The last time I thought about skipping an event was the Iceberg Open at Rose City this April, but that wasn’t from bad play, rather it was because my back felt tweaked.  It was a two-man best ball so I didn’t want to let my partner, or myself, down and decided to play through the lower back pain.  It wasn’t the prettiest site and I had to make some huge changes in my swing to not have sharp pains, but made it through the 36-hole event and had a lot of fun despite the personal conditions.

But, that came with a price and the next day I knew that I should have probably skipped the second round, or at the very least the back 9.  It has been about six weeks since than and I have not been able to make a full swing, and for the first four weeks wasn’t even able to carry a bag or make a chip without pain.  The good news is the time away has been fruitful in that I am excited about getting back out there and have actually been dreaming about playing golf lately.  Also, I am starting to feel much better and think that I can return to practice relatively soon.

Today was supposed to be the first day of my favorite Portland area tournament.  It is a thee day event called the Royal Oaks Invitational Tournament (ROIT) and as the name suggests entries are by invitation only, which leads to a lot of the best golfers from the area participating.  You have to write a letter to the board listing your “golf resume” and based on that you are either let in or put on the waiting list for the years to come.  Last year was my first time playing in the event and it was a blast.  That is easily one of my favorite courses in the area and when they get the greens rolling fast it is a tough test.

I have been looking forward to this weekend for months and had many goals for the three days.  So, I had been laying low in order to maximize the healing process and six weeks after making my last full swing I finally went out and slowly approached hitting a ball.  I started with little chips and some putts then went out to 1/4 swings and worked up to 1/2 and then 3/4 swings.  I was feeling decent and my body was plenty warmed up, so I made a couple of full swings.  Immediately I could feel the same twinge of sharp pain in the lower right side of my back and shut it down for the day.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been leading up to the Iceberg, but it was the same spot.

I woke up this morning and could feel it when getting out of bed and doing random regular morning things like brushing teeth and putting on shoes.  I felt like I had reverted two weeks from just two full swings.  I got ready and my tee time wasn’t until 12:30 so I decided to go out to the back yard and make a few easy swings with an 8-iron and no ball.  Again a little pain, but I still wanted to play in the event.  I had to make a tough decision.

Around 11:15 this morning I realized that it was much more important to fully recover than to try and play as I knew that I would most likely have to WD on the first few holes even if I did give it a shot and with the adrenalin of the event I would probably end up overdoing the first few swings and reverting back to the beginning of my recovery process.  So, regretfully, I called in and withdrew from the event.

It was the most prudent decision, albeit one I did not want to have to make.  Still, give it some more time and fully heal before going out and doing more harm than good.  The good news is I felt fine chipping and putting so this week I can at least get back out and get the short game back in order. Kind of like starting back over from the beginning, I will start close to the hole and work my way back, doing just what the body tells me is okay to do.

Over and out.  Hopefully next post will concern actual golf endeavors and not just injury updates.  I suppose it’s all part of the same story, though.

Last week I attended a fun and truly inspiring event while passing through the Chicago area.  It started as a way to raise a few thousand dollars for a friend going through cancer treatment and 14 years later is a full-on charity golf fundraiser that raised $120,000 this year.  That money is going towards helping 9 families affected by cancer.

In total, the BTB Foundation has raised $750k helping 37 families over the past 14 years, which is an amazing feat considering it started with 30 people out on a golf course trying to help out a friend.  It’s a true grassroots event that has grown from those original golfers to selling out two 18-hole golf courses as well as a 500+ person banquet dinner later that evening.  Very impressive all around.  It is a true charity and community event where friends and families get together to help one another out.  Hearing everyones stories was touching to say the least.

