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!

Potentially, this could be a honeymoon period, but from what I have seen and felt thus far I’d say I have finally found gear that truly fits my swing.  I think for the past 1.5 years I have been trying to adapt my swing to my sticks, but my eyes have been opened and I now truly appreciate how much of a difference small changes can make in your equipment.

I am still playing Titleist irons and Vokey wedges, but with the shorter x-flex shafts and having the lie bent 3 degrees flat instead of 1 upright which my older ones were when I had them checked, they feel like completely different clubs (sticks ).  Completely new.

the divots are flush in the sod creating nice rectangular pelts and I don’t have to hold on to prevent the ball from hooking.  I can really get through it and my two shots are either a nice little draw or a miss of a slight push.  It’s remarkable and the best thing that’s happened to my game in quite some time.

The first day I had them I went out and despite having a couple small chipping duffs, a-la Tiger last Thursday, due to not being used to the different grinds and bounces I shot a decent 78.  A few of those bogeys were directly attributed to tee shots and some others from not completely trusting the new sticks as it was my first time out.  The next round I played with them was last Friday and I won a little match play round by shooting a 74.  It was one of those super easy 74s that could have been a few strokes lower if some of the 8-10 foot birdie putts had dropped.  It was great to hit the ball well again and stick some more greens!

Afterwords I almost felt mad at myself for having tried to make the other fit work for so long.  My iron play had not been up to snuff for some time and I just didn’t know why.  I’m not saying that gear makes all of the difference, but it can definitely make some significant difference, especially if you are like me with needs pretty far away from “standard” stock settings.

Speaking of a standard fit, that is the setting of my driver and 3-wood. I have already taken the hybrid out of the bag and now know that I have to replace all three of those.  No offense to Titleist, but their gear tends to be a bit upright, as does a lot of brands as upright can help prevent the dreaded slice, and for someone like me it is harder to hit.  I can get shorter shafts which may help as that assists in flattening the lie.  Whatever it ends up being, it’s time to find the right big clubs for my game throughout the bag.

The point that I have learned from all of this is that if you have been struggling with something for some time it’s good to look at all of the reasons that may be getting in your way.  At the level that I am currently, a slight change in gear can be a stroke or two per round either way.  In golf, a couple of strokes makes a huge difference.  Now if I can also gain some confidence in my tee shots by having a driver and 3-wood that I trust I can potentially gain a stroke or two there as well.  It won’t make an overnight change, but confidence is key and I now have that from 3-iron to 58 degree wedge.

I talked with the guys at Titleist and they confirmed that this isn’t too uncommon for KBS shafts, but it seems like a big issue seeing as half of my irons have broken during play in the 16 months since I got them.  I play the 9-4 irons right now.

I had the 9-iron fixed a while back by a great repair guy here in Oregon City, Jari, but the 7 is out of the bag and now I’m without a 6, as well as have taken the hybrid out of the bag as I just don’t like hitting it, so have been playing with a few gaps lately.  What I have learned is that it’s very possible to play with the 8 and 5 iron from distances of 145 yards to 195, it just takes a bit of creativity, which in turn has taught me how to better control the ball.  So, it’s a good thing to play with different arrangements, although I am excited to get some new sticks soon.

Here is the state of my 6-iron:

Clean snapped right at the hosel.  Very bizarre the first time it happened, just kind of annoying after 3 times.

But!  I had already placed an order for new irons before it even broke, so in a way this happened at a relatively good time.

