The next morning we were invited to the Pebble Beach Golf Academy, which is essentially the main driving range for Pebble Beach with a golf teaching school attached, and were able to individually work with four of the instructors there.  This was an amazing experience as these guys have been around it all and are on the top of their respective games. It was two-fold inspiring: I had hands on work with instructors that have helped countless PGA Tour players and at the same time there were a number of big name players on the range working on their own swings in preparation for the week.  I was hitting balls on the same range as guys from Snedeker to Kenny G, who happens to be a 2 handicap.

The outside of the academy:

After a little warm up the lessons began.  My first one was all about putting and utilized the SAM putting lab, which I had been on years ago.  It looks like this and is a machine made to very precisely measure how you aim and swing the putter:

That is putting instructor Kevin syncing my SeeMore putter with the machine.  What he found was that I have extremely accurate and consistent aim as well as stroke, but my tendency is to cut across the ball from out to in which isn’t optimal as it can put a bit of side spin on the putts.  He gave me a few drills to work on to get the ball rolling more end-over-end and then it was off to the second lesson.  Since then I have been working on my putting stroke and have seen some good results.  He also suggested I look into a more face weighted putter as mine may actually accentuate my own putting flaws.  Something to keep in mind down the road.

The next lesson was outside on the range and it was a little more “old fashioned” than all of the others simply because the instructor didn’t use much technology.  But, he had great eyes for the swing and that’s worth a ton in golf.  This is the two of us chatting swing styles:

The coach’s name was Dan and we talked about some issues I was having with my ball striking and he had some good tips to share after seeing me hit the ball. The one that stands out most is that he said my lower body was overactive and I needed to focus more on hitting the ball with my shoulder turn.  Good stuff.

The next stop was with something that I had never seen in person and was pretty excited about.  It was with Scot Nei and his Robo Golf Pro robot.  It’s probably easier to show this rather than try to explain it:

It’s a robot that you can program to swing any type of swing at any speed and then you hold on to the club and it moves you through the motions that you are trying to learn.  I found it interesting as instructors have told me to “feel” certain things in the past and have even been hands on trying to place my swing in specific positions, but with this robot you can actually feel exactly where an instructor wants you to be through an entire swing.  You let it guide you for a handful of swings and then turn around and hit a couple of balls and you can immediately feel the difference.  I hear there is one up in Seattle, might have to make some trips up there in the coming months to get more reps in.

The final lesson was with Laird Small, who has been the director of the Pebble Beach Golf Academy since 1996.  Laird’s strength, outside of massive experience in the golfing world, is his ability to communicate what needs to be said.  There are a number of people who are extremely intelligent when it comes to golf biomechanics, but far fewer who can reach people in a way that makes sense.  This was the case with Laird and what he told me (we talked about my turn, chess positions, arms, etc) made sense to me and I have been able to implement some of it already.  He’s the kind of guy you want to see weekly and if he was in Portland I would most definitely do that.

That was a great start to the day.  I wish the lessons could have been all day, but with such a busy week there was a lot of work for the guys to do.  We spent a little time on the range watching some Tour players hit balls and then hit the road.

The next stop was lunch and the whole group sat down at a table with a guy eating by himself.  About 30 seconds in I realized it was David Duvall that we happened to be sharing a table with.  Here is Tiffany showing him how to take a selfie:

He was a upstanding gentleman and we all had a nice lunch chatting golf and life.

The rest of the day was filming a few interviews and random things for the story as well as a bit of down time in the late afternoon before heading to dinner.  Where we were able to eat dinner this night was at the players “tent” as part of the Pairings Party that happens after the official tournament pairings are released.  The party and dinner were good and it was fun to celebrity watch. But, the most fun came when this man randomly came over and asked if he could join our table.  Completely random, and amazing:

It was a treat like no other.  Bill Murray just happened to join our table and hung out with us for the better part of two hours.  That is him and one of our hosts for the week Jena.  Bill was incredibly kind and, of course, funny.  He talked golf, wine, life, charity work, art, etc.  I could not have been happier as he is perhaps the only celebrity alive that I really wanted to meet.

Honestly, I could have left that night and felt like it was an incredible trip.  Played an amazing course, had lessons with four incredible people, got lunch with David Duvall and then spent an eve with Bill Murray.  Life was feeling good and it was literally just the third day of the trip.    See, it’s hard not to sound like I’m bragging, but at the same time I can’t imagine not writing about this experience.  I won some sort of fantasy lottery.

