Some TrackMan data and a winter attack plan.

I updated my TrackMan today to TPS 3.0 and got it out to the range for a new Combine test. It was pretty sweet as the new operating system didn’t miss a single ball and I shot one of the best scores to date: 73.7 (which I thought was my best score, but it looks like I hit 73.8 a few weeks ago. But.. I was above 75 until the last few long shots knocked my score down (driver keeping me down once again).

For those of you not versed in this system, TrackMan is a ball flight monitor that is radar based to track both the club through impact and the ball flight. I’ve had one for a while and use it to see what’s going on with my swing. It helps me figure out aspects of club path, face angle, attack angle, etc. And, they have set up a “combine” that anyone in the world can use to test their current ball striking abilities compared to pros and top golfers across the globe. This combine measure 60 shots from 60 yards to driver then gives you a score on how well you did according to proximity to the target in feet. The current world record for this test is a 92.1 and there are a handful of PGA Tour players that have scored in the upper 80s to 90. This pic shows some average scores according to different levels of golf player:

Screen Shot 2013-11-27 at 9.43.07 AM

Here is today’s combine for an example of how my specific score breaks down:

Combine 11/25/2013

As you can see I was pretty solid in the short game, but left the door wide open for targets of 180 and driver. I suppose this makes sense as the long game is what is killing me in my actual game and this got me thinking that I need to create my own test from 170-200 yards to see if I can improve upon these distances. Luckily, this is possible in the software so I created my own distance test to see how I would perform and was pretty shocked by the results:

Dan’s distance test

These results brought some great realization to the table. Obviously, I need to work on the long game both finding my distances as well as figuring out how to control the club face through the impact zone. Everything was way inside to out which makes for intense misses when that face isn’t correct to the path. I need to figure out how to get the club going more squarely through the impact zone in order to tighten up my left and right misses.

All of this was confirmed yesterday when I played my old home track, CECC, for the first time in 6 months. A member invited me out and it was great to see everyone out there. I had missed that place and was happy to return for the day.

I started out hitting good drives on the first five holes and had a bunch of tap in pars, one missed 5 footer that resulted in a bogey and one birdie to be even through 7. After that I started having some big misses with the driver, two balls hooked and ended up just 100 yards off the tee in the trees and one sliced into water. Each of those three times resulted in double bogeys. I ended up shooting an 80 out there almost solely from big tee misses. When I hit a fairway it was par or better.

My misses need to get tighter and using TrackMan’s Combine is a good way for me to focus on that with added pressure. I’ll be spending quite a bit of time working through this over the next 5,300 hours

Richard Chen says:

November 28, 2013 at 6:59 am

The good news is starting the round with five good drives. In the theory of golf mechanics, there is the concept of the extenting the hitting zone like Hogan has the clubhead staying straight along the target line in the hitting zone for longer than average even after impact. The back of the leading hand points a little longer at the target after impact, so as to extend the driver clubhead along the target line a little longer through the hitting zone. The leading wrist remaines flat going through the hitting zone, as well as for a period after impact. The leading wrist can rotate as a unit with the leading arm, the leading wrist stays flat, so as to keep the clubface pointing toward the target for a longer extended period. Having the last one or two finger of the leading hand holding more firmly can firm up the leading wrist to keep it flat, while still alowing the leading wrist, and the leadind arm to rotate under contol and with proper rotation speed going through the hitting zone. These can eliminate any excessively wild uncontrolled flipping of the wrists like wild baseball pitches into the dirt

Robert Johansson says:

November 30, 2013 at 6:08 am

cant control the clubface. you either have a swing that helps you square up without effort or you have a the same flaw and you sequence your body in the wrong order. (golf swing 101)
so if you play 5 holes and it works, and then start to go sideways its then highly likely you then cant control the way the body holds up for the sequence and then change focus and attention and become a “how do i fix this” instead of playing golf.

Your old tendency with the swing was to be flat and around (hook country) which means your more used to swing that way perceptually and that will influence your game and wont be easy to spot while playing.
If you then hook, the new swing mechanics will force you to do it the other way and slice it (fixing it) by overdoing it.

Its more of a perceptual issue atm for you and I would ask “what did happen during those five first holes and then what triggered the shift”. Once you can replicate that, you wont hook or slice as you know what did happen.

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