I worked with Michael Neff on his new GEARS golf system last week at Columbia Edgewater.  It’s a pretty amazing and is the most accurate club and body gathering system I have been a part of to date.  The site:  http://gearsgolf.com

He put me in the motion capture suit and I hit some irons and drivers and he fit me into new clubs based on the results.  He says that I have the Mike Weir “issue”, which is basically about being the same height as Mike 5’9″ and with relatively long arms for our bodies.  The problem with that is it is very easy to get super flat in the swing making it harder to have a good horizontal swing plane with the longer sticks when they are set to stock settings.  To resolve this issue, he fit me into shorter shafts from 9-iron to driver and set the irons to 3 degrees flat.  He is custom making me a hybrid that will lie flat similar to the irons and then the next step is to find a 3-wood and driver that fits better.  I’m going to go with a shorter shaft with both of those and find clubs that sit flatter as you can’t custom bend either of those seeing as they are not forged metals.

The new irons and wedges are supposed to arrive tomorrow.  Once I get those I will have a slight adjustment period as he says a few of the compensations I do in my swing are to adjust for my current clubs not fitting me how they should.  For the past year I have been trying to adjust my swing to fit my sticks, now he says he has found me sticks that will fit my swing. I appreciate that and have confidence that it will help me grow in my game.

New specs on the irons:

Titleist 714 AP2s with KBS Tour (I know, they snap, but I love their feel) x-flex shafts 1/4″ short bent 3 degrees flat.

rest of the specs I’ll post as the final decisions are made and arrive.

I am very interested in seeing if and how much of a difference this makes.  He says that I have been holding off on the swing to avoid the snap hook and actually hit the ball off of the heel with a swing path 6 degrees inside to out and with a shut face in order to produce my draw.  I have been getting low Smash factor and that with better fitting clubs and a more fluid swing I should gain accuracy and distance as well as ball control with both fades and draws.

Only time will tell, but I trust that this is a step in the right direction.  And, having confidence in your clubs is half the battle in this mind game we lovingly call golf.

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.

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!

Recently I turned 35 and along with that came an increase in my monthly dues at my home course.  I went from the 30-34 bracket of the “intermediate” membership to the 35-39 and so my dues went from $298 to $381 per month (including a monthly mortgage assessment).  There’s also a $50 per month food minimum, locker fee, club storage fee, annual charges for keeping the GHIN handicap number, Thursday and Saturday game entry fees and a few other optional charges that can accumulate over time.  All in all I was averaging just over $400 per month and will now be somewhere a shade above $480.

I joined Riverside last July because I had to leave Columbia and needed a place to practice on a daily basis.  At the time I thought I would spend a year at Riverside and then figure out what to do next, but recently it was brought to my attention that I signed a two year contract so I will be there for the next year in order to play that out.  It is what it is and I, more than 99 percent of golfers, can spend the time to get my money’s worth out of the track.  However, considering that I was contemplating dropping my membership, and my job is to practice golf daily, it got me curious about how many people were joining courses and playing the game in general, especially in their 20s and 30s.

The monthly dues for a 35-year-old add up to $5,760 per year, minimum.  That’s a good bit of money in an economy with a high unemployment rate and, from what I have read, a large number of underemployed.  It’s a chunk of change for anyone, really.  $110 per week; so if you play twice a week every week (through the winter) you are spending $55 per round.  That’s not too bad considering the amount of work that goes into maintaining a private course and the cost of golf rounds in general in the states, but it could be a hard pill for a young family to swallow.  The more I thought about it the more it made sense that golf is on its decline.  I hadn’t even considered the fact that it can literally take an entire day to play from the time you leave your house to the time you get home.  That can be a good or a bad thing, just depends on your point of view.

Then I started Googling course closures and ran into the HBO series Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about the crisis in golf.  I had heard about the show a couple times so decided to give it a view and wasn’t too surprised by the numbers they were giving.  Golf has been in a steady decline since the boom that Tiger brought into the game from the 90s to early 2000s.  Now, on average, 130 golf courses have closed permanently each year for the past 8 years.  That is one course closing every 2.8 days of the year for 8 years.  Jack Nicklaus was interviewed and said his design company had zero course design jobs in the States and all of the work was in China and Russia.  Were there simply too many courses built in America or is it the decline in the sport’s participants that is causing all of the shuttered windows?  I’ll just assume it’s a bit of both, but the price of being a member here in the US also doesn’t help.

