Hacker's Unite!

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
101

I think at our level of handicap, sb, we just want to feel what it’s like to flush the ball, on a regular basis. Then our handicaps will no doubt come down as a result. I’m sure we’ve all had those sessions where it felt easy and repetitive, only for it to disappear on the next outing - so frustrating!

I would continue to work hard on Mod 2 now that you are on mod 3. Mod 3 is hard, as you say. My problem doing mod 3 is the bloody weather at the moment - I don’t enjoy doing it in the rain!

Oddly though I now find Mod 2 even more tiring that Mod 3 … Either I’m getting unfit, or I’m putting more effort into it than I used to.

102

Hit a local course with Anth today. He chose the course as he likes the old style layout, very tight and unfriendly to the bomb and hope approach. It was good fun, though we both need a lot of help yet, especially all shots within 80m. I think we were both pretty good on the long shots overall. In fact, I’m finally going to give in to the advice Lag and Two have been preaching, and I’m going to work on all my other parts of my game. My ball striking is now a long way from the worst part of my game, and I fully expect Lag’s bag work to get me there at some point, so I’m going to just do the drills as well as possible and let things wash into my swing over time.

Again hit enough good shots to keep a smile on my face. A short par 5 (maybe 430-440m, can’t remember) ended up being a persimmon driver and 3 wood to a very tight opening of the green and ran it through slightly, pin high though. The funniest thing though was we both hit it straight off the tee over a slight hill, me with the persimmon, Anth with the titanium monster. As we got closer to the balls, we assumed mine was the 30m shorter one. Nup. Persimmon wins, and by a margin. Now I know what you are saying, Anth may not be as long. Only the next two holes we both teed off with 3 irons (both with Hogan blades) and both hit those the same distance. I would put it down to me being comfortable making a big swing at the persimmon as it breeds feel and confidence, and Anth still feeling hesitant because of the lack of feel he gets with that thing. He didn’t look hesitant nailing those 3 irons off the tee though.

So for me, I’m going to be doing a lot of bag work, a lot of sand trap practice and putting practice over the next couple of months. I think I’m going to see a pretty nice handicap dive if that comes together.

BTW Anth, you went par for the 3 par 3’s with a nice birdie on the last hitting a 9 iron to 10 feet and nailing the putt.

103

Very good to read SB. Good stuff Anthgolf!

I went again this morning for my quick nine at 5.45am (I know I’m crazy but I hate heat and humidity), and things are starting to work and what I call my swing to be repetitive. I had 3 pars, 1 bogey and almost a par on a par 5 where I 4 putted!!! I ended up with a 7 so it would have been another par. I’m not too worried as the greens are like the beach ATM at Parkwood as they’ve been cored two weeks ago but I’m very happy pars are coming my way and the bad holes are just because of lack of concentration/course conditions and never more than a 6-7. A while back I would have been devastated with the 7 on the last par 5 but today I’m happy I got on the green in regulation. BTW, my putting was actually quite good during the rest of the round, I nailed 2 long putts to save par on a par 3 (my nemesis hole where normally I end up in the water but today I decided to take a different approach and go long rather than short - nailed a 2i and ended up in the back bunker - up & down from there) and on a long par 4 (390mt).

Back to the bag and module 3 tonight and to the course tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if I win my next comp… :mrgreen:

104

Thanks SB.

A really tight and undulating course with many trees and with small greens which are very well bunkerd. It was really good fun.

That birdie on the last really left me on a high but I was much more pleased with the 3 irons I was striping off the tee…I should have left the driver aka frying pan in the bag and hit 3 iron more often. Long and mid irons don’t seem to be a problem for me at the moment but woods and anything from 80m out are costing me big time…in fact if I had left the woods at home and played with something resembling a decent short game I would have par’d many more holes this morning.

