I remember reading in Strokes Gained some time ago that this long iron game was where the best of the best gained the most strokes over the field, but it wasn’t until seeing them in action that that concept fully materialized.

Watching both Charlie Beljan and Jason Day not only just stick a  blind green from 230 yards away but both having a short eagle putt was incredible.  Then Day had a buried downhill lie on the 9th hole in deep rough to a short sided pin from 200 out and stuck it to five feet.  It was truly amazing.

Unfortunately, this is not a strength in my game, yet.  If I have 200-240 yards to a green I would say I hit the green about 20 percent of the time.   I can get an up and down if it’s close, but often that next chip or pitch is in a tough spot and can lead to bogeys or worse.

Since I have been back I have thought a lot about ways to improve this aspect of my game and what I realized was that I need a few things.  First off is to focus on this part of the game as it is a current weakness and deliberate practice is all about improving weaknesses.  Next is to find solid reliable instruction via a coach or world-class expert.  The third thing is to work on swing speed in order to better spin the ball and gain distance.

That last one is something that has been a bit of a worry in the back of my head for some time.  I chat a lot about swing speed with different people who are either experts in the field or working on their own.  One guy, Bill, up at my home course has been trying to increase his swing speed with drills and the swing fan for some time and says that he is seeing some results on the range but it is not translating to the course.  I  brought out the FlightScope to measure my current swing speed as well as work on hitting more up on the ball with the driver to optimize distance and we got Bill on it and after a couple months of working to improve his speed he was basically exactly where he was beforehand, which is a bit daunting.

There are a lot of resources out there, though, and I have been starting to read Kelvin Miyahira’s writing about this subject:  http://www.aroundhawaii.com/speed_training.html

I am going to reach out to him soon as there is a chance I may be in Hawaii in late April or early May and if I can make it out there I would most definitely visit Kelvin to see what he has to suggest about my own progress with speed.

Another reason this is on my mind is that I have been playing with some very long hitters lately and it makes such a difference to be able to carry the ball 280+ yards.  They can take lines on par 4s and 5s that are impossible at my current distance and then they have mid-irons to the shorter par 5s and can still reach the longer ones.  Plus, having a gap-wedge into par 4s is a lot different than having a 7 or 6 iron in.  Changes the game.

This is what I have been thinking about and reading about lately. My swing speed has remained pretty consistent at between 104-108mph over the past two years, just depending on how fresh the body is.  But, when I got FlightScope out to measure my driver I also noticed that I am currently hitting about 4 degrees down on the ball.  For some reason the last time I “changed” my swing I gained a lot of consistency but lost about 20 yards of distance and I think it is because of how much more down I am at impact.  So, improving speed while also getting more neutral to up on the ball at impact should be a great way to gain 20-30 yards.

That is where my headspace has been these past couple of weeks.

I always debate the merit of taking such trips, but this time I will be passing through the home town of my brother (Zurich) and will be able to stay with him for the duration of my visit in Switzerland.  I have been wanting to visit him since he moved over there for work a few years back and this is my best chance.  While there I have already arranged for two rounds of golf and am actively looking for more chances to get out and tee it in a new atmosphere.  I have found that when practicing and playing in completely new surroundings breakthroughs tend to happen.

I’m taking my learnings from Vision54 with me on the road and will work on creating a stronger play box when in unfamiliar surroundings.  One of the main things that I learned during the Vision54 course is that I need to work on transitioning from conversation or in-between shot processing to high focus when executing my shots.  I work best when I am truly focussed and it is easy when on the road or playing in front of a camera crew/reporter to not have the right amount of focus when making a swing, it is very similar to playing in a tournament, actually.  Any chance I have to play with new people or in situations where I am unfamiliar are great opportunities to improve this skill.

I leave next Monday and before that I was supposed to play in a 3-day tournament in Tacoma this weekend.  But, there was a catch with the FlightScope and I ended up using the funds that I was going to use for the tournament to buy an iPad to use with the FlightScope. I was under the impression that FlightScope worked with an iPhone, but after it arrived I realized that the iPhone app was just a couple of the games and not all of the data that FlightScope produces.  I also then realized that it only works with a pc laptop, which I didn’t have, so the only realistic option for taking advantage of such a great machine was to invest in an iPad.   The cost of this weekend’s tournament with travel and hotel was going to be almost exactly what an iPad costs, so I appropriated the funds that I was going to use for a 3-day tourney to instead invest in a machine that I can use for the next year to help improve my game.  Personally I think it was the right decision, but I am bummed to not be playing tourney golf this weekend.  A small sacrifice towards the loftier goal.

On a different note, yesterday I decided to play an old game that I hadn’t broken out in a while.  I took two balls and played a one-man scramble for 9 holes, hitting two shots from every location and then playing the better of the two.  Back in my Columbia Edgewater days I used to play the par 3 course both this way and worse ball (same thing, just play the worse of the two shots) quite a bit and always liked best ball for confidence and worse ball for a good challenge.  Yesterday I felt like seeing where I was ball striking wise if I gave myself two swings at every shot.  I hit it well and was on all but one fairway and then all but two greens.  I had to punch out on one hole as both of my drives went left and then I came up a hair short on one of the par 3s playing 190 yards.  I shot 2 under for the best ball 9 holes and could have been lower if I had made more of the birdie putts, which there were plenty of.  Two birdies and seven pars.

