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A Review of Q1 2021

So after around 4 months into 2021, it’s probably a good time to review how the new swing change is shaping up. First of, for a couple of months, the lack of golf was evident, although we are getting back into the groove now (despite our COVID cases increasing!), so we are trying to get as much golf in before any lockdown occurs.

I do a 9-hole walk on Tuesday with a secondary set – a 917F 3 Wood with a putter and 2 wedges + 3 irons (5,7,9 – my old Mizuno MP-57). Honestly I think I play better without my driver as this 3 wood is only around 30-40 meters shorter.  So scoring wise there is good, but better is the morning walk, with just a range bag without trolley.

We’ve crammed in also a couple of rounds of golf in Mines, Glenmarie, Saujana Impiana, Palm Garden and the results were – varied. I think I am back to my scoring as previous before my swing change. Like in Mines, I scored a 90 and 84, Glenmarie – 100 and then an 88. Palm Garden a 92 and an 84 and Saujana Impiana a 92. Good scores? It’s more or less the bloody same as I would score before the changes!!

But.

I do feel the game is coming along fine. For Saujana Impiana, that 92 could have easily been an 87 or 88. I had 4 triple bogeys against a fair number of Pars and a birdie. Of the 4 triple, 3 were really ridiculous. One was caused by a six iron shank from prime position on Fairway. Second was a lost ball after a good drive that just skittered a bit to the left, but for some damn reason, we couldn’t find the ball (most frustrating thing in golf), the third was the final hole, after being on the fringe in 2, and proceeded to duff a chip and 4 putted into infamy.

Only the first quad bogey where I hooked 2 into the woods would I say it was unavoidable.

But the encouraging thing for Impiana was how I played the par 5s. The first par 5 (Hole 3 I think), I proceeded to birdie it after my second 3 wood shot left me only 40 meters from the hole. The next par 5 in the back 9 I thunked my 3 wood so perfect from the fairway from 240 meters that I had to run up and apologise to the group on the green because my shot ended up around 20 meters from the green.

And the final par 5, hole 17. Bombed a drive (or so I thought) to around 160m from the green, and hit my new 5-iron (I reshafted it to a graphite) for my first two-on Par 5 after such a long time. What proceeded after that would forever be part of golfing lore. But before that, the group behind us had a guy who bombed his drive even further, to 100m marker. In fact, it was extremely dangerous as we were around that area as well. So actually, the par 5s are quite short and dangerous in Impian especially if you are a long hitter.

Going for my eagle, my ball was resting at that part where the fringe and green met, so it had that tuft of raised grass. I didn’t think much about it but when I putted, brushing the stupid grass on the backstroke caused a sudden retardation of my brains and I completely lost focus and I literally molested the ball to not even halfway to the god-damn hole. Molested my eagle putt. What. The. Flaming. Fukuoka.

I just stared in disbelief at my partners, before they all started to rail on me for my failure. This is a devastating failure. Because then I proceeded to miss my birdie and was forever labelled the biggest choker of all time. DAMN.

That has nothing to do with new swing. This is to do with a new brain, which I cannot change.

Same thing as Hole 18. Hooked my shot into the woods and from a superbly difficult shot down the hill, through the trees with just a bit of opening, I hit a glorious hybrid to the fringe of the green from 180. I mean, even Mickleson will be proud. Celebrating at least a bogey, I cockily went up and duffed my chip. Ok, no problem, a putt from fringe should be fine. I overputted, and sent the damn putt 15 feet downhill, my uphill putt didn’t have legs and I missed my double bogey putt.

You see, failures are often not due to the swing. My swing (except for the occasional and unknown shank) is coming along nicely and distance is better, consistency is better on the drives. My irons are the ones failing me (short approaches) and my stupid putting is as bad as a Gremlin high on cocaine.

So, overall review of 2021? Good with the long clubs, everything in 100 meters, atrocious as can be seen by up down scores. Am I encouraged with the swing change? For sure yeah. Very encouraged.  Just completely shit around the greens, but that’s not due to the swing change.