The 3rd hole where I hit frying pan dead straight to about 200m and SB hit persimmon to about 230m was an absolute eye opener for me. My drive felt brilliant but clearly it wasn’t, SB made the point “how would you know when you hit a good shot with that thing” and he is right. I thought it may have been the fact that he was simply a longer hitter but on the next two holes we both striped 3 irons off the tee and both with Srixon Soft Feels to the same distance.

SB hits his persimmons brilliantly. He hit driver and 3 wood to just metres right of green but pin high on a par 5. In fact, after seeing that I went and got my persimons re-gripped after our round and they are now in the bag. I’m not sure if I can hit my persimmons as well as SB does but if I keep playing with the frying pan then I know I will never be able to.

SB is also a brilliant chipper…thanks to TwoMasters apparently. I get over a chip and have no freakin clue what to do and usually chilli dip or fly the green. SB looks like he can laser guide his chips to the hole and looks very natural and comfortable in doing so.

It was good to get out and play with another ABSer and to see that the modules do indeed work. So for me it’s back to module 2 drills, a lot of pitching/chipping/putting practice AND binning the frying pan to play with persimmons.

Pipp, you need to get down to Sydney one day so SB and I can take you out for 18 holes…it’s really was an enjoyable 9 holes. Well done on your round this morning too btw.

105

Where did you play boys?

106

I did it! Went to my local club fitter (who also happens to be my previous coach) and got all my clubs bent 6 degrees flat. You should have seen the look on his face :laughing:

Anyway, that leaves me with my 2i at 53 degrees and my SW at 59.5. Very interesting for me was to see that the 2i, which is the club I almost go for now whenever my driver is left in the bag or on long par 4s or second shot in par 5s, is heavier than the rest of the set, coming at D5. Also my SW is heavier at D6. Now I know why I like these clubs much more than the rest of the set, me thinks on the weekend I’ll be playing with lead tape… :astonished: :smiley:

107

Pip
good on ya for the flat ones. Just one thing. Lag has said on a couple of occasions he actually bends his SW (the one use only in greenside bunkers) upright by 2-3 degrees (i.e 66 degrees). Why? because you play it in an open position which flattens it down.

108

Thanks Macs, I saw that on his specs. Due to the cheap and nasty courses where I normally play I rarely ecounter anything resembling sand, more like cement in fact :laughing: therefore I use my big bounce SW out of bunkers 1 time out of 99 and use my PW almost closed. the SW is my fairway and chipping wedge really and up to now I have always hated staying so upright for my shots with it. I will give it a go and see how it performs and, if need be, change it back to where it was before (65 degrees).

Thanks for pointing this out as it is something that could well escape our attention.

109

Back 9 @ North Ryde which to me plays like a totally different course to the front 9. It was very enjoyable.

110

Well done Pipp. I’m interested to see how you go with them as I’m probably going to do mine sime time after module 3. Speaking about looks on faces, after my round with SB the other day I had my persimmons re-gripped and I go the same look you did just for a re-grip…and a comment that went something along the lines of " I can’t believe I used to play with these things".

111

I have been wondering why my drives which felt so good with my titanium driver were in reality not that good at all, after all SB out drove my titanium with his persimmon without even trying. So I had my persimmons re-gripped and headed out for a hit. Now I had never hit persimmons before but when I finally did severe slices were the result…a problem I don’t have with any other clubs in my bag.

It then dawned on me that I have probably never hit the titanium driver well (aka I wasn’t hitting the sweet spot) it just felt like I had been.

Then I read this posted by Lag in another thread.

Is this the answer?

My plan now is it practice and play with persimmon’s only for the next few months or so. Eventually, hopeully, I’ll be able to hit it off the screws which will then allow me to hit my titanium driver much, much better on the occassions I do take it t the course (which I would like to continue doing from time to time for a variety of different reasons).

112

Sounds like a very good plan… you will really LEARN a lot… believe me…

Then you can come back here and start talking about the benefits of TRUE feedback… so I can take a day off and go play golf myself!

113

Pipp, you are well ahead of me here, I’m not yet sure how much or whether to bend my irons. I’m just loving the fact I’m hitting the good shots better than I could imagine, and my clubs are miles different specs to what a pro shop claims I should be hitting.

