I’ve taken up archery and read that the Korean coaches (world’s best arguably) have a saying: “Teach them to shoot 1300 (minimum score for most elite archers) and then tune the bow.” I think this may apply here as well. You are on track to make terrific progress. I think you need to focus on the basics ONLY until you are a scratch golfer before you start worrying too much about equipment. Along the same lines, I’ve heard some incredible guitar players make beautiful music on a “garbage” guitar. It’s all about the basics for you at this point in my opinion. Keep at it, you are doing great. I believe in the 10,000 hours!

My $.02,
Marcus

As you probably know, several popular golf sites have threads dedicated to your pursuit. As with everything, you have supporters and detractors, and there is a comment in this thread from someone who has been ‘anti-DanPlan’ for quite some time, with the writer going as far as to say that your HC is not legitimate, etc. Of course, anyone willing to do just a tiny bit of looking around knows your HC is totally legit, but some people find it necessary to tear others down for whatever reason. I know that won’t affect you mentally, but just know that there are tons of people that are firmly in your corner.

As for the poor tournament results, it happens. If I remember correctly, prior to Sergio challenging Tiger in the PGA championship years ago, Sergio had gone out and posted a pair of mid 80′s scores in some big event. If one were to attempt to deduce Sergio’s skill level from that showing, they’d reach the conclusion that Sergio would never be a competent weekend golfer, much less an accomplished professional. The point should be obvious.

Arriving at a legitimate six handicap in two years is quite an accomplishment. Some will point to the number of hours you’ve put into golf, but there is a certain element to the game that takes some calendar time, regardless of hours, to reach a personal comfort level. Looks to me like your getting there, and I wish you the very best of luck in achieving your goals.

Either way, I’m pulling for you out here in Philadelphia. Glad your swing is recovering well with the fitted clubs. I’m certain the high scores from the tournament will be indicative of squat as your journey continues to unfold.

blessings,
dave

Complementing this parallel lines bring a hole mathematically close with a square impact, is that a square impact with a putter is more important than the stoke direction of the putter. This can be demonstrated with the following test with short puts of three to four feet. First put the ball about one to two hole widths to the right of the hole with a stroke path and the putter face pointing to the right of the hole. Setup with another ball with the putter face pointing to the actual hole, while still aiming the stroke path to the right of the hole as before. Since the ball will go in the direction of the putter face rather than in the direction of the putter stroke path, the put can be made even the path of the putter is towards the right of the hole. Thus, the line of the stroke can be fairly off, the put can still be made if the face is squared to the target. This test shows that squareness of the club face at impact is more important than the accuracy of the stroke direction.

Most people spend time trying to perfect the stroke path of the put, and not much time on the perfection of the squareness of the putter face at the moment of impact. Obviously, both should be as perfect as possible, but the squareness of the face at impact to the initial line is more significant as demonstrated in the above test. The reason is not only the ball will be influenced more by the face angle at impact than the stroke direction (which do have some less influence, as the small friction during contact of the face with the ball can drag the ball off line from an offline stroke path and impart some small spinning force,) but that the parallel lines established from a perfectly square impact mathematically makes a lone put the equivalent to a short put (assuming a perfectly flat and perfectly smooth surface.)

The parallel lines of a very squared contact applies to chips, and short to medium pitches also to mathematically bring the hole virtually closer with perfectly squared contacts.

As the shots get longer, the ball is compressed more and more by the club face during impact, which adds more friction between the clubface and the ball, that can seriously effect the direction due to dragging, and the curvature of ball flight due to side spin, if the stroke path (club head swing path) is off. As the shot gets longer, the stroke path become more important.

The next key factor of the short game is distance control. It was mentioned in literature that Bobby Jones had exceptional ability in this regard. In his video made from a film he made in Hollywood, he was demonstrating various ways of hitting to the green from 150 yards away of high shots, low shots, punched shots, and even running up shots that stopped fairly close to the pin of various five to twenty feet away. He was supposed to be very good at long lag puts.

There are geometric principles that can be used for distance control from wedge length shots to full drives, but it is a long story and will not be discussed here.

It’s all about confidence in your gear. You are right on about the “what ifs” and now that I know I can move forward with even more confidence in everything I do.

Hit them straight,

Dan