify, so I don’t necessarily need to try to blow the field out of the water. Safe, par-golf will do, and taking advantage of birdies as they appear will serve me well.

We’ll see how it goes. I’d like to keep this updated more often. Turns out some other people in the world are going through similar journeys as mine, as they try to go from mid-to-high handicappers to scratch golfers. For instance, the most recent one I heard about is Kirsten Lewis in Oregon: http://www.kirstenlewis.com/.

Back to the grind.

In the last two months I’ve focused a lot on improving my game with some serious practice time. I’ve realized how difficult it can be to improve your golf game as an amateur, particularly when you work 9 or more hours per day. But, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

As my swing has improved and become more solid, albeit inconsistent, I’ve put more focus on my short game around the green and putting. I’m slowly migrating toward an 80/20 plan of 80% short game and putting, and 20% full swing. Since I can’t practice all day everyday, the 2-4 hour practices per day I’ve had instead have been intense. Every swing, every putt, every chip matters. I can only make so many per day.

Around early November I started seeing massive improvement in my game, including a +3 performance that included a GIR of 89%. Obiously, ball striking was top notch that day. The only reason I didn’t make par was putting – I missed at least five 5-foot putts that I should have made. If I had made them I would have easily broken par. This is when I realized I need to start focusing more on putting.

Unfortunately, shortly after this particular round work kicked in, and I went through a stretch where I couldn’t touch a club for about 3 weeks – a long time for someone who hadn’t gone more than 2 days without touching a club in the previous 5 months. Needless to say, once I was able to touch a club again, I felt like I had regressed about 2 months.

So, I went back to my intense practice sessions and set a new goal – par by end of the year. It’s been an intense several weeks since, but I’m happy to report that as of yesterday I shot under par for the first time ever. Of course, the goal was par, but I exceeded that goal with a 2-under performance.

Everything clicked this round. I actually had a poor fairway percentage as my driver was all over the place, but I was never in a position where I couldn’t recover. I made putts I haven’t made in months, nailed all my putts less than 6 feet, and my short game was excellent, nearly always giving me putts within 3′. Basically, I made the shots when I had to make them.

One of the key differences this round compared to all my rounds prior was the amount of concentration and mental focus I had to have every shot of the round. I made sure I went through the same pre-shot routine every shot, I made sure I had a plan and committed to the plan every shot, and I made sure that as I executed the shot I focused on every detail of my body’s movement. This intense level of concentration is required for someone like myself whose body movements are not yet second nature, and obviously, it works.

Scoring -2 is a pretty big accomplishment for the year, especially when I was scoring +30 just 6 months ago. I don’t know when I’ll score that low again, but this one lesson taught me so much more about the game of golf than the previous 20 rounds have taught me. I’m expecting to see my scores continue to improve over the coming months as certain elements of my game become more consistent.

So what now? This blog was started to chronicle my journey to par. I did a decent job of that for a while, but obviously I haven’t documented the last two months very well. I want to continue the blog into the future, as I continue to learn more about the game and start entering tournaments. Perhaps I’ll expand the blog’s purpose to include other aspects of the game as well.

Speaking of tournaments, I recently joined the Golf Channel Amateur Tour. I’m looking forward to the competition and believe it will make me a better player.

2009 was an amazing year for me in the golf realm. In 6 months I went from your below-average weekend amateur to a low single digit handicapper. I can’t wait to see what I can do in another 6 months. Here’s to 2010!

I had to tone it down on practice this week due to a left rib cage strain. I think the lessons and three rounds of golf this past weekend kind of did me in physically. While it’s fun to play the rounds, sometimes I need to just say “no” so I can either get some physical rest or focus on practicing, which I know will make me better faster.

My practice this week has focused more on the short game than the swing. The swing is starting to get pretty solid, and while there’s still plenty of room for improvement, I’m starting to believe it’s the short game that’s preventing me from reaching par.

I’m also working on my mental game while I’m practicing, which I’m finding is making it more difficult to practice for extended periods of time as I start to lose concentration. This is a good thing though, since it means my mental game practice is working out my mind and wearing it out.

To practice the mental game I concentrate on going through a pre-shot routine for every shot I make, whether it’s on the range, chipping, putting, or any other movement of the club striking a ball. I’m also starting to challenge myself more with small games, such as how well I can hit my targets, how close I can chip the ball to the hole, and how well I can execute the pre-shot routine. I’m even considering starting a notebook I can take with me to the course to keep my “practice score” for things like this.