For the actual golfing event, the format was all about having fun and there were random contests on every hole.  I happened to be one of those contests and drove around both courses in a golf cart challenging people to different shots during their rounds.  It might be a putt, chip, approach or tee shot; whatever it was if the player beat me they won a winner pin and if they lost there was a loser pin.  Tom and Bill made the pins, which I thought were pretty funny and great:

It was one of the best golfing days I have had to date as everyone was having a great time, I was fortunate enough to meet most of the participants, and they had everything from bouncy castles to air horns during swings to cheerleaders and even things like this:

Needless to say, it was a great day and all for a good cause.  Tom and Bill have a great way about them and have, with the help of many people to date, created an awesome annual event.  I will most definitely be there next year to participate in the 15th anniversary tournament and will do my best to beat Tom and Bill:

Their goal for the 15th anniversary is to cross the million dollar mark for money raised to date.  An incredible feet.  This is one of the great ways in which golf can be utilized.  It’s perfect for charity outings and these types of events happen all over the world.  I would encourage everyone who enjoys playing golf to find at least one fundraiser a year to participate in.  Not hard to find at least one and at the end of the day you have helped raise money for a good cause while also getting to play a round of golf.  It’s a win-win.

I want to thank Tom and Bill, as well as Dennis McKinnon (aka Silky D, who has been partnering up with BTB for the past five years and who was also on the 1985 Super Bowl winning Chicago Bears.  Great guy and lots of fun to hang out with.) for letting me join in on the fun.  You guys are amazing!  I would also like to thank all of the participants this year.  It was a pleasure to get to know a bunch of you and I appreciate the warm welcome and fun day.

The only unfortunate part of the day was that I still, even after 3 full weeks of no swings at all, was unable to come close to making a full swing.  I could putt and chip and hit half shots, but a full swing felt exactly as it had three weeks earlier when I last played a round.  I figured that amount of time off and all of the treatment I had received at the skilled hands of Shawn and Seth would have made a big difference, but the back was still unable to support a full swing without sharp pain in the right hip area.

With that amount of rest time and treatment resulting in feeling no different, I knew it was most likely not a muscular or tendon issue.  Or, if it was, it was more serious than I had imagined.  A few people recommended getting an MRI and I talked with my sister about that on my next stop in Atlanta.  She is a doctor as well as an accomplished marathon runner and we chatted about everything I had been doing to heal the spot as well as what it was feeling like and she had some ideas of what it may be.

During her running career she had a couple of stress fractures that were misdiagnosed at first and resulted in her being sidelined for a couple to a few months.  How my injury feels is very similar to what she was describing and now I am fairly convinced that a stress fracture is the culprit.  The best way to find out for sure is to get a bone scan, which is much cheaper than an MRI, but she suggested to hold off on that and rest it for a couple more weeks to see if things start to improve.  If it is a stress fracture the only “cure” is rest anyway so that’s the first step.  She told me to try and not do anything that causes pain in that area as pain could signal things getting worse.  The good news is that only rotational things hurt and day-to-day activities do not trigger the spot.  The bad news is that I have to hold off even longer before getting back to practice.  It is a frustrating place to be in, but it is what it is.

After Atlanta I drove down to Hilton Head with my parents and had planned on a number of rounds and practice sessions while on the island, but had to postpone those until the next trip.  It was nice in a way as I had all day to catch up with the folks and that’s not a bad place to rest a back.

Yesterday I began my trip back to Portland with a stop in LA.  The plan, again, was to meet up with Dr. Bob Bjork for a round near UCLA and then to play Friday and Saturday with other friends before heading back to Portland.  Those rounds will have to wait until the next time.  Another good sign, though, was that while walking through the airport with my bag yesterday my back felt so much better than when flying out of Chicago.  In the Chicago airport if I put my shoulder back on either shoulder I could barely walk without sharp pains and even sitting on the flight to Atlanta was uncomfortable.  So, progress is being made with rest as treatment.

My favorite event of the year, the Royal Oaks Invitational Tournament, is from June 5-7 back in Portland.  I signed up two months ago and have already paid for the tournament and very much hope to play, but only time will tell.  From now until June 4 I will avoid full swings and slowly start to get back to chipping and putting and then on June 4 will have to see how it goes.  If I still can’t swing I will have to withdraw, but fingers crossed it’s pain free and I can play.  It would be a shame to miss the event.