The next day began with a historic tour of Pebble Beach. We had breakfast at Pebble Beach’s famous The Bench restaurant and then got in carts and toured the 18 with historian Neal Hotteling (who literally wrote The Official History of Pebble Beach):

Neal showed us around the course and described some of the more interesting ways in which things have changed over the years as well as the history of the property, which was originally purchased for $500 a couple hundred years ago.  We also got to stop by and see Bing Crosby’s house, which has an amazing putting and chipping green in the back yard and overlooks some of the better holes of the course.  It was great to get his insight into the course.

After that I was able to watch some of the celebrity shootout that happens on Wednesday and see the groups come in at 18, which might be one of the most beautiful finishing holes in golf:

And…  Just when we thought the day was over and had been blown away by everything so far, AT&T Fans Eye View had another surprise for us.  We got to meet one of the golfers and Katie was actually able to have a short putting lesson from this guy:

Jordan Spieth was a really good dude.  Wise beyond his years and a nice guy all around.  He signed stuff for everyone and I got the flag on 18 signed for my buddy Eric, who I think loved it:

We were all pretty blown away by everything that had happened so far.  It was incredible and seemed to just keep coming.  So, by the time dinner rolled around and we were away from the course we all assumed that the day was over.  But, there was one more surprise that nobody saw coming.  As part of the kickoff event a bunch of the celebrities were putting on a show down the street.  AT&T invited us to not only watch the show but we also were able to go backstage and shake hands with a bunch of them including Larry the Cable Guy, Colt Ford, Jake Owen, Michael Bolton, Kenny G, Clint Eastwood, Ray Romano, Tommy Gainey and a more that I can’t seem to recall right now.  It was great.  After our 15 minutes backstage, the group was leaving but I kind of “lingered” and got lost and then ended up getting to spend the next couple of hours back there.  It helped that I was a photographer in my past life as there were a number of active-duty marines who got the same meet-and-greet treatment that we did who also wanted photos with the big names and I wasn’t afraid to go up to people like Clint and ask if he would take a photo with those soldiers.

After that I hung out and got to know a few of the guys:

I’m not sure I even scratched the surface of what it was like.  I can’t imagine two more amazing days than these.  And, the tournament hadn’t even started yet.

On the final installment of this series I will talk about the tournament itself as well as what it was like to play Pebble beach from the same boxes as the pros and to the exact same pin placements.  That is coming in a couple short days.

Earlier this week I finally got everything sorted and broke out the FlightScope.  I shot a little video of some thoughts while working with the new technology, too:

not the best video quality that I’ve ever shot, but the point comes across pretty well, I think.  The new irons really fit me and my swing has almost overnight transitioned from inside to out 5-6 degrees to being close to on plane.  this is great as I was never able to control the ball with my previous setup if the club went on plane.  It seems crazy, but I think the toe was up with the old irons which caused the ball to have more of a hook tendency so I had to swing out a lot and hold off the face, which wasn’t super easy, especially in pressure situations.

Not so much from here on out.  I’m slowly starting to learn more and more about things like lie angle and how that impacts the ball flight.  It’s great.  Knowledge is a good thing.

To help further that knowledge, today I went down to Oregon City to visit with my friend Jari at Birdie Finish golf.  He’s the best master club builder in Portland and I wanted to have him take a look at my new sticks to see how close they were to 3 flat.  Golf is not always a perfect science when it comes to ordering new clubs and I have heard horror stories from others about how far off their sticks were from what they were supposed to be.  I had complete faith that mine were flat as I could tell from hitting them and the ball flight, but I was curious as to how close they were to what I had ordered.  I also wanted to learn more about how to measure loft and lie in hopes that one day I will be able to check and adjust things on my own, as well as many other tasks in club building and comprehension.  “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.”

In the meantime, Jari is an excellent source and I would definitely recommend anyone who is curious about your own clubs to go have them checked out.  He can definitely help your game.

Here is a short video of Jari working:

For the record, the new Titleist irons and Vokey wedges came in almost perfectly as they were ordered.  All were between 2.5 and 3 degrees flat and each one was exactly the loft that it was supposed to be, which is great!