An hour later I decided to see if I could beat that mark with just one ball and while playing with some other people so I went back out and played the same 9 holes.  This time around I had 3 birdies, but also had one double bogey so carded 1 under for those holes.  I think playing the best ball gave me more confidence in my swing as I was hitting it better than I have in a while when I went back out.  This is a good way to build up your abilities while also getting a glimpse of your potential, or at least a glimpse of how good you can strike the ball.  It’s a fun little game and tomorrow I plan on going out there and playing the worse ball scenario.  This one is surprisingly harder, especially when it comes down to making birdie putts as you essentially have to make it twice for the worse of the two to count.

To me it was very inspiring to know that whether I am playing best ball or one single ball I can shoot under par for nine holes.  The next test is to see if it is possible to shoot under par for 18 holes of best ball and then let that translate into playing under for 18 with one single ball.  I feel like I am hitting the ball better than I have in a long time and starting to make more putts which puts my potential lower than it has ever been, I just need to allow myself to believe I am capable of shooting such scores and then let it happen.  Sometimes our minds can negatively get in the way and we have to coax them into believing something that might not seem obvious at first.

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.

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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.  :)

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

In the past there have been a couple occasions where I planned out a specific change and then after working at it for a period of time (which I thought was substantial enough) I arrived at a place where I needed to play competitive golf and ended up reverting to older habits or getting stuck in the limbo that is half old half new, which typically results in golfing death, because I had not fully ingrained the new habit/change.

I recently found something in my swing, a new feel, that produces the shots that I have been gunning for.  Nice high slight draws and baby fades that start close in line with and finish at the target.  I’ve played a slinging draw for the past 6 or 7 months without really knowing why, but I finally realized that through a different feel in my wrists during the takeaway I can get the club more on plane.  Long story short, it’s good and I like it.

So now comes the implementation period.  I worked it on the range for about a week while slowly starting to venture out on the course and the results were increasingly encouraging.  Then I began to play 9 and eventually 18 holes with just the new feel in mind and the results kept coming in positively.  I still don’t have a great feel with my tee shot so I am missing a lot of fairways, but with the irons it is pretty comfortable.  A lot of the problem with my tee shot, too, is that I am used to aiming down the left side and slinging it back to the right, but now that I am playing a pretty straight shot I am ending up in a lot of trees out at Riverside.  I just need to learn to aim down the fairway and trust that it will go where it is supposed to.

I stuck with the new feel for a couple of rocky rounds and then progress showed itself in a nice little 73 yesterday that looked like this:

It was a funny round as I missed almost every fairway, but when I had a look at the green I was hitting it really well and close to the pin.  I missed three putts from about 5 feet and had an unplayable shot on the 18th which ended up as a bogey.  outside of that it was a solid round where the new swing was really starting to pay off.  I was pretty excited as it felt like effortless power and the ball flight was sweet.  My playing partner, who I had never played with before, commented about how good a round could have been had I been able to hit some decent tee shots.  It’s always great to have obvious flaws as you know exactly what you need to work on.  I have faith that with the new swing once I get a better understanding of impact positions with the longer clubs things are going to step up to the next level.

The next day, though, I struggled to “find” my new feel and it wasn’t until about the 9th hole where I started to realize exactly what I was wanting and needed to do.  The entire round I could have very easily reverted to my old swing and gotten around the course much better, but you have to give these things time and you have to be able to play through the crappy rounds in order to really find what you are looking for.

Today’s round was a much darker shade of good:

I technically hit more fairways than the day before, but my misses were much farther from the fairway and often in a spot where I could not get a good punch out.  And, the irons were not treating me like they had the day before as I could not quite find the new spots in the swing.  I hit a couple good shots, like the birdie on 17 from a 170 yard 7-iron that landed 2 feet from the hole and a few good saves for bogeys, but all in all the round was about sticking with the new regardless of the outcome as that will come with due diligence and time.

Both bad and good shots are part of learning and in a lot of ways we can improve more from sticking to our guns and working out the kinks during rounds like today’s.  There are a lot of bumps along the way; figuring out what you want to do and then sticking to it regardless of the immediate outcomes is the secret formula for improving.

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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.

I was going to make it a pdf download and ask people to contribute what they thought it was worth, but I thought if I put the book up on Amazon’s website it would be better formatted for all types of digital readers.  If this doesn’t work after a couple of months I may put a link to the pdf up as well, but for the time being please think about supporting The Dan Plan by purchasing the book here:

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I wish to apologize in advance as a few external links did not translate to this format.  One of the most blaring absences are videos.  On a few occasions I talk about watching a video and it’s just a blank on the page.  Outside of that the content is whole.  I edited out about one third of the posts but there is still quite a bit of content, too much in a lot of ways.  Down the road at some point I will have a professional editor (or a well versed friend, or myself when the amount of time in a day magically doubles) take a gander at the content and polish it up.  For now, this is the story, more or less, word for word from the beginning.  I hope you enjoy and get some value out of the content.

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