Over and out for now.  Sorry for the long delay on posting, my mind has just not been on golf lately as I can’t do it and don’t like to think about what I am missing out on.  Sometimes it’s easier to change your focus rather than linger on something not currently possible.  As soon as I can swing again I will be back on here and social media.

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.

When they reached out to me about a month ago I was speechless.  They asked if I was able to make the trip and I, of course, said yes and since that day the details have been filling in.  I fly out Sunday morning and will be down there for the next week.  Much more on that to come as it unfolds.

In the interim, I played the first “tourney” of the year up here in Portland.  It’s in the thick of winter and there aren’t that many events going on, but I played in a two-man shamble event with another golfer last Sunday.  It was the Heron Lakes Super Bowl shamble and Ed and I had a good time, although we didn’t make putts all day and those things really just come down to whoever is hitting their irons and making putts.  At least one of us was on the green on every hole, but we just couldn’t finish the deal and ended up with simply two birdies a piece on the day.  Not that great when a two-man team came in at 60…

The good news is that event, in a way, kicks off the tourney season here in Portland.  December and January are pretty much dead as the winter allows for only so much sunlight and golfing time, but now that the sun sets post 5pm things are looking brighter.

Not to say I haven’t been playing in competitive rounds as at Riverside we have games on Thursday and Saturday which are basically the same as the competition days in Australia and Europe.  What I mean is there is money on the line and the club posts your rounds.  So, in a way, I play in at least to “competition” rounds each week, although here in the states we just call them money games.   I think there is just a subtle difference in perception.  However it is, there are ways to get pressure rounds in no matter what day of the week or where you currently are in your game.

The real tourney season starts up in March with a few “Iceberg” opens around town and then amplify through the summer months.  I’m very much looking forward to those and am excited to test the new swing in events I have participated in through the past.

Speaking of the swing, here is a quick video of my new swing.  I have been working on changing a few things:

and here is a breakdown of how I compare with Luke Donald at the takeaway:

Kind of fascinating how I have changed from being under the line to over the line.  I think it’s time to find a winter coach…  I have been working on trying to get more on plane and after seeing this it’s easy to realize that I have gone over the top.  The good news is that I am hitting a ton of fairways right now.  If my iron play was up to snuff with my driver I would be shooting par or better as I am hitting 10-12 fairways a round.

It’s always something…

Pebble Beach soon!!!  Will post from there as much as possible.  Love this game!

The thing is, this is an incredibly hard game even when you are just out by yourself.  Add swing changes and the world’s eye on you and I can’t imagine what it must be like for Tiger right now.   I’ve never been a fan boy of his or anything like that, but always appreciated how effortless he made this game seem.  He was the world’s number one player for 13.1 years, which is absolutely incredible when you think about it.  He’s a generational player and one of the better ones at that.  Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and all the other players Nike has acquired to be their poster people, these players of the game are GREAT.  Not just good, not just the best, but fantastic at what they do and achieve.

Then you have the last year for Tiger…

Amazingly, he actually had the longest driver average for the first two days at the Phoenix Open, but could not seem to get a ball up and down or even close.

As much as I possibly can, I understand his pain.  In my attempts to improve my game I switched wedges about two months ago.   For the entire time trying to adjust to them I kept hitting 3 or 4 fat shots per round that literally didn’t go anywhere and then I would overcompensate and blade it over the green a couple of times.  I hadn’t a clue what was going on and kept sticking to the new sticks thinking that I would eventually adjust to them.  But, after a long time of fat and thin shots I finally went back to my old wedges and like meeting up with a long lost friend we immediately hit it off again.  The last few rounds have been refreshing and inspiring from a short-game perspective.  I’m not saying everything was perfect as there is still a good bit of adjustment in going back to my old ones after 2 months away from them, but like revisiting a previous love it’s not nearly as hard as learning someone new’s behaviors and interests.

