“There’s a bucket full of pain”, said the guy walking towards me with his mate as I headed to the driving range this morning…
…“Don’t say that”, I replied, “we need to keep some positivity here”. We laughed, but it turned out to be just that… positive not painful.
Where I went (and why)
Today I skipped the range at my home course to head to the public golf course. The range there is a bit more open, with very little chance of hitting balls at anyone playing golf in the vicinity. It’s wider, longer and a bit flatter (in that the tees are less raised above the landing zone).
I’m happy to hit my fairway wood and driver on this range (much less so on my home range). This was a key part of today’s practice, because I struggled with those clubs yesterday and I wanted to get some better feels.
What I did
I bought a medium bucket, which is around 70 balls on this range. I began with my pitching wedge and worked up the even numbered irons (8 then 6). Then my 25 degree hybrid as a stepping stone to the fairway wood and finally the driver. To cool down, and dial the irons back in a bit, I stepped back via 7 and 8 iron at the end.
Practice plan
It was all about setup and full shots today. I wanted to check my process (which has been developing in the last three practices and two rounds). The changes I’ve made to my grip and setup, which have knocked on to changes in my swing (I think, although I haven’t been trying to change this overtly) have almost removed the left miss from my play (not entirely, but it’s way less likely). Instead, I find I’m more often pushing things right and occasionally slicing shots (ie seeing them ballon or skid off to the right having started straight-ish), in particular my drives.
A while back I increased the loft on my driver, which really helped correct the lefts at the time, but I realised last time out that I wasn’t seeing the club face, or feeling comfortable at address, anymore. I altered my driver back to its neutral loft (10.5 degrees) yesterday to see what that looked like to me now (with my new grip, etc).
Setup process
I was in the centre of the range, so was always aligning myself to hit straight down the middle. I wanted to make club face alignment easy today, so I could concentrate on other things. I was on a mat (not always ideal, but much better than the grass at this range).
These are my current setup actions and (* thoughts/reasons):
- Stand up tall, balanced, club in right hand (* you’ve got this)
- Place club head behind ball with correct face alignment, right hand on top, index finger down shaft, handle and arm on line with inner right hip and right collarbone (* you have control of the club face)
- Take comfortable stance with feet keeping club face and handle alignment the same (* relax in balanced tension)
- Slide left hand into neutral grip under right hand, settling the grip by “wringing the towel”, but take care to keep the club in the fingers, left hand neutral and right hand over the top (* relaxed hands, feel club between fingers and thumb of right hand)
- Pop the hips to the left slightly, keeping club face and handle alignment steady (* feel the weight in your feet)
- Take the shot
The hip pop helps me feel my weight balance and seems to improve my ball-first contact. (It’s a very subtle movement, not the lurch it became for me a while ago). It is part of a trigger for taking the shot, although I find bouncing the club head once or twice is becoming a part of this too (remembering that there will be some occasions on course when I can’t do that).
The process is the same for all clubs. The ball position in relation to stance is more forward for the driver, with the hip pop maybe a bit more marked, as I tilt my shoulders allowing me to make a solid hit up on the back of the ball.
At the range (difficult on course where you might be pushed for time), if you stand too long, get too still, or don’t feel comfortable, start again!
What happened and how it felt
Carrying out the process I’ve described above is becoming more fluid. I don’t think I’m aiming for it to be automatic, because the thinking (“you got this, you have control of the club face, relax in balanced tension”, etc) is a key part of the process.
The process works well. Not all the shots were great, but most were good or better. I totally mis-hit just a few balls this morning (less than 5, I think). This is a much better strike rate than I’ve ever had before on the range. When it went wrong I often knew exactly why, could return to the process and hit the next one better. I took breaks to drink water, stretch and reset.
This was a good practice session. Best of all, I feel a lot more confident with my driver heading into the competition tomorrow!
