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McLovin's Journey to Improve

McLovin said:
lesson scheduled for monday. if i’m being honest golf is just not enjoyable right now. we are going to focus on irons because i’m tired of hitting awful shots from the middle of the fairway.

i’m going to ask ty for a practice prescription. give me exact program. i want my practice to be more intentional and meaningful. as little time as i have to touch a club right now i want to make sure i’m getting to most out of my practice.
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I don't know if I'll do another lesson without leaving with a program for practice. I asked for one after my putting lesson a few weeks back and he broke it down into a 20-minute session I could do at home and it's been a huge help - I found it's a lot easier to build it into the routine that way. Looking forward to hearing what Ty prescribes for you and you starting to pick back up on some steam here 👊.
 
Good luck and have a great session.
 
McLovin said:
lesson scheduled for monday. if i’m being honest golf is just not enjoyable right now. we are going to focus on irons because i’m tired of hitting awful shots from the middle of the fairway.

i’m going to ask ty for a practice prescription. give me exact program. i want my practice to be more intentional and meaningful. as little time as i have to touch a club right now i want to make sure i’m getting to most out of my practice.
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Good luck with the lesson and hang in there.. golf is not easy at all
 
i would like to eject from the tailspinning plane that is on the current trajectory of "wow, i've never seen that pattern from you." i'm inventing new ways to suck between every lesson.

the suck du jour was a very overactive upper body and very underactive lower body. left shoulder goes down, hands push out, club gets steep, face opens, hips stall, path is left attack is way too high speed is down and golf is the opposite of enjoyable.

it's laughable to be over 3 years and 700 posts into this journey, and we are now working on the OPPOSITE of where we started. too much wrist set at the top. i'm retaining the angles too long in the downswing. i'm too far ahead of the ball at impact, so attack is too high and path is left. golf. is. HARD.

the feels today were:
* less wrist set at the top
* in transition, more separation between lower body and upper body. my feel was for the knees to return to parallel to target line while the hands were still high.
* in transition, let the hands fall in the downswing. he showed me what my hands were doing in transition during the rehearsal, and it was perfect. but the actual swing never got close. hands keep kicking out and shaft gets steep.
* in transition, add some spine tilt away from the target. like a driver. it helped to shallow my attack, and the path improved.

the drill we did was pretty challenging. peg a ball more like fairway wood height, but we were hitting 7i. the goal was to hit it straight up in the air. this promoted spine tilt away, and an earlier release of the club. lots of contact high on the face, which is painful lol. but the good ones fixed a lot of the earlier issues.

we hit some drives to finish, and they weren't great. but he had to leave for another lesson. i stayed a bit longer and hit some more 7i and driver. the 7i started badly, but more focus on the tilt away from the target helped a lot, and i liked what i saw. but the driver was really really bad.

i'm going to make some time this week to rep the new feels, and send ty videos. he wants to get together next week so that we don't have so much time pass between lessons, and weird patterns popping up out of nowhere.
 
Been there ... am there? Not the journey we want.

Keep the faith.
 
ty sent several videos last night and we messaged a bit. he clarified my feels for me. he said the biggest thing to focus on in transition was width. think about extending the trail elbow, pushing the club away from you. funny enough it’s a feel we worked on 3 years ago…

i’ll post a few videos below
 
last swing i recorded before this lesson. backswing pretty good. but in transition it’s all upper body. very ott and steep. i have to shrug through impact instead of being able to release the club. extremely steep and inefficient.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1687142175.mov
 
fo from the lesson. here’s the tee drill trying to hit 7i straight up in the air. we also used the swingyde training aid to limit the wrist set at the top. we were shooting for low effort, like 20%.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1690852652.mov
 
Isn't this a great game?

The more you work on it, the more it boggles the mind there are people who walk the face of the Earth who can consistently play at an elite level. In reality though, they fight the same battles as us - just in a narrower window. I try to take solace from that.
 
McLovin said:
lesson scheduled for monday. if i’m being honest golf is just not enjoyable right now. we are going to focus on irons because i’m tired of hitting awful shots from the middle of the fairway.

i’m going to ask ty for a practice prescription. give me exact program. i want my practice to be more intentional and meaningful. as little time as i have to touch a club right now i want to make sure i’m getting to most out of my practice.
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Intentional practice is very important. It's something my coach harps on all the time. You got this man. Keep pushing.
 
charged up the gc3 and did a little range work tuesday. the little half swing drill is good, but the full(er) swing stuff was still a struggle. found a feel to twist the grip clockwise from the top and saw some really nice numbers. path moved to 1-2* from the inside and attack shallowed.

wednesday i was scheduled to play golf with a client. he's been a client for years but we've never met in person. bad night's sleep, really tough early morning workout, then to the course. warm up was short and not very good until the last few balls. first few holes weren't awful, but by hole 4 the wheels almost completely came off. he was very gracious, but it was downright embarrassing. more dark thoughts about quitting, or at least taking a LONG break from the game.

i messaged ty during the round and he gave me a couple feels to try, none of which worked so he asked for some videos. back to the range this morning just to take videos (otherwise i wouldn't have gone). more of the same, until i saw how fanned open my face was at the top and in transition. so i tried to bow the left wrist during the backswing and keep it bowed. everything improved. tons of compression at impact, ball jumped off the face and good distance for minimal effort. video confirmed that a lot of the mechanics were better (but with tons of room to improve).

i needed that win on the range to keep me interested. now i kind of want to go play again! what a dumb game.
 
