Aaron,

You have a really nice swing for someone who is ~essentially self-teaching. Posture is good, first 1/4 (take back to halfway up) is nice, you hit a good slot (although I would try to shorten your swing just a touch), and then you come down through impact on a good line. A lot of the advice itt has been good, particularly about settling down your body during the swing, but I'm going to take a bit of a different approach and say that your biggest leak seems to be how mental and technical you seem to be. Sure, anyone would kill to swing like Adam Scott, but a huge % of the best players don't, instead they've found a swing that they're comfortable with and is repetitive.

You obviously have a lot of natural athleticism and hand-eye coordination (iirc you're an excellent basketball player?), but it's going to be a lot harder for you to hit your ceiling if you're constantly tweaking and never allowing yourself to get the most reps with the same swing. Consistency & comfort in a good solid swing is how you become your best self as a golfer, because then you start to figure out distances and touch with all of your clubs. I'm not saying you have the perfect swing now, nor that you shouldn't make tweaks to try and improve it, my point is it's a balance, and you seem to be weighted wayyy too much on the technical side of it, and not enough on the feel/comfort side. When i was in my early 20's I was a scratch golfer and definitely didn't look the part, but I was so confident and comfortable in my swing that I felt like I could go out there and hit any shot I wanted to. It's gonna be so much harder to get there if you're thinking about every minor detail of every swing you make.

All the best!

Striped!

I would mostly agree with this. Now that I have such a good understanding of random checkpoints that are common among median athleticism golfers, I don't think I really need a ton more other than putting in the time, but early on the process was mostly about gathering information about different swing schools of though, aggregating what was agreed upon vs what was not and seeing what felt right. Also my swing is a bit better than my last swing videos in this thread, I'll update some videos next week.

Related: I'm in the processing of buying a Foresight GC2 so I can hit a few into a net in the winter (and take it to the range in the summer). Looking forward to not getting worse when it gets cold!

Actually:



(I bought a G400 19d)

8/19/18: Played the Legends course at a place called Lionhead that allegedly is the toughest course in Ontario from the whites (6350). I don't have a ton of baseline for this, but it might have been true. A few 400 yard par 4s with fairways that stop from 220-270 yards, some thin and elevated greens, par 5s that don't really seem to be reachable. I had a ridiculously frustrating round with hitting some fat wedges, but pulled out a 93 (42 on back) with two birdies (110 yard par 3 w/ water, 500 yard par 5, just a SW to 18i/8f on both).

Might have to upgrade to this, so annoying to have to get info in my depressing garage as opposed to the beautiful range with plush grass 1/2 mile from my house.

If your cool with it, lmk what you end up paying for it, I'm getting conflicting numbers in my searches.

9k CAD for foresight, flightscope took three days to get back to me and gave me a sale price of 8k CAD for a "special august price," but I had already gone with the gc2. It seems in line with the $7500 USD figure I was getting when googling. There's a pretty good chance I could have done some haggling, but I wanted it by tomorrow so I didn't even try.

this statement made me curious so i had to look it up. it plays reasonably tough from the whites at 68.2/136, but there are several courses in my area that have similar course rating/slopes from the whites at a similar distance.

i'm guessing where it gets its reputation is from the blue (72.5/148, 6586) and gold (74.7/150, 6934).

Definitely, tho even from the whites there were a cpl of awkward 400ish yard par4s where your drive could only go to 210 before 50 yards of random **** you have to carry and the green was elevated. The course was interesting, but in pretty mediocre condition and nothing was particularly updated. Would like to go back some day and play blue when I’m a little better I suppose.

This Foresight GC2 came today, so I hit a few and took some videos:

~110 ball speed, ~18 launch angle, 150-160 carry (~10% or so 165 when I pure it). I'm not swinging very hard, but striking feels pretty good these days, now I just have to figure out longer clubs and spend a couple dozen hours putting, and I'll be a single digit hcp.



Heres third week of June vs third week of August. The progress is slow, but probably looking like 8 degrees less hip turn toward targets and my hands are like 1.5 inches further forward at impact.