I have learned so much about how gear can influence ball flight over the past month.  I’m pretty surprised at just how important it can be.  There are probably a few people who fit perfectly into stock-standard clubs, but for the rest of us when you want to get down to that lower handicap it’s an important piece of the puzzle.

I now have great resources here in town as well as the FlightScope to make sure things are going how they should.  The next step is to find a driver that instills confidence, as well as a 3-wood.  Jari is going to build me a driver to try out and it should be ready by the middle of next week as he has to custom order everything to try and get some stuff that fits me.  It also always takes a bit longer as lefties don’t have as many options, so custom it tends to be.

Always moving forward.

Since I returned from the Southern California Vision54 trip I’ve been going over my old notes and blogs to see if I have wavered in the type of practice that I put in on a typical day and in some ways it has changed, although 90 percent of it is still similar in structure and point.  One thing that has helped the learning curve quite a bit along the way is this notion of Desirable Difficulties and Challenge Point.  These two concepts are somewhat similar in that they both are designed to make sure what you are doing is optimally challenging for learning.  They both also fit well with the new practice ideas I gathered through Vision54, namely to go farther away from repetitive hitting practice and continue to migrate towards practicing more like an actual competition.

While I was in San Diego I got a chance to have dinner with Dr. Bob Bjork and his wife Dr. Elizabeth Bjork, who have become wonderful friends as well as good resources over the past couple of years.  They are two of the researchers behind Desirable Difficulties.  In a nutshell:

Imagine a scenario in which a teacher has students practice different examples of a single type of math problem for an hour in class. By the end of the hour, it may seem—both to the teacher and to the students—that this type of math problem has been mastered. On a test two weeks later, however, the benefit may not be evident. In fact, much to the dismay of the teacher and the students, performance during training is not always representative of long-term learning. In contrast to the story told above, in which an easy training method was followed by poor performance later, imagine that the teacher had interleaved many different types of problems during in-class training drills. Recent research reveals that difficult training of this type produces higher scores on the test than the easier version described above (Rohrer & Taylor, 2007), and this is the kind of training that the Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab believes enhances long-term learning.

There are, in fact, certain training conditions that are difficult and appear to impede performance during training but that yield greater long-term benefits than their easier training counterparts. R. A. Bjork (1994) dubbed these difficult but effective training conditions desirable difficulties. Other examples of desirable difficulties include spacing rather than massing repetitions of to-be-learned information, testing rather than re-studying information, and varying the conditions of practice instead of keeping them constant.

In a similar fashion, Dr. Mark Guadagnoli and Dr. Timothy Lee’s Challenge Point asserts:

The optimal challenge point represents the degree of functional task difficulty an individual of a specific skill level would need to optimize learning (Guadagnoli and Lee 2004). However, this learning depends on the amount of interpretable information. Therefore, although increases in task difficulty may increase learning potential, only so much is interpretable, and task performance is expected to decrease. Thus, an optimal challenge point exists when learning is maximized and detriment to performance in practice is minimized. With increased practice it is assumed that one’s information-processing capabilities will increase (Marteniuk 1976). Therefore, the optimal challenge point will change as the individual’s ability to use information changes, requiring further changes in functional difficulties in task to facilitate learning (Guadagnoli and Lee 2004).

There is a wealth of knowledge in those three paragraphs summing up the research of these wonderful Doctors.  For my practice, I pinpoint a weakness in the game and then create short challenges that are not too easy nor difficult to the point of frustration; more of a Goldilocks soup perfect.  For example, lately my scrambling has been less than optimal so I created a game around a large putting green where I have to get three up-and-downs in a row before I am allowed to move on.  What this does is forces me to practice in a similar manner to an actual game (one chip then one putt, not a bunch of chips in a row.  Also, always to a different target and with a consequence of having to drop three in a row before being able to move on).

This game incorporates a bit of the Challenge Point theory and the Desirable Difficulties.  It includes spacing instead of mass repetition and is, unfortunately :), difficult enough to force me to really concentrate.  As my chipping and putting improve and three up-and-downs in a row becomes too easy I can either up the number to four or I can increase the difficulty of each hole/lie/distance, etc.

No matter what you are doing, make sure it’s the right amount of challenge to engage your mind, that it is context specific and random enough to keep you on your toes.  Also, test yourself along the way to see how much you are absorbing.  For me, this last part is what tournament season is all about.  It is the time of the year where I can see what has been learned and absorbed since last season and it’s a wonderful way to see what I need to focus on next.