I have talked with a large number of people around the world lately and it seems that in a lot of places (Australia, NZ, England and a few other countries around Europe) annual dues are less than half of what I am paying at one of the most affordable courses in Portland as an intermediate member.  I don’t want to come off like I am venting, but there has to be a different way to run things if you can be a member of a nice course in Sydney for $2,000 a year, or about 1/3 what you pay here.  If I am considering dropping my membership because of the costs involved and my day job is to practice golf there is something wrong.

I did recently find an alternative way of having unlimited golf balls and playing privileges.  My plan was to get an unlimited range card from a local range for about $1,000 a year and then pay $1,400 for an entire year’s worth of greens fees at one of the public courses (Broadmoor has an annual deal for unlimited rounds).  That would cut my annual costs by over $3,000 and I would still have a place to play on an as-needed basis.  Personally, if things don’t change financially that is what I will do starting next July, but for the time being I will use as much as I can while in my current contract.  It seems to me that more courses should have a deal like that to entice all of the golfers who would like to play more but don’t want to commit to the financial burden that is a private club.  This doesn’t necessarily address any of the issues of golf in general, but it would at least encourage people to get out more and enjoy the game more affordably.

Also from the HBO show I found it interesting what TaylorMade’s former CEO Mark King thought about the future of golf.  His ideas are to do whatever it takes to make the game fun as he thinks people are not playing because it is inherently frustrating/difficult.  He has created a new 15″ golf hole and put those holes at roughly 100 golf courses across the country this summer to see if people enjoy it more and they have found that it is working.  They say that not only are people having more fun, but it speeds up pace of play by an hour, which is amazing.  Perhaps if there is a bigger hole and a round is less than 3 hours (so they can get more tee times and more people playing) and costs 60% of current costs more people might come out.  It is an intimidating game to newbies and takes a large investment that a lot of people simply can’t afford and those who can might not want to spend all that money on one type of recreation.  You could always cut two holes, one 15″ and one standard 4.25″ and depending on handicap you play a certain hole.  If it makes the game faster, more accessible and more fun then go for it.  Hell, if I ran a public course I would try it out for a couple of weekends just to see what kind of buzz it generated in the golfing community. Couldn’t hurt.

All of this is the tough/frustrating part of the game that I have come to love.  I don’t want golf to continue to have the air of an elitist sport.  If there is a way to make it more approachable we should pitch in to help make that happen.  I played a two-on-two match at Heron yesterday with three guys I really enjoy golfing with and the entire game came down to the 18th hole.  It was an all day back and forth epic match and the epitome of what is good and fun about the game.  Competition, camaraderie, frustrations and elations, quality shots and overcoming misses, challenge and an eventual victor.  The day was an amazing summer golf day and worth every penny that was spent.  But… how many people are willing to put in the work and shell out the expenses to get to the point where they can have days like that?

I’m not sure why golf in America is as expensive as it is, but it kind of breaks my heart that this game doesn’t seem to be for everyone.  There is so much beauty in the sport and as the TaylorMade CEO said,  “If we don’t have kids graduating from high school playing golf, what’s the game going to look like in 20 years?”  It might not be my place to pose these issues, but I spend so much time on golf courses and can’t help but think about who is and who isn’t playing the game as well as the general attitude towards the sport from those who have never played.

Unfortunately I don’t have the answers right now and I’m not overly familiar with the costs of running a course so can’t get into specific numbers, although I am looking into that in the evenings as it has become an interest/hobby of mine as of late.  For the time being I will continue to practice and try to inspire some people to play this game through my own successes and failures.  Every day is a new day and you never know how you’re going to do out on the course until you get out there and give it a go.  It’s a beautiful sport that everyone should have access to if they are so inclined.

