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 don’t want to keep talking gear, as that’s been one of the main subjects for a while, but it is a large part of my winter focus so it’s hard to not at least mention it.  I’ll try to keep it short; here’s what I found:

With the drivers I was pretty surprised to see just how different the swing path, angle of attack and swing speeds were between shafts and head manufactures.  I made ten swings with each different setup I could get (four different driver heads and a few shafts with each) to see how the averages changed with the club.  Unfortunately I was only able to demo two new TaylorMades (the R15 and the Aero something or other) and compare those with my 913 Titleist and a KZG custom head.  Riverside had just sent their older demo clubs back to Titleist, Callaway, Nike, Ping, etc so I will not be able to compare those brands of new drivers for a couple more weeks until the 2015 equipment gets in stock.  For the meantime, though, it was pretty interesting.

I found that with the R15 my swing averaged 1 degree up on the ball and faster than 106mph.  That’s compared to 2 degrees down on the ball and about 103mph with my gamer Titleist.  I wasn’t trying for speed, but was just making nice normal swings with each club to get some consistent feedback, but found it interesting that the same length shaft and basically the same swing weight between those two sticks created fairly different results, especially in the angle of attack.  I’m not sure yet what it means, but it has opened my eyes a bit more about testing out wide variety of gear along the way.  One club is not in any ways “better” than the other, especially amongst top tier lines at the big manufacturers (who all deal with established coefficient of restitution limits), but one combo may fit my particular swing better.

The KZG was permanently put on a shorter shaft of 43″ as it is not an adjustable head.  What I found with that is that my club path was by far the most consistent, but I was averaging just over 100mph with the swings and my fastest swing of 102 was unfortunately balanced with a few around 98.  I swing my 3-wood faster and the ball goes about as far, so even though I have a great club path and strike the ball pretty well with it, the shorter shaft is limiting to me in potential distance, something I cannot afford to lose being currently a bit on the shorter side off the tee.

I am very excited to continue this exploration and can’t wait for the rest of the heads to arrive at Riverside.  I have heard great things about the new 915 driver and will definitely post my findings as soon as I have a chance to compare it with the rest.

The next step of the week was to decide which wedges to stick with.  My original SM4 wedges are the 50, 54 and 58 degree with 8, 11, and 14 degrees of bounce respectively.  They are also standard lie and have stiff flex S200 shafts.  The new wedges are the SM5 with the same lofts and bounces, but with different (bigger soled) grinds, X100 shafts and are 3 degrees flat.  I like the new ones a ton with the whole and half swing, but cannot seem to chip with them worth a darn.  I have stuck more short chip swings in the ground over the past month than I care to remember, something I never did in the past.

I wasn’t sure if it was adjusting to the new wedges or the new bounces and lie.  So, I took out the old ones for a couple of rounds this week and what I found was that I missed the feel with the half and full swings on the new wedges and after a month away from these old ones my chipping wasn’t much better than with the new ones.  What I realized was just that I need to adjust how I have the wedge interact with the grass for short shots and that the new ones will actually make me a better short game played in the long run as they are forcing me to really consider each shot that I make and to not just have one go-to short shot.  They may not be the answer a year or two from now, but in the time being they are teaching me and that is worth keeping them in the bag.

That was the gist of the week, work on short game and tee shots and get my bag ready for the ensuing tourney season.  It was a good week in that respect as I learned a ton about both gear and, in particular, how I interact with it while on the course.

The end of the week was kind of a bummer as I tweaked my psoas muscle at the end of Friday’s round somehow and later that night it continued to ache/bother my walking and swinging so I decided to take Saturday and Sunday off in order to rest it.  I’ve had a similar strain in the past and I tried to play through it and it ended up lasting weeks, so this time I decided to pay attention to my body and take a weekend off instead of potentially inflaming the issue.  After those two days I went out to Riverside on Monday and hit balls for a couple of hours and was feeling much better.  I think by tomorrow or Wednesday it should be back to 100 percent.

On a side note I am starting a new yoga routine to help mobility, stability, strength and prevent these minor injuries from occurring.  Much more on that soon.

Here’s to a great week!

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.

It’s been about 1.5 years since I had any significant change to my irons or wedges and I have been playing stock standard lie and a stiff shaft.

This new setup has 1/4 inch short shafts which are 3 degrees flat through the set with KBS Tour X-stiff shafts in the irons and X100 in the wedges.  It’s a big change, especially going from standard lie (which when we measured them all of my irons were actually 1 degree upright) to 3 flat and will take a little bit to let my swing adjust to them, but they arrived last Wednesday and I took them straight out to the course to break them in on some good turf.  I was leaving early Thursday for my sister’s wedding (without clubs to spend time with the family) so it was very important for me to get a round/practice in with them before heading out.

And it was great!  I had a few block shots (left push), which Neff said I would as that’s what happens when you go from too upright for your swing/body for 1.5 years to having a set that fits your swing.  Eventually I will learn to trust the new sticks and let my swing be more fluid than before.  I didn’t realize it, but I have been playing with irons and wedges that are too long for me and upright which has been causing me to hold on in order to fight hooking the ball.  Live and learn.