Sounds like a plan anth. It is true a persimmon has a much nicer look and sound to it, something I enjoy. It’s also true that it hurts to think a perfectly tough hole can be made easier by swapping in big hitting technology. But my main reason to go back to old equipment is that my swing is something I’m working very hard at, and I see persimmon as another tool to help that development. It’s a very small tool, as the main tool is working hard at Lag’s modules. You could use oversized kmart cavities and learn to hit sub 80 scores with the right training and commitment, but the feedback from the old blades will help to a degree I believe.

I may reassess at some point, I’m not a closed book when it comes to these things. But I see my swing as being probably 24+ months away from being near where I want it to be, and I’ll be using that learning tool while I think I have a lot to learn. I’ll probably get some remarks and looks along the way, but I’m pretty sure what I’m doing is the best thing for me at this point, and that’s all that matters for now.

114

Ok guys, please don’t laugh or shake your heads in disbelief reading what I’m about to write…

Today, for the first time after 2 and 1/2 years of taking up golf I have fully realised that the backswing and the downswing are on two different planes. I know, I know, I should have got this one week after starting but that tells you about the type of coaching I had before and how cloudy my ideas were. I have obviously read before about this topic and read about the one plane swing blah blah, clearly I never got the point. I remember my last coach telling me I had to do a loop but I never understood what he meant. After bending my irons 6 degrees flat and having to set up differently I HAVE TO do the backswing more upright or else I would drop my left shoulder down and I would go back to what I used to do one year ago when I used to plow the course as if it was a wheat field.
So today I did just that, I did a very horizontal backswing and then automatically lowered into a sort of 4.30 line (although not perfect yet) and the result was that I could fully rotate and get much more power into my shots and no more chopping the ground at the back of the ball.

Now I’m thinking, if I am going to drop into the 4.30 line and a lower plane anyway, should I set up at address with the heel of my very flat clubs a bit up in the air? At the end of the day I’m going to come back to the ball lower and square, so the lie should be perfectly parallel to the ground at impact. What do you think? If I set up parallel to the ground to start with wouldn’t I get to impact with the heel of the club touching the ground but with the toe up in the air?

Another experiment I did this morning was to take my modern driver to the course after 3 months of exclusively using persimmon woods. I wanted to determine whether using them is actually improving my eye and body coordination and overall swing. I have to say that I would never have hit the shots I hit this morning had I not been using persimmon these past weeks. I couldn’t believe it, and neither could my playing partner that has known me since before ABS. Consistently 230-240 metres STRAIGHT or with a gentle fade. Really great to see and, to be honest, good to my heart because I can see that the hard work is paying off. I also realised how golf becomes much easier when, not only you hit the tee shot on the fairway but also very long. I think I can shed at least 5 or 6 shots just by being closer to the green.

Anyway, I’ll go back to my loved persimmon woods and will persevere, I will only use my modern driver during comps. I can see now why Lag encourages us to use long irons and old woods to practice, it does indeed help us in the long run, even though it might hurt our ego at the beginning.

A happy ABSer. :wink:

115

I think my old post got deleted, but a very quick summary on Thursdays practice. Went with intentions of practicing putting, but 20 minutes in I was bored to tears so hit the course. Maybe 5 holes in, and I wasn’t in the groove, so hit the practice green again. Did poorly, resolved that I would definitely go about learning this putting thing properly now, no boredom excuses please.

Well, Saturday went exceptionally well. I did hit the greens and for a decent amount of time too. I also hit the sand trap, one of my other goals for the coming months. I think I had a fear of the boredom putting would bring, but there are ways of dealing with this. First of all, snap out of it, loser. I mean it’s not like people are painfully inserting bamboo under your fingernails, you are out at a golf course, improving your skills at the game you love playing. I no longer consider putting practice hard. It’s just harder than walking the course and hitting drives at the range. In the end I broke it up a little by not aiming at any hole. Instead I put a leaf 10 feet away, putted 3 balls at it, then putted 3 back to the original spot where I had another leaf. I then moved it to 20 feet after a while, 30, 40, 50 I think was the max. Trying Al’s tips, and about half way through I was getting a clear feeling for hitting solid straight putts, using his advice. I have tonnes of work to do on this, but it’s nice to get some positive feeling so early on.