McLovin said:
charged up the gc3 and did a little range work tuesday. the little half swing drill is good, but the full(er) swing stuff was still a struggle. found a feel to twist the grip clockwise from the top and saw some really nice numbers. path moved to 1-2* from the inside and attack shallowed.

wednesday i was scheduled to play golf with a client. he's been a client for years but we've never met in person. bad night's sleep, really tough early morning workout, then to the course. warm up was short and not very good until the last few balls. first few holes weren't awful, but by hole 4 the wheels almost completely came off. he was very gracious, but it was downright embarrassing. more dark thoughts about quitting, or at least taking a LONG break from the game.

i messaged ty during the round and he gave me a couple feels to try, none of which worked so he asked for some videos. back to the range this morning just to take videos (otherwise i wouldn't have gone). more of the same, until i saw how fanned open my face was at the top and in transition. so i tried to bow the left wrist during the backswing and keep it bowed. everything improved. tons of compression at impact, ball jumped off the face and good distance for minimal effort. video confirmed that a lot of the mechanics were better (but with tons of room to improve).

i needed that win on the range to keep me interested. now i kind of want to go play again! what a dumb game.
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Golf is dumb. Keep pushing and don't put so much pressure on yourself. I am bad about doing that myself and usually when I try to remember to enjoy myself or have a little fun and that it is just a game, things get better. You got this man!
 
some more work on the range during the week, and yesterday was my first round trying to focus on the new feel of keeping the left wrist bowed during the backswing and through transition, as well as trying to feel the clubhead staying behind me in transition.

i did something i don't think i've ever done before. i brought the launch monitor onto the range for my warmup, and it helped A TON. as internet golfer as that is, it might be a necessary evil until this move is more ingrained.

the move was feeling really good early on, but a huge thunderstorm came up on #5 and i had a long delay waiting it out. when i got back on the course i never felt as confident as i did at the start. but i still kept it together, and really only hit one poor drive all day. that is a massive win. a surprising positive in this new bowed wrist feel is how much better my partial wedges from 20-70 yards were. crisp contact, good compression, and excellent stopping power.

it was a great feeling to put a good round together after being down in the dumps.
 
Over the last year and a half I’ve found that getting down to scratch from a 5 handicap is much harder than getting to a 5 from a 9 ever was.

The margin for error is very slim and the level of consistency needed in both the swing and the mental game is extremely difficult to maintain.
 
Browndog said:
Over the last year and a half I’ve found that getting down to scratch from a 5 handicap is much harder than getting to a 5 from a 9 ever was.

The margin for error is very slim and the level of consistency needed in both the swing and the mental game is extremely difficult to maintain.
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so true. honestly i'd think being scratch is pretty stressful. can't make many mistakes!

my goal is to be in the range of 1-3. unfortunately my short game isn't good enough and i don't know that it can ever be, so i try to focus on very consistent ball-striking instead.
 
i snapped a pic of the gc3 numbers from that shot. i was living a little high on the face so spin was down. but i’m happy with a lot about that. pretty sure it’s a pb ball speed and swing speed for a 7i for me.

IMG_0438.jpeg
IMG_0439.jpeg
 
McLovin said:
little range time yesterday. not perfect but improving.

View attachment 9197619
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McLovin said:
i snapped a pic of the gc3 numbers from that shot. i was living a little high on the face so spin was down. but i’m happy with a lot about that. pretty sure it’s a pb ball speed and swing speed for a 7i for me.

View attachment 9197620
View attachment 9197621
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Very strong-looking swing there and the numbers back it up. I know how it is to be dark in the hole of swing work and want to quit then find a miraculous new feel that opens doors. I'm so glad you found that feel. It's always the darkest before a breakthrough, in my experience.
 
@McLovin

Can't wait to see your game in action on Tuesday brother! I'm going to be working my 3/4 shots all around the course lol. I just gotta make sure my ass is 150 in to post up a decent score.
 
Paddy1Putt said:
@McLovin

Can't wait to see your game in action on Tuesday brother! I'm going to be working my 3/4 shots all around the course lol. I just gotta make sure my ass is 150 in to post up a decent score.
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As a struggling 9 (playing like a 12) I don’t even dare dream of being a 5.

McLovin, it looks like you fought thru it!
 
Styles said:
As a struggling 9 (playing like a 12) I don’t even dare dream of being a 5.

McLovin, it looks like you fought thru it!
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what if i'm a struggling 5 playing like a 15??? lol

seriously though i appreciate it. this new feel seems to be working, and i'm trying to strike while the iron's hot. i'll go back to the range today with the gc3 in tow and make sure i'm still happy with the numbers. from that faster 7i video i seem to lose a little space in my lower body so i'll work on loading into that trail hip.
 
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