Dynamic Loft and how to practice

Yesterday I visited swing coach Bruce for the first time since before Australia and Denver, or about 6 weeks.  It was great to catch up and had plenty of questions about my swing and what to work on next.

The first topic was dynamic loft.  Since learning (or rather having it click as I “knew” what dynamic loft was, but didn’t quite comprehend the details of it until recently) about this aspect of the swing while at Pure Performance Labs in Sydney I had become very interested in how it affected ball flight and how I could change mine to optimize distance, spin and consistency.  Bruce was clear in how to lower my dynamic loft and instead of writing about it I figured I would shoot some video of him explaining it.  Bruce on dynamic loft:

Makes sense to me.  It’s not the best edited video in the world and shot on my phone, but the point gets across.  To compress the ball it is important to get some forward shaft lean.  I am not sure why, but I always thought that you only did that if you wanted to hit a knock down shot, and especially with the driver I thought you wanted to get the club head well in front of the hands at impact.  But, that was causing too much spin and a higher ball flight that was losing a lot of distance.

This is a good example of how you can, with the best intentions, work on something for a long time in this sport (or most anything) just to find out down the road that what you had been doing was not optimal.  I’ve been through this scenario countless times and it’s just part of the learning process.  It doesn’t bother me and, in fact, I get excited when I learn something new that I can work on that was completely contrary to what I had envisioned as the correct physics for the swing.  I feel like I have something super concrete to work on now during the technical section of my practice.

Speaking of practice, I spoke with the Vision54 ladies a few days ago about how to further structure practice and they clarified one thing for me.  Their research has shown that breaking practice into thirds is optimal.  1/3 technical, 1/3 essential playing skills and 1/3 simulation.   I had thought that the simulation section was something that was best done on the range visualizing a course that you were going to play or had played.  But, the clarity came when she explained that simulation was optimal on the course and it was supposed to be as close to and realistic to tournament golf as possible.  The simulation section of practice, then, could be utilizing your successful play boxes for 9 holes while something is one the line with whoever you are playing with.  It’s good to have clarity.

Off to practice the new swing aspects.  Not sure where yet as Riverside is closed today and tomorrow for the member guest.  I hear Heron Lakes is in mighty fine condition right now..