One Day.

It’s amazing how much more rested your body feels after just one day off.  I hit it pretty hard last week and put in one of the better weeks of The Plan to date: 37 hours from Sunday to Saturday.  Just about everything was aching by Saturday afternoon as the majority of the week was working on swing mechanics so involved lots of slow-motion swings and holding my posture in specific parts of the swing.  I knew that it would be hugely beneficial both mentally and physically to take a day off to freshen up, so didn’t make a single swing yesterday.  Now, feeling 95 percent better and ready to get back to improving that game!

I watched a bit of the WGC Match Play event yesterday and absolutely love the 300 frames-per-second camera shots they do for slow motions swings, especially when a player is scrambling.  In my perfect world, they would cut out the commentary (lulls me to sleep) and show each swing both down the line and face on in regular speed then slow motion and show the trajectory of the ball.  You could learn so much by seeing this from every player that tees off.

Thanks to DVRs, I can at least slow down any swing that looks interesting to me and watch them a handful of times until I have an understanding of what went right and wrong.  I started playing a little game where I would pause the TV before a swing and watch it in super slow motion to see if I could guess where the trajectory would be, whether a push, pull, straight, hook or slice.  It was a bit hard to do as the angle wasn’t always the same, but after watching one person’s swing for a while you can start seeing slight flaws that create different misses.  It was a fun way to watch and could be a good game to play with some friends.

What I took from it all was something that we all knew already: efficiency.  The swings are not overly large and they don’t swing out of their shoes, they create ultimately efficient power where all of the energy from the body is transferred to the club face at the moment of impact.  This isn’t anything new, but something to keep in mind.  It isn’t how hard you swing, it’s how well you swing.

Today I practice as deliberate as ever.  Inspired by the matches of the weekend, I’m going to continue internalizing the new swing thoughts to improve my mechanics.  I know where I currently am in the swing and where I need to be and the bridge between is fairly clear, just takes concentration and determination.