I returned to Portland on New Years eve day and despite the freezing temperatures and frozen greens I got out there and played a round a day since being back.  Riverside has been closed (18 temporary greens) so I found myself at some of the other courses around town trying to learn how to stick greens hard as ice cubes.  It’s actually a ton of fun to play in these conditions as you literally have no clue how or where the ball will bounce coming into the greens.  You can try to leave it short but it might either plug in the fringe or if it lands in the shade can take a crazy left or right bounce.  Puts a new twist on the game of golf, as if it wasn’t hard enough already

The weather is warming up, though, and by tomorrow the rains will have thawed out the sod and the courses shall return to more normal conditions.   Today I am resting as my entire family shared a rather nasty chest cold over the holidays, brought by my brother and his wonderful daughter all the way from Switzerland as an unexpected present to us all.  I thought I was in the clear, but the flight back to Portland proved to be just enough time spent in airports to let it set in.  So, one day off and then back at it tomorrow.

I still haven’t figured out my driver situation.  I got a demo one built for my by Jari down at Birdie Finnish golf but it had an Accra extra stiff cut down shaft and I think it was too much club for my current swing, so am going to try the same one but with a stiff shaft to see how that feels.  One thing I definitely know, though, is that a shorter shaft both allows me to swing more freely as well as does not slow my swing speed, which I thought it would.  It’s good to know and I think a 43″ shaft will be a great fit once I find the right combo of shaft/club head.  In the meantime I have been sticking with my gamer Titleist 913 and working on getting my swing a bit steeper with the driver, which helps control/minimize the left and right miss.

I actually had this realization while playing with a plus-3 golfer down in Hilton Head who is heading to Portugal to try and qualify at the European Tour Q-School.  I noticed his pre -shot routine and swing were all about keeping the club a bit more upright through the swing and I realized that I had been reverting to a flatter driver swing again which for me creates a bad two-way miss.  It’s amazing how in this game you can essentially “forget” to do something for a long time and then all of a sudden have an “a-ha!” moment getting you back on track.  That is why taking notes is so important, and my Vision54 notebook is pretty much packed with these types of swing thoughts.  Perhaps it’s time to go through that notebook and combine the useful thoughts into something I can keep with me during each round.

It’s the beginning of the year and a natural time to reflect on the past year as well as set up goals for the one to come.  I typically set process goals as they are good for keeping things on track and when hit generally allow for the outcomes that may be hoped for.  One outcome that I would like to hit this year is to place top 5 in a tournament.  Instead of focussing on that outcome, I will choose to work on improving my driving and putting as if I can transition from 30 percent of fairways hit to at least 50 percent by improving my driving accuracy that will translate to more fairways and more greens and if I work on getting the ball started on my line and improving my 7-15 foot putts it will lead to less putts per round and lower scores.  those are my main goals right now.  My irons are pretty solid and not a weakness, but tee shots have continued to lag behind the rest of my game.  My putting is solid, but can always get better.  I plan on attending an AimPoint seminar this year to help me improve my green reading skills.

For the tee shot I think having a shorter club that I trust will help, as well as improving my swing technique vie video and FlightScope.

All good things and I am excited for the new year and new possibilities.  2015 is going to be the best golfing year yet, I know it!

If I was to honestly reflect on 2014 for a moment I would have to say that as a whole it was slightly disappointing golf-wise.  I do believe that I improved in a lot of ways, but the outcomes were not what I had hoped for over the past 12 months.  I did shoot under par for the first time and got my handicap down to under a 3 at one point, but my tournament golf was not where I had hoped it would be.  It’s a completely different beast and the only way to really improve in pressure situations is to compete in those as much as possible.  I have started to play in a regular Saturday money game and this is helping that learning curve.  This year I will join a couple of different men’s clubs around town to have regular games on a few different days of the week at different courses.  Also, I’ll play in more tournaments, as many as I can afford to sign up for.

In 2016 I want to play in a series of mini-tours and this year is all about amping up for that time.

Sorry again about the long delay in blog posts.  This time of year, I have noticed from blogging for the past 4 years, is very slow for both posts and audience.  The week around Christmas and New Years typically sees about 30 percent of the traffic as the rest of the year does.  Not that that is a good excuse, but it makes for a natural short break time.   Much more to come soon!