The next day I had been invited to play a track I’ve never teed it on so had to make sure the requisite energy stores were replenished enough to last all 18 holes.  It was a hilly course on the side of a small mountain (or large mound might be more accurate) out in Gresham Oregon called Persimmon.  The track was an interesting course built, I think, mostly for some amazing views:

It’s hard to see, but that’s Mt Adams in the background.  Mt St. Helens and Mt Hood were also visible making it quite the scene in person.  All of them were much clearer through the human eye than through the wide-angle lens on my phone.

Apparently, though, being on an exposed hillside on an extra windy day makes for some interesting shots in golf.  We had about a two-club wind and the guy who invited me said it was the windiest he had ever played the course.  It was still fun and despite a hilly 18 hole walk I managed to keep my strength through the day and shot a decent score considering two shots I hit that were exactly what I thought I wanted to do ended up blowing long OB in the wind.  It’s tough enough to play a new course for the first time, add some wind…

The next day I headed out to Stone Creek to play a practice round before the Oregon Am qualifier come up on June 3rd.  I registered to play in that qualifier but have only played at Stone Creek once so wanted to refresh my memory on the layout and the how the greens broke.  Unfortunately the greens were recovering from being punched and they had top dressed, but I still got a good look at where to hit tee shots and approaches on each hole and what parts of the course are dead zones.

There are about three weeks until that qualifier which is plenty of time to play another practice round once the greens finish healing.  I’ll probably head out in late May to give it a go.  To me, that is the most important part of a practice round at a course you don’t have experience on.  Ball striking is often up to distances and knowing which side of a fairway to aim for, but putting can be subtle and easily add strokes to someone unfamiliar with the undulations.

I’m excited about that qualifier.  This is the first year that I have had a low enough handicap to have a shot at the tournament.  Last year I missed the handicap cut by about one stroke, but am pretty sure I will be in the qualifier playing field this time.

Speaking of tournaments, I have budgeted $1,000 this year for those events.  So far I have spent just over $200 in 2014 on tournament rounds.  The Oregon Am is $100 for the qualifier and an additional $100 if you make the actual playing field.  I hope to play in the Oregon Mid-Am and Oregon Stroke Play which are $175 each.  That means I have either $350 or $250 remaining depending on if I get into the Oregon Am in mid June.

The majority of that will go to the Royal Oaks Invitational if I get the invite for that event.  I’ll know more soon, but the ROIT is a good tourney that I really hope to play and it costs $275 for the three day tourney.

I also plan on playing in the Forest Hills Am and the Portland City Championship at East moreland which cost about $120 each.  I suppose I’m going to go over budget by a few hundred this year all said and done, but it’s important to get that experience so I suppose I should up the amount I can spend on those events. $1,500-$2,000 seems more reasonable this year as I would like to play in 8-10 larger events.  Next year I will have to find a sponsor as the bigger scale tournaments (like the E-Tour or Pepsi Tour or Gateway Tour) can be between $500-$1,200 per weekend.  But, that’s for down the road and there is plenty of time to figure that out before then.

There are tons of smaller events that I have been and will continue to play in, too.  The easiest way to get at least a minimal amount of tournament pressure is by playing in the regular Thursday and Saturday games at Riverside and other golf courses.  Although there isn’t the same pressure as a once-a-year event, it is at least a way to play in something regularly that you are directly competing with others and have to turn in a scorecard to a third party at the end of it.  Those just cost 5-20 bucks a day and are good practice.

When other events come up I will post them and I hope to play in a couple member-guest events, the Riverside club championship, more NW Golf Guys Saturday tourneys a piece, some match play rounds, etc.  But, for the most part my main events coming up are the larger OGA tourneys of the year and I am excited to be in the field.

One more thing…  I was also just informed that there is a Web.com event at Pumpkin Ridge this year.  That’s just outside of Portland and I here there is a local qualifier.  Not sure what type of qualifications you need to enter, but if I can play in that qualifier count me in!