The practice possibilities are endless.  Whether alone or with someone, create a game and challenge yourself.  It’s fun to see how fast you can improve when you really have to.

As always, please check out and download the entire blog to date on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTC0NJA

And please consider becoming a monthly “subscriber” to the blog here: Monthly Donations   Everything helps!  $3 or $9 a month isn’t too bad, eh?

Denver was an amazing experience and has helped me immensely when it comes to playing my best golf now as well as making a distinction between practice and play.  Too often I muddled that distinction leaving my mind in the wrong place when it came to game time.  That has been pointed out to me, but I always figured that if you wanted to implement something you should think about it on the range and while playing.  I learned this weekend that is not the best way to approach progress.

Going through the program a second time was more than just a refresher of the material.  It added so much clarity to their research as well as what I needed to personal do to improve, it was akin to rubbing the morning eyes.  You know when you first wake up and open your eyes and everything is there but kind of blurry?  Then you give them a little rub and the images become clear?  It was just like that.  Denver was the first light, San Diego the clarity.  Not to say that I couldn’t have gotten clarity from the Denver course, but for me it was good to have more one-on-one time with the coached to better understand the process.

This was particularly the case as they knew me this time and knew my tendencies as well as what I had changed since the last time we all met.  They could see that I had been working hard on changing my swing, but they also discovered that my “swing thought” during current rounds was all about making changes and not about engaging in the target and my swing.  I was so technically oriented that I had been forgetting about playing the game when on course.  I admit that I am guilty of this and as I said above, when I am making a change the only thing I think about is making that change.  For better or worse this has been my experience through the past 4 years.

Over the three days we covered so much material that I am not going to come close to summarizing in one blog post, but one thing that resonated was this ability to switch from practice mode to game time and how to make that switch realistic as well as doing it without worrying about “reverting” to old swing habits.  The point is to really delineate the difference between practice time and game time.  As an example they showed me how I could break a round into both practice and play.  For 9 holes I just work on the new feel that I am trying to implement without any concern for the outcome and then on the second 9 turn it into a competition and true game time.  It is very important to always work on playing the game, not just improving the swing.

We worked on a huge number of tools for practice and playing and by the end of the trip I had built a solid game plan for moving forward.  Another realization that I had was I had not been developing a clear enough focus while on the course.  I had been playing with a handful of “goals” but not really one or two specific aspects that I wanted to work on.  Now, each time I leave practice mode and enter game time I will have a specifically focussed goal.  That could be anything from being fully engaged in every swing, building awareness of grip pressure, staying positive or neutral towards outcomes, enjoying the round no matter the score, paying attention to my balance, or trying to just hit cut shots.  Whatever it is, my goal is to pick one or two things and truly pay attention to those through the entire round.

The class was a 3 day course at Grand Del Mar which was one of the more special places that I have played golf.  A Fazio design course about 15 miles outside of San Diego it was the type of place that I would love to live and train at if funds were unlimited.  The views:

What a range!  You could hit ball from 3 different parts of the range (front, back, side) and it was loaded with Pro V1s.  One of the best ranges I have hit balls on.

The approach on the 18th hole.  Great view of the clubhouse coming in and a fun hole with water coming into play and solid Fazio-designed bunkers all over the place.

One of the Par 3s.  A lot of the holes were visually intimidating as per usual Fazio style.  If you hit it well the course was very approachable, but if you were spraying it an extra sleeve or two could come in handy.

Added to all of this learning, there was a third instructor there helping the Vision54 ladies and half way through the first day we learned that he was Tiger Woods’ first coach. He taught Tiger from the ages of 4-10.  Rudy had a lot of great experience and brought a ton to the table.  We really clicked and after the class on Saturday when Rudy followed along as a friend of mine Horacio, who was also attending the course, and I all went out to play some holes.  Mixing the Vision54 tools that we had worked on with the on-course playing suggestions that Rudy offered was revolutionary.  Rudy focusses his teaching on the course to be about playing the game and it was great to pick his brain about how to approach different holes and shots.  I learned a lot from him this past weekend and hope to keep that connection moving forward.  If he could help Tiger develop as a player I am certain that he could help all of us learn out there.

All of this was a great reminder of what it takes to play good golf today.  It’s not about what type of swing you need down the road, rather a way to truly learn how to use what you brought and love it no matter the outcome.