Sand play was more fun. I think this could be done without a ball for now. I looked at the “divots” fat shots and solid shots left. I have an idea I could practice by drawing a straight line, aiming for that as my entry point, and aimi at getting consistant divots. Put a ball 1-2 inches from that line, and technically it should fly very well. I came up with this after though, so haven’t tried this. Bradley’s tips were useful, and I’m certain I’ve already improved a lot in this area.

But I think the main thing is the secret to getting good at this game is doing more work than others. We may think we are challenging ourselves and our course, but in reality a human created our course and set a score for it. And people playing it at different levels on average do a certain amount of work to improve their game. That’s why I can’t set my scoring goals yet. I’ve seen guys playing 1-2 times a week without decent practice on 12-13 handicaps, so I know I’m doing more than them already. I’m not really sure how much work 4-7 handicaps do, but I must be close to that work load too. I will do as much work as I can within the boundaries I set myself to still be a key part of my family, but that still gives me plenty of time to give low scores a decent shake up if I have my practice concepts down well.

So when it comes to putting practice, and I feel myself wanting to quit after 20 minutes, I have to ask how long would a scratch handicap think is enough? Then why can’t I go longer? No reasons at all really. I have to make sure my practice sessions are meaningful, but as long as I get that going, my scores are likely to get very good in time.

Oh and congrats Pipp, can’t answer any of your questions, but I’m sure the answers are fairly easy.

116

Putting can be boring as hell…try mix it up

Put four tees in the ground around the hole at noon-3pm-6pm and 9pm – 2 feet from the hole
Now place four more tees 2 feet (or a putter grip length) behind all these tees…same line…so that putt should be around 4 feet long from 4 different directions
Now place 4 more tees 2 feet behind those…(same as above) which should leave 4 putts from varying angles from around 6 feet each

basic diagram below
puttset.jpg

Now take 3 balls…start at one of the tees closest to the hole…hole all 3…go backwards to next set of tees (4 feet)…hole all 3…and go back again…hole all 3… go to next station

If you can hole all 36 putts first go you are doing well…
doesn’t sound like much BUT

  1. you get 4 different looking putts of varying break and different break (left/right…right/left…uphill…downhill) by putting from 4 different angles
  2. you get pressure build up…you must make all putts in sequence or you have to start again

Even though the putts are short…they still al have to be holed just like when you play golf…no gimmes… you miss…you start again
try find a putt with a bit of break-- it will help teach you alignment and holing speed also-- do I bash it in or do I feed it in with the slope etc

That should make it less boring and a bit better practice because it is tournament conditions because you don’t just putt from one spot with little purpose

Get them all down first go and I’ll let you start your own thread about it !!!

1 Like
117

That hole shape in the graphic looks like what I have to putt into at my course. :wink:

Captain Chaos

118

Just play a ball with the opposite elliptical shape and it should roll true to the hole :laughing:

119

If your practice is not structured properly you may as well go and throw darts at a tree. You have to know what you are practicing.

If you have not got any of Dave Pelz’s books on putting, you should order some. He breaks putting up to be more than getting the ball to the hole. There are various skills that need working on including:

  1. Green Reading
  2. Holing out
  3. Lag putting
  4. Distance Control

Thats just a few, he breaks it down even further. The reason your putting sessions are boring you is because they have no structure.

When I practice my putting I have a very clear idea about what it is I am trying to achieve. I spend a lot of time holing 3’ putts using a Pelz ramp. Sorry, to clarify that, I have spent a lot of time over the last few years, in reality I putt only 10 or 20 balls at a time, it takes maybe 10 minutes but I do it consistently and as a result very rarely miss short ones.