I know that Tiger is trying to change his short game and I appreciate that as, in my own way, I am changing my swing as well as short game.  It doesn’t happen overnight and he’ll get it back no matter what people are saying.

I’m still hard pressed to break 80 right now, but I’ve gone from 1 out of 5 swings feeling “right” to about 3 out of 5.  The next step is 4 of 5 and then the new swing is ingrained and what feels natural.

We have to stick through the hard times and remember not to judge people like Tiger on his down round or months as he is just as mortal as the rest of us.  The main difference is that he will stick to his process and come out better on the back end.  That is what makes someone great.

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!

Inspiration abounds and sometimes there’s so much to go around it almost hurts.  Other times it’s hard to find your way through a day.  Lately, I’ve been finding so much beauty in life that I get to the course full of excitement and confidence.  I can’t wait to get there and can’t wait to tee it up after my practice session ends.  I know my skills and game are better than ever and each first tee I hit I’m ready to go after it and make some good shots, shoot a nice and low score.

The problem, though, is that my on-course confidence is at an epic low.  I’m testing some new drivers, trying to change my iron swing, the new wedges I’m not 100 percent sure how to hit short approach shots with due to the different bounces and my putting is good but I don’t seem to start the ball on the line I want each time.  Outside of that, all is gold.

I know the change is going to come and life happens in cycles, but that doesn’t necessarily make it better while you are in the middle of the old “take a step back before moving forward.”  Everything I am doing is for the long-term greater good and I know that progress is happening, just have to stick to my guns.

I’ve been testing out some new drivers and here are the FlightScope numbers from the most recent one:

There are some things I really like about these numbers, like the club path and face to path, but the dynamic loft is now too low on average which added to lower spin is causing a lot ball flight.

This driver has a 43″ Accra stiff shaft in it.  I tested out one right before the holidays with an x-flex shaft and I only played 9 holes with it.  It felt crazy strange and I hadn’t a clue why I literally could not hit the ball more than 170 yards.  The night before I went to see Jari at Birdie Finnish golf to have him switch out the shafts I picked it up and did a light flex test in my hands, honestly not bending the shaft much at all, but then this happened:

It was one of the craziest things I have seen in golf.  There were maybe 20 swings on the shaft and it just exploded in my hands.  I didn’t put much pressure on it, so it must have had just a randomly weak spot.  No offense to Accra, of course, as they make great shafts, I just happened to have found one with a defect.  They will swap it out with Jari, for sure.  But, I do know that the structure of this particular shaft probably led to how it performed on the course.

At any rate, I now have the Stiff flex version and am liking it, but it’s not quite perfect yet.  I can tell that something is a bit off with either the length, the head, the weight or something.  But, it’s getting closer to the date where I find a driver that really fits me.  Right now I am hitting way more fairways with the 43″ shaft and making center contact more often.  But, I am not getting it up in the air high enough, especially for winter time when the ball plugs as soon as it hits grass and a better trajectory can increase your drives by 15-20 yards.

It’s a work in progress, but at least it’s finally progressing.

I am also still adjusting to my new wedges, which is proving to take longer than I had imagined as short wedge game has always been a strength of mine, but now I am finding myself chunking one or two shots a round and then blading a couple.  It does not lead to confidence or scoring.  The question I have is how long do you try something out before you make a decision if it belongs in the bag or not?  Last year I stuck with a driver that I never “found” for months and then realized that it just didn’t fit my game.  In retrospect I wish that I would have switched it out earlier, but I kept thinking something would click.  I don’t want to replicate that experience, but I also want to do my due diligence with any potential new piece of gear.  What does everyone else do?

I’m going to give the new wedges another week and then if I have not found confidence in them will switch out to the old ones for a week to see if it’s the arrow or the operator.