No matter how great they felt and how excited I was to be playing with them (and with a full set for the first time in a month as a few of my irons have been broken and I took the hybrid out of the bag so now I have a 3-iron to replace it), it wasn’t the highlight of the day.  Eric, aka Country Club, knocked in an eagle on the par 4 9th at Riverside.  It was a great shot from about 150 yards that looked good the whole way.  And, he needed it to go one up on the front

I was surprised at how effortless it felt to swing the new sticks.  I only had one major miscue all round, which was when there was OB left and I overcompensated in order to not block a ball OB and ended up hooking my new 7-iron straight into the trees right.  That was maybe the 10th time I had swung the irons so it’s understandable to not have complete faith in them yet. This will come with practice.

Speaking of practice, I went to the club today just to realize that Portland had frozen overnight and the course was closed.  I am not a fan of hitting off of mats as I think it breaks your swing and body down and the chipping green/putting greens were closed too, so I’m going to use the rest of the day to logistically catch up after the trip.  Also, I have found an iPad, finally, so will be breaking out FlightScope this week to get some updated numbers on the swing.

All great things!!

I’ll be working on the sticks from now until December 20 when I head down to Hilton Head to visit the parents.  I will definitely be bringing the clubs down there and would love a pick-up game if anyone is around.

I have no clue why this is, but every time I have a bigger trip planned I miraculously catch a head cold a few days before the flight.  This trip is no exception and I find myself masking a cough with some over-the-counter syrups while trying to stay focussed during a very interesting and busy part of The Dan Plan.

While the cold will soon pass, the knowledge I learned today may take a few weeks to a month to truly set it.  I went to get trained on the FlightScope by the NW rep, Michael Neff, who I knew from previous encounters as the golf world is surprisingly small, out at Columbia Edgewater today.  It was good to work with Neff and to be back out at the range of CECC.  We went right into the nitty gritty as a lot of the features and data the FlightScope gathers is the same as TrackMan.  One of the biggest differences is that TrackMan declines to display data if the radar doesn’t pick up enough detail, whereas the FlightScope will give numbers on every swing.   On one hand it is nice that TrackMan doesn’t give any partial data, but on the other hand you can just delete a swing on FlightScope if you think it picked up just as much sod as ball.  I digress, though, and will post a thorough review once I have had the new machine for a month or two.

For the time being the story got more interesting after we went through the training and just started hitting balls and talking about the numbers.  I wish I had taken a screen shot, but the gist of what we were looking at is that my numbers are pretty crazy, really.  I can go into details once I have hit and gathered some data, but for now Michael showed me how off my irons are for my swing.  We played around with different things and found that when I went with a 4 degree flat 1/2″ short shaft in my irons my swing numbers squared up and I was hitting it with optimal smash factor and gaining ball speed, optimizing trajectory and increasing distance as well as improving my scatter pattern.  It was making a huge difference and I was pretty shocked.

He said that he wouldn’t be surprised if my coaches had been having a hard time fighting some of my habits because a lot of the habits were due to compensating for the shafts setup that I had.  When we looked at my arm length compared to my height it also made sense.  During the swing my arms are very low creating a horizontal swing plane (HSP) that doesn’t match up with my iron profile.  But, when we went with the 4 degree flat shorter shafts the HSP got on track and everything else lined up better.  I could then actually swing to the right instead of coming at the ball from 6-8 degrees from the inside (I’m a lefty, remember), which was squaring up the path and face.

Neff said a lot of the issues I have been struggling with were due to my club setup.  He was not trying to sell me anything and I trust his technical knowledge and have known him for a couple of years, so I believe what he says.  And, when we got an iron with the setup he thinks I need all of my balls were flying so consistently and effortlessly.  My 7-iron swing speed got up well above 90mph and the smash factor was right at 1.38, which is pretty optimal for that iron.  With my gamer shafts I was getting a smash factor of about 1.3 and swinging inside out about 6 degrees with a shut face at impact, but hitting the ball towards the heel of the club to compensate for the shut face.

I am not going to change anything right now because I am about to go on the trip and need to be able to play how I know how to play, but it was eye opening to see how much bending an iron can change the impact numbers.  I am also not financially in the market for new irons, but am interested in trying out his setup and bending the ones I have when I return to see what happens.  That’s the beauty of forged irons: you can play around with lie and loft and always go back if it’s not working.

Long story short:  I’m going to work with the FlightScope and figure out what I need to do to optimize my current swing.  That may mean bending some clubs and it may mean getting some new sticks altogether.  Whatever needs to happen, I now have the right tools to figure it out.  After Switzerland that will be one of my practice priorities.  Gear, mental game, swing, physical fitness, diet, etc.  There are a lot of things to continue to improve.

For now, it’s officially the beginning of rainy season here in Oregon:

But I have some new rain gear to dive in with.  I went with Zero Restriction this year and am very impressed with the jacket so far, will try the pants when the stuff really hits the fan. The jacket is easy to swing in and as dry as can be on the inside:

One more, I swear by next summer this ball is going to be completely consumed.  I keep wait for the day when I walk by and it’s no longer visible:

Time for one more round today, some fresh air will help the cold dissipate, and then will get packed up and ready to head to Switzerland.  I have two rounds planned so far in Zurich and am excited to see what Swiss golf is all about.  I have a feeling the ball may fly a bit farther than sea level Portland.

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