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Swing Overhaul Part 8: Part by Part

Keeping last game’s takeaway in mind, I decided not to worry too much about positions and focus on basically one thing only – keeping my weight on the left (and also my head not moving much). The swing thought now is broken down into easier bits. Address the ball in a slightly closed position, keep weight on the left and shift my hips to the left a little. From that address position, I just take a way as how I would usually do. I don’t think about dipping my shoulder, or tilting my spine or even keeping my elbows close to my body. I just use whatever swing I had from there on while keeping my weight shifted to the left.

So another 9 hole, and finally, something began to click. I gave myself 10 games to embed the swing mechanics in. I am into my third game – 2 X9 holes and one 18 holes.

The first 9 and 18 holes were disastrous. But now, this time it was different. With the simplified swing thought in my head, I proceeded to rip the first drive down the fairway – a welcome sight, after 27 holes of train wreck.

My iron approach was pushed way right but at least there was contact, and I knew this was probably how I will proceed on from here on.

Throughout the entire 9, swing thought was simple – weight left, head still. All the other thoughts, on whether my shoulder was at a tilt angle, my right knee straight, my elbows connected to my body and all those – out of my head.

Without those thoughts, swing began to free up. And the concern just became distance and alignment. What a difference.

Sure, I still lost my 9 hole bet again, but I know for sure, I am on the right road to improve.

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Swing Overhaul Part 7: 18 hole Tryout

The great Tiger Woods once said: “Achieving trust is always the final step with a change. That’s the hardest thing, taking Ranger Rick to the course.”

While my golf game is currently probably around 0.04% of hit level, this ranger rick quote still applies. We all can hit it on the range, but what the hell happens on the course?

Since my previous nine hole outing, I’ve gone to the range to sort out a few things and am getting more and more used to this Stack and Tilt. To an extent I felt fairly confident in accepting an invite to tee it up at Amverton for my first 18 hole with a new swing.

WHAT. A. MESS.

I really, really do not understand why the flaming heck I can be hitting great shots on the range but end up like an epileptic baboon when I am on the course.

Its strange, because while I am fairly comfortable with the changes, when I hit the course, I struggle to even hit the most basic shots. When I pulled my driver far left to begin, I knew I was in for a long day.

It was a game that was as unmemorable as anything. When you are playing badly, all holes sort of converge into a single messy experience and you don’t really remember anything except hacking the ball over and over. Therefore, I don’t recall anything much except for a chip in birdie and some good chip shots here and there. Otherwise, except for one good drive on the 10th hole (or was it the 10th?) – all my drives were either missing , topped or yanked. I probably shot close to 110 on total scores.

Would it be back to the drawing board?

Again, I don’t know what more can be done except to try to ingrain the whole feel more and more into the game and go out and play. The proof is there that I am hitting the ball better than before when I am on the range. I just need to ingrain it.

As I told my partners – it’s very easy to tell what’s happening but very difficult to actually fix it. I would address the ball – ok. I would do a takeaway, into the ‘slot’ – ok. It’s right at the top of the swing that everything breaks. My right elbow disconnects from my body, and then its an all arms swing –  my swing drops without connecting to the body so I have no idea where the clubhead is because the arms and body are no longer working together. I can feel the disconnect, but by then, it’s too late. The swing is already on its downswing and the transition is completely off.

One of my playing partners did make an interesting note: “When making changes, don’t try to change everything at once, but make it incremental. Small changes first and slowly move into it.”

I think it makes sense. I may be trying to tear down and build everything up too quickly. Maybe what I need isn’t a house tear down but a home renovation room by room.

That’s food for thought.

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Swing Overhaul Part 3: Second Session and some progress

So, after the first disastrous range outing, I went back to do a bit more research and study. One of the interesting thing I went through was this guy called Jim Venetos (https://www.youtube.com/user/jimvenetosgolf). He advocates the simple concept of playing from a ‘position’. I.e to present your position before you take a swing. So, set your position on impact, and that’s your position from your swing. This means, he sets up to address the ball, but then closes his entire body at address to promote the inside out swing. He makes it sound so easy. And also, his videos are always taken in a jungle, forest, desert and shows him whacking golf balls into nowhere. VERY interesting, but not for everyone, as he doesn’t take any traditional approach to the golf swing. However, I do see his swing resembling the one-piece takeaway we are trying to work on here.  Another thing I felt I did not do in the first session was to turn my body more, and downwards (i.e the shoulder points down as opposed to across, where I end up straightening my body).