I know I’ve said it before, but I feel like achieving Par is very close and is becoming a matter of strengthening the weak areas of my game, especially as my swing continues to become much more consistent. I’ll get to test my practice this week during the two scramble tournaments, and while I won’t have my own score, I’ll be able to gauge any improvement by how well I personally play. Looking forward to it!

 The next day I participated in another scramble tournament, and while tournament rules had us winning 1st place there with a tiebreaker, we decided to play a sudden death playoff and ended up losing on the 2nd hole. So, that was sort of a win, but not with satisfaction.

When practicing the last two weeks I’ve been focusing on a number of complicated things during my swing:

1. Keep the clubhead outside my hands during the takeaway
2. While doing #1, keep my hands moving straight back until it’s time to start the shoulder turn
3. Hinge my wrists in a manner that keeps my left wrist straight such that my left forearm and top of my left hand are in sync
4. Turn my shoulders and bring my arms up such that my left wrist stays flat through the back swing
5. Downswing with the feeling of the shaft moving through my right bicep and right forearm before coming through to impact
6. At impact, keeping my hands in the proper position in front of the ball
7. Releasing the clubhead out and allowing my hands to rotate freely through the end of the swing

It’s a lot to think about, and while many would advise to not think about these things when you swing, I’ve learned that if I focus on keeping my backswing slow and smooth, then I can not only think about these steps but also execute them and get awesome results.

I still have a lot of work to do, but my swing is starting to pick up some good consistency with results. For example, today I played a full 18, shot a 75, and my GIR percentage was the highest yet – 61.1%. This is the type of stat I need in order to score low. I could have had a great day if I didn’t mess up some putts, but getting on the green in regulation is a great way to have the opportunity for lower scores. See the full stats on the scorecard at oobgolf. I’ve already setup a tee time for tomorrow at my nemesis course – LPGA Legends – it will be my last round of play for at least two weeks..

This week we’re travelling to NYC for my sister’s wedding, so I’ll have about 5 days of physical rest from golf. That can only be a good thing as I’ve been going pretty much full speed ahead the last month. Hopefully the weekend after we get back I’ll have another lesson, and then the following week I have another two scramble tournaments to participate in.

For this update I’ll try things a little different and go hole-by-hole following a format I’ve seen on other blogs:

Hole 1 – Par 4, 355 yards

Good drive down the middle of the fairway. Aimed slightly left of fairway because I have a slight fade with my driver right now (I know why, and that’s part of what I’m trying to correct). Drive measured about 290, leaving me about 60 yards to the pin. Decided to use a 1/2 Lob Wedge (58′) swing, but it was more like a 90% swing as the ball flew to the back of the green. Used 9-iron to chip, but was left with a 15 foot putt as I didn’t take into account a ridge in the middle of the green and the overall chip distance – should have used an 8-iron. Downhill putt from 15 feet rolled past the cup about 4 feet. Made the uphill 4 foot putt, slight left to right. Bogey 5

Hole 2 – Par 4, 414 yards

Again played for the fade, but ended up slicing to the right rough because of a poor takeaway on the swing. Played a 3/4 swing 9-iron from about 150 yards to the pin from the rough, landing about a foot short of the green in the fairway/fringe. The 3/4 swing wasn’t necessarily intentional – I was just focusing on my swing mechanics. Outside of the poor distance, the shot was on target and had good ball flight. After the chipping experience on the first hole, learned my lesson and better gauged the green and distance to the pin for the chip on this hole. Used a 9-iron to chip up to about 2 feet left of the pin. Didn’t see the severe right-to-left break around the pin. Made the 2 foot putt. Par 4

Hole 3 – Par 4, 336 yards

Again played the fade on the drive, landing on the fairway about 50 yards away from the pin. Used 58′ Lob Wedge with a 1/2 swing to pitch it up to the elevated green about a foot to the right of the pin. Made the putt. Birdie 3

Hole 4- Par 3, 155 yards

This par 3 is over water with a forward sloping green. Pin location back left of the green, which was around 9-iron distance, but decided to use the PW since solid contact would put me around the middle of the green. Sure enough, solid contact, landing in the middle of the green. Lag putt to 6 inches, tap in. Par 3