I have a lot to work on, but have been gathering more tools along the way to make sure each day is building forward momentum.  And, The last scoring round I shot before heading down there wasn’t too shabby, which is a good thought to keep in mind as I get back to work in Portland.  I shot a 73 with a rather nice looking back 9:

A few more of those, please.  :)

As always, please check out and download the entire blog to date on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTC0NJA

And please consider becoming a monthly “subscriber” to the blog here: Monthly Donations   Everything helps!  $3 or $9 a month isn’t too bad, eh?

One more thing. Check out some of the fun filming that Golf Getaway and I did earlier in the summer while down in Australia:

There are a few things going on right now.  Practice wise, I have still been improving my chipping, putting, pitching and general short game as well as getting my full swing on a better plane for increased consistency and power.  Here is a short video of my swing a couple weeks ago and then from yesterday.  I have done some voice over for the details of what I was trying to improve:

Sorry about the quality of the second clip, it had to be hand-held and was taken during dusk, which is coming at 7pm these days.  The vernal equinox is right around the corner, meaning it’s time to start thinking about winter plans.

Before I get too carried away about early 2015 there are a few things to chat about.

I’ve been in a swing-focus mindset for a bit of time here and haven’t paid too much attention to how the game is breaking down on the course.  I have some more work to do before I really get into serious score mode, but it shouldn’t be too long now and I am starting to really hit the ball well once again.  So, give it another week and then I plan on getting my recorders out and capturing some updated stats for the site.  A lot of people have been emailing me about updating that page and it’s time that some new numbers are put up.  Soon.

There is a three-day tournament in October that I am beginning to gear up for.  It’s the Puget Sound Scratch Championship which takes place October 17-19 at three different courses:  The Home Course, Chambers Bay and Gold Mountain.  It should be a great tourney and I can’t wait to play in it.

Before that I am heading to San Diego next week for a 3 day Vision54 course.  I love working with those ladies and am very excited to have a chance to see them again; this time for 3 days.  I fly down there next Thursday and the course is just outside of San Diego at the Grand Del Mar.  While down there I am going up to Carlsbad for a meeting on Monday with a potential sponsor.  Unfortunately I cannot mention who it is quite yet, but I am hoping to amp up the game and the site in 2015 and with the help of a sponsor that will be possible.  It’s still been just a one man show to date, which is great and all, but there are a handful of things that I would do different if a budget existed.

In a similar vein to the Carlsbad funds quest, I have been working on acquiring funds for a TV pilot.  I have a great idea of a show that’s underlying story arc is my journey, but would be appealing to a wider-than-golf audience through themes of skill acquisition, talent versus practice, human performance and the ways and means of achievement.  The best part is that outside of being entertaining it would also allow me access to the mini-tournaments and coaches that I would like to be exposed to for experience and wisdom along the way.  It’s a win-win that will be funded, just not sure how quite yet.

That’s a bit about what’s been going on.  I should write more about all of this soon.  For the time being I have been spending the evening hours brainstorming and putting together presentations.  Just searching and waiting to find the right partners.

Also, please don’t forget to download and read the entire blog from start until breaking par just a few months ago.  It’s a great way to catch up on all of the action and the highs and lows that come with dropping everything to pursue a completely new direction in life. Download it on Amazon here:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MTC0NJA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00MTC0NJA&linkCode=as2&tag=thdapl05-20&linkId=NQ72WF55IIVE2AQ2

Thank you!

Competition wise my spring was much better than this summer.  I began the year posting a 76 at the ICHP Conference in Orlando which was good enough to be the medalist round for the event and then followed that up with some solid mid-70s rounds at Riverside that won money in the Thursday and Saturday games.  I was in contention in Riverside’s money list (the top 15 earners throughout the year up until today get to playoff for a large chunk of change, all of the money coming from Thursday and Saturday games played up to this point) through May and seemed to place in most events I played in. My swing wasn’t too pretty, but I knew it and could get around the course in the mid 70s.

But, mid 70s isn’t my goal so I began the process of breaking down and rebuilding once again.  I worked on, and struggled at times, getting the swing more on plane and improving my dynamic loft as well as trying to get to a place where I better understood my misses.  This time around it hasn’t been coming easy as it is so tempting to revert to my old swing when I get out there and play golf as I know how to hit the ball one way and when the pressure is on sometimes it’s just easier to relinquish and go with the old, especially during competitive golf. Essentially, I have been stuck between the new and the old.