I also went through Saguto golf and Nick Taylor who are more pronounced Stack and Tilt advocates than Venetos, and realised in my first range session, I was shifting my head to the right still, and allowing my hands to be high on the back swing. From these videos, I am now made to realise that the flatter the swing becomes, and more rounded, the swing becomes shallower and less ‘diggy’, which has always been my swing. I dig the ground as I always have been thought that a descending blow will get the ball higher and further.

So with all these mechanics in mind, I trudged to the range, fearing that it will end up sucking as bad as the first session.

Well.

What a difference a session makes.

Again, I started with short irons. Crisp.

Long iron 5? Bad. Again, I wasn’t hitting it well, but I felt a little more control now, as instead of just stacking left, I am focusing on keeping my head still, and try to move my shoulder downwards as opposed to across. I am chunking the long irons, but my 8-iron is suddenly coming off hot.

Now the biggest difference? Hybrid.

I wasn’t able to hit my hybrid at all in the first range session, which is frustrating, because my M4 23 degree has always been my go to hybrid and I’ve always hit it fairly well, though not extremely far.

Today, the M4 was hitting shots that I’ve never seen before.

When I connect, the sound was solid, with a satisfyingly loud click when you know you have centered it and the ball flight was like a howitzer shooting upwards and plunging into the net 170 meters away. From its trajectory, I am pretty certain that is going further than what my normal hybrid is hitting.

I have never hit the hybrid so crisp before. Sure, there were a few VERY bad ones. But even if I hit 2 out of 10 good shots, I know at least there is progress. In fact, I was so encouraged, I ordered another 100 and just started whacking it. I tried my driver without great results, but the very few ones that came off, yes, this was very different from the first session.

Conclusion of the second session: Progress.  Honestly, anything is progress compared to my first session. But this was definitely encouraging progress. I could see where the power is from. Previously, I always thought – wider the arch, the more power, narrower the arch more control. But in keeping my elbows tucked into my left and forcing my body to turn (not my hands), and shoulder to drop downwards, I am aiming to get the top of the swing in a classic Hogan look:

Man, that is a handsome devil of a swing.

But that means moving that body and shoulder in a way I have never ever done before in 16 years. Mine has always been a minimum shoulder turn and even so, my back swing has been more lateral move of the shoulder where the shoulder is more or less level, as opposed to turning down (as above, where the left shoulder is pointing towards the ball).

Part of this is that I simply do not trust that my shoulder turning like Hogan will put me square with the ball. I always think by dropping my shoulder, I will chunk the club behind the ball as I am thinking I am moving closer to the ball.

But actually we are not. It’s an illusion. We are actually maintaining the distance to the ball by doing that, and allowing the club to circle around the body like a trebuchet. When we level our shoulders, we lose that relationship with our ball and we try to look for it on the downswing with varying degrees of success. We will still hit the ball despite of the level shoulders not because of it. All the years of golf has conditioned our body to get the level of variance down so we can still hit the ball, but when we need a swing to be called upon, it fails (e.g my 70 meter sand wedge shot to break 80 for the first time and completely shanking the shit out of it). A good article is here https://www.golfdigest.com/story/swing-by-numbers-new-study-unlocks-6-swing-secrets.

You can see when we swing level, our body tends to straighten up and on our down swing, we will need to figure out how to maintain that distance from the ball, so we drop down again or hope that the club magically becomes longer our your arm grows longer. But why would we want to do it, as opposed to simply swinging your shoulder around it?

Once this was implemented, I found that the point of impact was more predictable and more consistent. And surprisingly, without the arch (as I am trying to tuck in my right elbow to my side), I could still hit the ball, if not slightly further, then the same distance as I always hit my hybrid. But the most encouraging part was the trajectory of the ball.

The problem I still had was the driver. I can’t seem to get my driver to have a proper flight, as I am thinking I am hitting the driver down (as my weight on the left would prescribe) as opposed to hitting it upwards. Thus, my driver trajectory is generally low and not very far and skimming off the ground. But for a second session, there is enough encouragement that I seem to be on the right track.