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:

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:

Amazon Unites States:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTC0NJA

Amazon UK:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MTC0NJA?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00MTC0NJA

Amazon Germany: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00MTC0NJA?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Amazon Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B00MTC0NJA?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

And most any other country, email me if you want a specific link or search for “The Dan Plan”.

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.

For every book purchased from Amazon almost $5 goes to The Dan Plan.  Thank you for reading and please help spread the word to anyone potentially interested in seeing what it takes to make such a drastic change in one’s life.

Cheers!

I am definitely glad I went and hope the opportunity comes one day down the road to return.  Australia is an amazing country with wonderful people and great golf courses and beaches.  Before I write any more, here is the standard photo slideshow YouTube style.  It doesn’t have sound so feel free to add your own soundtrack:

And before I forget, this is the Pure Performance video about dynamic loft and what creates it as well as how to lower it in order to optimize distance:

Dynamic loft is my number one goal right now with the long sticks.  For ages I have not known why I put so much spin on the ball with the driver and 3-wood.  I even didn’t get an answer when I went down to Oceanside for my last fitting, but now I know it is not because of the shaft/club head combo it is more about how I impact the ball.  It is absolutely wonderful if I can gain 10-12 yards by changing the angle in which the club strikes the ball.  That is what needs to happen and what will happen.

The media was amazing during my trip.  In all I appeared on SBS Insight, three radio stations, news.com.au, iseekgolf.com, channel 7, SBS News, aussiegolfer.com.au and a couple other golf sites/blogs.  Quite the circuit for being there just two weeks.  I was honored to do the interviews and it makes me want to travel more to spread the human-performance word in a similar way.  I also filmed 3 episodes of the Australian TV show Golf Getaway that will air in September and will post the exact time and date when they come up. It was awesome meeting the host Andrew and spending a week with him in the Gold Coast.  We had a blast, played a bunch of courses, road in V8 Supercars and on a Harley and stomach flu and all I enjoyed every minute of it.

Here is the link to the SBS show for everyone not in the US who couldn’t watch it, it was a great show and an honor to be a part of it:

http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/299701827561

Also, a video I shot at Bonnie Doon golf course in Sydney:

The Dan Plan reached a huge new audience over the past two weeks and I appreciate all of the responses, email, FB messages, Tweets, etc during the stay.   Sorry if I have not had a chance to reply to them all yet, it’s been a whirlwind.  Speaking of response, I tried to reach out before the trip to get a corporate sponsor to cover a portion of the trip in exchange for wearing a logo and doing some publicity but to no avail.  Perhaps I will be able to find a sponsor for the next trip as I think it’s a cheap way for a company to spread their word through a positive message.  I’ll keep moving forward on my own for now and while continuing to pursue options.  With a bit of funding I could do a similar trip to a handful of countries in Europe, New Zealand, and all over Asia and South America.  I love learning what golf is to people in different parts of the world while also giving talks on human performance and how hard work trumps the old notion of talent.

Australia is serious about its sport and golf; even more so than America.  It may have been the circles that I traveled in, but it seemed to me that sport was always a big topic whether in general conversation or on the nightly news.  They even have three different types of rugby (one being Australian rules football which is a bit different but still a derivation of the sport) which are on tv regularly.  Sport was all over the place and I could tell that a lot of young people were very interested in competing and practicing in order to improve.  I understand now how a country of 23 million got 35 medals at the 2012 summer Olympics, placing the country 7th in the world.

Something else I noticed is that everything is twice as expensive over there.  From coffee and food to gas and lodging, it seemed like you could basically double what you thought you would spend in the states and that would be the price.  You can get some grocery store sushi for $14, a medium coffee for $4, gas for $7 a gallon, a fast food meal for $12 and a cross-town bus fair for about $6.  When I was last down unda it made sense as you got 2 Aussie dollars for one US, but this go around it was a bit more expensive.  I think it might be hurting the tourism economy and Australia must rely quite a bit on tourism as it only has those 23 million people in the country, or about 4 million more than New York State.  BUT…..  the golf is way cheaper and, after all, that’s what we are talking about here.

To be a member of a private club in Oz sets you back $1,000-$4,000 a year.  In the $3-4k annual range there are some amazing courses which would easily be $600-$700 per month here, so even if everything else is expensive you can always play some cheaper golf.  I also noticed at some public courses that tee times were around the $20-$30 range.  It seemed very accessible, even at the posh joints.