But, after struggling with this change for a few months I realized that my mind was a bit confused with exactly what I needed to do.  I had seen Bruce a couple of times this summer and I knew that he wanted me to make a better turn and have a one-piece takeaway, but for some reason I had been struggling with implementing these changes no matter how hard I worked on them.  After a long time of working without concrete results I decided to have a fresh set of eyes look at my swing to see if there were any differing thoughts on what I needed to do.

A couple of days ago I went and saw John Bowen at Heron Lakes.  He was one of the first teaching pros that I ever met as I used to do all of my putting practice out there, and I have played a handful of rounds with John so he knows my tendencies.  I happened into him on the range between two lessons he was giving and he had me take some swings to see where I was at.  He noticed the same swing patterns as Bruce has been pointing out:  I take the club up immediately behind me with my wrists/hands and then it gets stuck and ends up flat and over the top.  John suggested that I make a one piece takeaway to help keep the club on plane.  It was the same thing that Bruce has been wanting me to do this entire year and the same thing that I have been struggling to implement.  But, John had a different way of describing the issue and he suggested a new drill that made sense to me.  It was the same information but delivered differently and it seemed to click.

I went back to the range and worked for the rest of the day and the next day and started seeing some concrete results in the videos I took on the range.  It has been a long change process and it’s not over right now, but at least I have a good sense of what I need to do and where I want to go, as well as how to get there.  Both John and Bruce want to see me making a better turn and keeping the club in a better spot through the turn and they both have explanations on how to get there and do it correctly.  Sometimes, though, it’s good to have a second set of eyes on the swing to help explain what it is that you need to do.  The good thing is that they both know where I am and where I want to be and they have a similar idea as to what I need to work on.  The worst thing would be to see two completely different style of teachers as that would lead to grand confusion and this game is hard enough without adding that element.

The summer was disappointing score-wise and probably the toughest summer to date when it comes to competitive rounds as I have not seen the progress that I was hoping to have by now with the new swing.  I know what I am currently needing to work on and that gives me the micro goals that I need to stay focussed.  The scoring goals will come when the rest of the work has been actualized and I have faith that things are moving in the right direction even if a seemingly stalled season is on the brink of passing.  There are a couple more tournaments in September and October that I am excited about and a lot of work to do in the meantime.

To help with these changes, a FlightScope is scheduled to arrive later today. The story about that will have to wait until the next blog post, though, as it is time to get out to the range and continue the forward momentum.

Today a guy, Justin, came out from Golfing World (TV show that airs most everywhere except the US) to film a story and we talked a lot about how to improve in this game and what it takes to really make a concrete swing change.   We chatted and he filmed and after the piece was done we decided to work on the range for a while; or at least he decided to stick around until traffic abated and he happened to be a lefty so could actually borrow some clubs and hit with me.  It was great to have him there as we got along well and he’s been on the road for the past 5 years meeting countless golfers and had plenty of stories to tell.  There was a lot of golf to talk about and, judging by our swings, plenty to work on too.

As it happens, we both have been working on keeping the club more in front of the body during the swing and had a similar tendency of getting it trapped behind which then leads to a timing based swing and one that can break down in tourney play.  I told him the drills that I was putting in to try and remedy that and then we both set up cameras to see where we were and needed to be.  I took a few videos of my current drive swing and then a handful of them trying to capture the swing mechanics that I was striving for.  what I found was that no matter how different I felt like I was swinging my positions at the top were crazy similar.   Here is an image of my current swing (on the left) and then three totally different feels that I thought were very exaggerated:

We kind of both chuckled when I took these screen shots.  The one of the left is definitely flatter than the others, but all in all there really isn’t that much of a difference between any of them.  And, the three on the right are eerie in how similar they look despite my intention of having three completely different club paths and swing thoughts.  To me it felt like I was so far away from my current gamer swing that I didn’t even know if I would be able to hit the ball.  But alas, the picture tells a different, and more accurate, story.

The moral of the story?  No matter how much you might think you are changing something make sure you get appropriate feedback as golf-specific proprioception tends to be misleading without a good visual.

Over and out.  My current goal:  Simplify and improve my swing so that I can manage to hit more fairways under pressure.  I currently don’t hit the driver when I have to hit a fairway and I want that to change soon.  Going to put in the hours and get this swing back on a good plane.