At the green I like to putt to a tee before I go out. I use Hugo’s station idea and ensure I am using a slope so I have two side hill putts, an uphill and a downhill putt. I use this drill last thing before I tee off.

When I first step onto the practice green (before a game) I roll putts to the fringe from the middle of the green with my eyes closed and ‘guess’ whether I am long, short or dead on the fringe. This tells me how fast the greens are running that day.

When I am practicing putting in a session, I do all sorts of things you might consider crazy. I will putt with my winter mitts on so that when they come off my feel is enhanced. I put 5 tees behind a hole and practice holing 3 footers in the back left of the hole all the way across to the back right.

I never get bored during putting sessions because I am there with a very clear idea of what I am trying to achieve and I record the session in a manner that allows me to see whether I am improving.

120

Two, that putting drill is brilliant and I have committed to myself to practice putting that way for at least 1 hour a week, it’s not much I know but with everything going on around here that is all I can manage right now…plus I had already set aside 1 hour a week to work solely on my chipping…and this is on top of the module work. Unfortunately I’m very time poor.

I haven’t been drilling the modules for the past couple of weeks as I have been away so I re-started last night. I’m doing module 1 all of this week to re-build those module 1 muscles, then my plan is to do module 2 with carpet next week (at which point I’ll probably send a progress video to Lag) and finally back on to module 2 with the board the week after that - then from there it’s just a matter of getting all the module 2 reps in.

I haven’t played since SB944 and myself played 9 holes at North Ryde a couple of weeks a go (where I birdied the last :slight_smile: just thought I’d mention that again) but I’m going to try and arrange 9 holes before work every Thurs or Fri morning at a course next to my work, I’d rather get my practice thru regular playing rather than hitting balls off a mat at the range.

I’m on the hunt for a Ben Hogan 2 iron…preferably a matching one to my Sunburst Medallion’s but if the price is right I’d take an Apex or Grind or other. Price of 1 club out of the US to Oz is crazy and I could almost buy another iron set for the same amount but if anyone across anything with Apex #4 shafts that I might be interested in please let me know.

I just purchased a Lind Stand Bag www.lind.com.au and I’m excitedly waiting for that to arrive this week so that I can sell my TalorMade one - I don’t want to be advertising for TaylorMade or Ping or Callaway or any of the big OEM’s. It’s just the way I feel at the moment however in future I may play some of their gear if it is quality and looks classy (instead of the current tacky line ups) but I will always buy second hand or from a clearance outlet as I don’t want to be giving them anymore of my hard earned. So in the last few weeks I have disposed of everything in my bag with TaylorMade on it including a hat and a glove. Now my regular playing bag (not including the persimmons and blades on the bench) contains a Mixuno Dirver, Srixon 3 Wood, Hogan Irons, Cobra Greg Norman Wedge, Yes Putter ans Srioxn balls - so you see, I’m no longer a TaylorMade man. Oh and I ended up selling my TM Burners ebay for more than I paid for them hehe.

I’ve been thinking about my scores lately. I don’t go out to score, I go out to play, but because I haven’t played for a few weeks I have been reflecting on why I don’t score better than I do. Maybe it’s a mental thing because often times the way I strike the ball I think WOW I should be off about 10 instead of 25 but I can never back it up and usually fall apart with a poor decision off the tee or poor chipping or a hail mary shot that doesn’t come off. Sometimes I see 70 year olds hacking their way down 150m par 3’s with 3 woods but despite this they play to a handicap of 8 or 10 or 12…surely my ball striking is better than theirs so what is missing from my game? Honestly I think it’s the the golfing muscles that Lag’s drills are starting to build up, muscles that I have never had AND a mental belief that I CAN hit the shot I want (because I have done so hundreds of times before) and the CONFIDENCE to play that shot when I’m standing over the ball - this is especially true with my chipping.

All in all though, I think I’m a very happy hacker at the moment :slight_smile: and feel that with some hard work on the modules in time I will get to where I want to be.