One thing I keep considering and loved about all of the courses that I played is how they let the rough go more wild.  It takes a lot less man hours and way fewer resources to keep up a track in this manner.  I think the US should seriously consider how it uses water on golf courses and think about watering less while allowing the areas between holes (or between the fairway and OB) to go uncultivated.  This adds in seasonal differences in conditions while also helping to transition the general publics view that golf is a overly consumptive endeavor.  Especially in a place like Portland I am surprised that there are not “greener” golf courses that don’t have to be green all year long.  I am emailing some of the golf course superintendents that I met on the trip to see what their water usage is so I can compare it to courses state-side.  I will be interested to see just how big the differences are.  I am very curious about this and hope there is a way to convince at least my home course to start being more water-minded.

There was a lot to process and appreciate from the trip.  I’m just getting back to it and made it out for practice and a round today.  It’s fun to be back in Portland and hitting in familiar circumstances.  But, I have goals and after that two week break I think now is a good time to solidify my upcoming goals while also considering how to practice for the rest of the summer.

I have a call with the Vision 54 ladies scheduled for Monday where we are going to talk about developing a brand new 2 hour block of practice.  I’m super excited about this and will spend the weekend hitting balls while contemplating what practice could and should look like moving forward.  The trip was fun and I have a ton of memories and new friends from it, but it’s time to get back to work.

This first one is my handicap according to hours of practice.  I first got a handicap after about 2,000 hours of training and at the time I still had just 7 clubs.  The most recent handicap of 2.8 that was given last week is not included, this data is up to about 5,000 hours of training:

This next one is my handicap related to date.  Not exactly linear, but to me it’s obvious when I made big changes in my swing and what came from them after the step backwards:

This one is similar, but it’s how the handicap relates to the number of practice hours:

Then he charted out my rate of practice and how that has changed over time. What this demonstrates is that once I started playing full rounds my daily/weekly/monthly average practice hours actually decreased from when I was solely working on the putting green and range.  Originally I was scheduled to finish October 2017, but at the new rate the final date should be closer to November 2019:

This final one looks at my training rate from day one to the present day and shows a bit clearer how the average number of hours logged a day has slightly slowed since July 2013.

In other news I got the email yesterday saying I could officially play in the Oregon Am qualifier June 3rd.  This is the first year where my handicap was low enough to get into the event and I am excited to give it a go.  Last year 76 was the qualifying score to get into the actual Oregon Am.  I have that number in the bag and if I play decent I should be able to progress.  The actual Am is 36 hole stroke play and then the top 64 players get to move on to a 4 days of match play.  One step at a time and my goal is to play well in the qualifier coming up soon.

Here is the post from December 9, 2010 titled I like it, I really do:

Yes!!  What a day!  It was a pretty crazy day, actually, but as far as golf goes, it was an amazing day!

The fine gentlemen working out at Heron Lakes let me head out onto the course to play some holes from about 30 yards out.  Seeing as it was absolutely pouring out, I basically had the course to myself so headed out to play the back nine of the Great Blue course.  For as much time as I spend out at Heron, I’m kind of surprised that this was the first time I’d actually walk part of the course, but perhaps good things come to those who wait.

I set it up to play 27 “holes” of golf.  I played three balls from roughly 35 yards each on every hole of the back nine.  Since I was pitching from a bit of distance I made all of them a par 3 (quite a short par 3, but I’m a newbie) and am happy to say that I scored an 81 on the day, making it an even par which is a great benchmark for my first time out on a course!  Not sure what a PGA Pro would shoot, but can assume it would be around a 55-60, so I have a LOT of work, as always, but it’s nice to have a score to beat now and I hope to make it out there more often, especially on the rainy slow days when nobody else is braving the course.

In the picture below, it’s hard to see, but I pitched from about 30 yards away and from about 30 feet above the hole, but in spite of the bunker and the stream of water cutting through the green landed it within five feet!  One of a handful of birdies I shot today.

One of the 27 “holes” I played today, it’s hard to see but the ball’s pretty close!

Not sure if you can tell, but I’m standing in about 3 inches of water, the entire course was completely flooded, as was basically all of Portland, more on that further down..

Although I had the right gear on, there was absolutely no chance of staying dry today.

