One of my intentions for the year is to try and be as efficient as possible with my limited practice time and the facilities that I have access to. I would love to use a strokes gained app of some sort to help me focus my practice, but because I play half lefty/righty, this isn’t really an option for me. The skill gap between my lefty and righty sides is pretty wide, and there’s not likely to be much overlap between the kinds of things I need to work on righty and lefty.
To this end I spent quite a bit of time thinking through what data I might want to try and capture, and how I might use that data inform how I dedicate my practice time. Ultimately I’ve decided that rather than try and capture every shot, I should focus on capturing shots that clearly cost me the most strokes, or the potential to lost strokes. This would include things like drives that end up in the trees, chunked shots, and partial wedges that miss the green.
I’ve played enough rounds at my muni over the last few years that I can pretty easily recall each shot after the round, so my intent was to just replay the round in my head afterward, and jot down the costliest shots. If I play a different course, I’ll likely need to capture these shots along the way, perhaps by dictating some notes on my phone. I’ll then put them into some sort of spreadsheet to categorize the errors. I expect that over time, I’ll get better at determining how to categorize things, but I need to start somewhere.
Yesterday I played my first round of the year, and this gave me my first chance to see what sort of data I might get. Less than a week ago we had quite a bit of snow on the ground, but a combination of rain and unseasonably warm temperatures melted everything. As a result, I was unexpectedly able to play with the small member group at my muni.
I arrived at the course in what should have been just enough of time to check in with the ringleader of the group, hand over my $5 ante, do some dynamic warm up movements, and chip and putt for a few minutes. To my surprise the parking lot was completely full, and by the time I found alternate parking and walked up to the clubhouse, the second (and final) group was already on the tee box. They teed off early to get ahead of the rush of people taking advantage of the break in the weather.
The second group had a foursome, but the first group was a threesome. The first group was nice enough to wait for me to quickly tee off to join up with them, so I hurriedly teed up a ball, took a couple of practice swings, and hit a really solid righty drive. I then went running down the fairway to catch up.
A solid tee shot that was in play – nothing to record there. However, I ended up chunking my second shot, a lefty 4h. Definitely noteworthy. I then had to punch out well right of the green with a righty 8 iron. Not much else I could do there. I then came up short with a lefty SW from about 50 yards. Noteworthy. I hit a decent righty chip within 8 or so feet. Not great, but not really noteworthy, especially since it was the first hole and I didn’t know how the greens were playing yet. I missed the putt, but from that range I can’t really consider that to be noteworthy. Triple bogey for the first hole. Not a great start.
On the second hole, a short par 3 over a small pond, I thinned a lefty 8 iron that rolled and rolled, just making it into the pond. Noted. I hit a really good righty SW from about 30 yards onto the green, then two putted for double bogey. I managed to right the ship after that, playing solidly for the rest of the round. Turn those first two holes into bogeys, and I would have shot one under my handicap index, which is currently a 16.
When I go through the rest of the round looking for the shots that cost me the most, I can point to about 13 shots. Interestingly enough, none of them were with the drive. I had about the best driving rounds that I can remember. It’s only one round, but I feel like it’s a testament to the indoor work that I’ve done with the rope swing and the fake orange whip. As for the costly shots, here’s what I noted:
- Lefty low point control problem
- Chunked lefty hybrid. Didn’t advance to the green, and required a pitch out due to the angle.
- Thin lefty 8 iron into a pond, resulting in a penalty stroke.
- Lefty face control
- Two pulled lefty irons. One hit a tree, and the other was wide enough to leave me with a difficult pitch shot.
- Righty wedge distance control
- Short of green from 60 yards on one shot. Led to a chip shot instead of a putt. I did have four other partial righty wedges though that I hit well.
- Lefty chip distance control
- Very, very short on a simple lefty chip that left me in three putt range. I did three putt, but given how hard the first putt was, the chip cost me a lot more.
- Righty iron distance control
- 3 short approaches. One with PW, one with 8i, one with 6i. Need to learn my distances with my “new” righty irons.
- Lefty wedge distance control
- Short on four lefty wedges in the 40 – 60 yard range. All left me with chips instead of putts.
This is a small sample size, and it will be interesting to see what the data looks like for my next few rounds. The lefty wedge distance control really seems to stand out. I should be able to put them on the green more often than not. In this round I had four lefty wedge shots in the 40 – 60 yard range, and missed the green with all of them. If I find a window to get some outdoor practice before my next round, this seems like a good area to put in some practice time.
In the meantime, the next step will be to get these shots into a spreadsheet, so that I can be ready to collect the data as I play more rounds. Ideally I’d like to be able to not only identify where I currently need the most practice, but see how this changes over time.
Alternate Golf 