Hole 5 – Par 4, 328 yards

Again played the fade, landing middle of the fairway with the driver. Left about 55 yards to the pin, which is located middle right with a bunker in the middle. Used 58′ LW at 1/2 swing. Made solid contact, resulting in massive backspin. Landed on the green about 3 feet from the pin, but backspin kicked in and combined with the green slope the ball rolled off the green, off the severe fringe slope, and into the rough. Still had a good lie though and used 58′ LW to pitch it up to be 2 feet from the pin. Made the putt. Par 4

Hole 6 – Par 5, 525 yards

Severe dogleg left around a tree line and water, almost like a half circle. Decided to attempt a draw with the Driver. Had success, but not enough hook. Hit the ball over the fairway and into the right rough, but near the apex of the half circle, leaving me about 245 yards from the center of the green. Had a very good lie in the rough, but a tough slope. Decided to gamble and go for the green with the 3-wood. Mishit it and landed left of the green and short in the rough about 40 yards from the pin. Used 58′ LW to pitch it up, but used too much swing and hit it to the back of the green on the fringe. Used 9-iron to chip it to within 3 feet. Made the putt. Par 5

Hole 7 – Par 3, 175 yards

Used 8-iron since the pin was in the front of the green. Severely pushed the ball to the right of the green in the rough. Had a tough, deep lie. Used 58′ LW, but didn’t hit it cleanly. Watched the ball land in the bunker next to the green. Sand shot barely made it on the green leaving about a 6 foot putt. Made the uphill, fairly straightforward putt for an up-and-down. Bogey 4

Hole 8 – Par 5, 476 yards

Again played the Driver fade, landing right in the middle of the fairway at the turn of this dogleg right leaving a perfect approach view to the green from about 220 yards away. Used 5-wood, but did not play the fade that came out of the swing (all my woods and longer irons have a fade right now, but that’s not the case for shorter irons). Ball landed just to the right of the green and about 2 feet to the left of a bunker. Had a good lie and used 8-iron to chip across the green to 6 inches of the hole. Tapped in putt. Birdie 4

Hole 9 – Par 4, 393 yards

Went into this hole knowing I was even par. Probably shouldn’t have thought about it. Played the fade for the Driver but ended up hitting it straight to the left side of the fairway, which is actually the perfect place to be for a clear shot to the green, leaving about 135 yards to the pin. Decided to use 3/4 swing PW for approach shot but instead of playing it safe to get on the green, played aggressively to try to get close enough for a solid birdie putt. Mechanics broke down on the swing a bit and I pushed it and hit it a little fat into the right bunker in front of the green (ball landed about 18 feet from the hole). Sand shot was pretty poor, again barely making it onto the green, leaving a 12 foot putt. Ball rolled past the hole about 3 feet, but I made the 3 footer. Bogey 5

Next Steps

Not bad. +1 for 9 holes, and I’m not even playing that well yet. Chipping in particular really saved me, minus that first hole.

My sand game needs some serious work. I’m having a lot of trouble getting out of the sand with my new wedges. In general my swing was pretty decent, but as you can tell most of the round was a driver-partial wedge style of play since we were playing from shorter tees. When I did have to use my full irons I tended to have bad results – just means I need to keep working on the swing changes. As I work on the changes and get better at the short irons I’ll need to work my way up to longer irons and woods to help get rid of the fade. My main problem there is that I’m holding off the club face instead of letting it come through, but that’s what I’ll be working on.

I have a lesson this Saturday, so maybe I’ll ask for help with the short game and sand shots while I continue to work on the swing.

This chart is from oobgolf. In the top-left corner is a score of 96 (+24) followed by another score of 104 (+32).

Up until the last few months, those were my typical, average scores. I broke 90 once a few years ago, but at one point I actually got frustrated with the lack of improvement and stopped playing altogether for about a year and a half. At the urging of friends, I picked the game back up this year around the April/May timeframe and decided to do something about my poor play.

In the bottom right of the chart is the score of 75 (+3), which I just posted yesterday, approximately 3 months later. It’s neat how I’m seeing a sharp drop in scores after the Tour Academy, especially after my scores were pretty level (or even slightly rising) for about two months after the initial decline.

When viewing this chart, what’s there to not be excited about?

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.