I loved the view from this little hill, looking out over the 14th green with a train passing in the distance, nice!

Between the two soaked bunker, the lake and the train, this is a tough shot.

What a day!  A great day!!

A couple more of those journeys are coming up this week.  This time they are all interview oriented; two where I am the subject and two where I am asking the questions.  First off, NPR is finishing up a story.  I’ve been speaking with a sports correspondent there for some time and we finally managed to meet last week.  He has a few other audio pieces to get before the story if finished and hopefully we can do that while I practice or play this week.  Also, CNN is doing a longer piece and are flying to Portland to follow me around both Wednesday eve and all day Thursday.  I have a lesson on Thursday they might film and a round Wednesday.  It’s always fun to hit balls and play with the added pressure of it being captured for TV.  Reminds me of the first TV interview early on in The Dan Plan.  At the time I was pretty new to the full swing and was so nervous that I might actually miss the ball on camera.   I didn’t miss, but did have a bit of the shanks going on.  Three years later and my set of concerns has drastically changed.  Now I sit here wondering if I can eagle the first par 5 and capture it on tape

After that interview I am going to NYC for two days to meet with David Epstein and Gary Marcus. Both Gary and David have written wonderful books on learning and I have been hoping to meet up with them for some time.  They will both be available this weekend so it’s a good time to make the trek east.  There may be a free day so if anyone is around and wants to meet up let me know.  Hard to say what the exact schedule will be right now, but it should be a good trip and a fast one.  If all goes as planned both of their interviews will be up on the site one day soon.

In other news, I had not checked on my handicap in a while and was pleasantly surprised to see it had dropped below a 4 to a new record low.  Today it is a 3.3, which is great from a progress point and just means I need to start playing the game even better to get it to continue to drop.  I’ve had a couple of rounds that posted under a 2 and one that was my first negative number: the round two under par posted as -1.7.  I have also had a couple of high rounds recently, but that’s the way of golf.  Even the pros go from shooting a 63 one day to 76 the next, a-la Phil Mickelson last weekend.  It’s so interesting how at any level and on any given day such a wild variety of outcomes is possible.  To me, that’s what makes this game so special.

The good news is that I have been shooting decent scores lately without making any putts.  Not sure if it’s the fact that a lot of greens around here are punched and bumpy or if my putting is just off or if my irons are not tight enough, but I’ve been having rounds where I shoot between 75-80 with way too many putts. A year ago if I shot in the 70s it was because I had less than 28 putts and made everything.  Lately I’ve been hitting the ball well and chipping well then lipping a lot of close ones out.  The next progress leap will be from both hitting the driver better and making putts like I know I can.  Just a matter of time, as everything is.

To make that next leap, though, I need to really focus on making sure I am actually improving.  I spoke with Dr. K Anders Ericsson yesterday and he reminded me just how important keeping track of performance is.  In particular, he wanted me to find a new way to measure my current driver ability so that I can be certain that I am moving in the right direction.  He said that just noting how often I miss left, right or hit the fairway is not enough and that I need to figure out a system that measures my current level (base level as of today) and allows for regular updates as I progress.  Having the ability to measure progress is a huge part of deliberate practice.  I just need to figure out what that looks like when working with the driver in particular.

No matter what system I create for keeping tabs on the driver, a very large part of that progress will be made by working more with Bruce Furman.  Bruce just returned from Palm Springs and will be here throughout the summer.  We met last week and after just one lesson I had a much better feel for what I need to work on and exactly how to improve my game.  I’m not exactly sure how I progressed (or if I really did) while he was away, but now that he is back I will see him once a week to make sure I am moving in the right direction.  Without good eyes on you it’s so easy to revert.  In an ideal world, I would be able to afford about 4 hours of lessons a week as well as a 9 hole round once a week for some on course playing lessons.  However, this isn’t an ideal world and I will make due with one lesson a week.  It’s so much better than zero a week and I love going down there to see Bruce so am happy that he’s back in town.  Langdon might be my home every Thursday.

Onward and upward.  Time to step it up to get to the next level of play.  My current goal is to dramatically improve my tee shot game while getting my putting back.  Everything between the driver and the putter is also in for some major practice time.  Lesson of the day is that in order to improve you need to know where you are at and then make sure you are moving in the correct direction.