Grind out those scoring clubs too, 30/50/70/90 yd etc shots, at least for me, getting from mid-teens to single digit handicap, those were the most valuable shots to practice. Getting your up and down % to near 50 is a biggie too, and the one I personally really need to put some time into atm.

That's actually what I've spent the most time on, I have an amazing practice situation here for $300/yr there's a sand/chipping/putting green that absolutely no one is on, and I just hit 300-500 shots from 10-60 yards a couple times a week. I'd confirm that this was probably the thing that added the most "enjoyment" to my rounds-- I went from being like 40% to duff a chip/pitch to like 4%.

Was ****ing around today with the launch monitor, hitting 8i to get a sample of what my present #s are, and hit a few pure 165ish carry, but most of them mid 150s carry. Decided to see what happened if I really tried to whip the club around with a little force, hit one 176 carry and have video evidence of me laughing at it as well.



edit: Almost positive it was straight, but, uh, I knew I ****ing nailed it and got excited and looked down at the launch monitor instantly. Not even sure if I can find the ball in that background on the vid

Decided to actually take some numbers from different distances today. Nothing particularly difficult about these approach shots, greens are relatively flat and I have some room in front. Samples are pretty small, but this can act as a baseline for a year from now

Yards	3 feet	%	Flagstick	%	Green	%	Total
15	18*	45.00%					40
30	3	7.50%	17	42.50%	34	85.00%	40
35	5	12.50%	27	67.50%	38	95.00%	40
40	6	15.00%	15	37.50%	37	92.50%	40
45	4*	10.00%	22	55.00%	37	92.50%	40
50	1	2.50%	7	17.50%	35	87.50%	40
55	2	5.00%	8	20.00%	34	85.00%	40

refreshing your memory...

...if you're going to log your results, why not use the ultimate practice routine as the baseline?

No clue what any of those numbers are supposed to represent.

He hit 40 pitches from each distance: 15 yards, 30 yards, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55

He noted how many times he hit it inside 3', inside the flag stick (approx 7') and how many ended up on on the green. There is a corresponding percentage as well.

From 45 yards he hit 4 out of 40 to 3' of closer, 22 out of 40 inside the flag stick and 37 out of the 40 ended up on the green.

Thank you.

Heh, yea it was a little unclear, I was mostly posting as a reference so I could look back in this thread a year from now and see where I was

Because I'd never get past making the 3 footers, and if I did I'd never get past the lag putting, and I'd like to practice some pitching and chipping

dagolfdoc created that routine with the intention of helping players score better by getting real good close to the hole.
thought a player like you that seems to grind on the range and analyze your game would be up for getting better.
guess you'd just rather go out and hit some chips.

Then who cares how many of your shots you can get to 3 feet? LOL Just kidding. Obviously improving on shots inside 100yds is important to scoring better. I'm with you on rather practicing that, but putting is equally or more important to scoring.

You’re a good athlete and a sharp guy, what is your problem with 3 footers? What I mean is do you miss because you aim poorly, or do you strike the ball inconsistently? It’s a pretty simple physical motion to hit a short putt. Btw I can make 100 in a row I think but I’m probably only 75% for big $$ wish I wasn’t a choker but it seems to be the case

It seems really awesome, and it'd be fun to do backwards, but scoring is probably more other people's goal in golf than mine. My first goal has been to just be able to get out there and play and not embarrass myself or slow up good golfers, and if my choice was between practicing equal putting and ball striking and exchanging 3 missed short putts per round for 3 shanks in the woods where I have to go on an adventure and then drop anyway-- I'm super pleased with my decision to make that exchange.

Can't wait to do this drill a year from now, and it's incredibly rewarding to like my chances (likely story, of course) at the chipping and pitching sections of them as I know they're created for real golfers

My problem is primarily lack of volume, I'd imagine. I find that it torches my lower back worse to stand over putts all day, and is a much less intellectually challenging motion to repeat (a chip or a pitch has more complex mechanics, and is much more frustrating when I duff it), so I don't like the risk reward at the moment. I'd imagine some day I'll want to not be a single digit hcp ball striker and triple bogey putter, but today is not that day.

I appreciate that there are still ppl in this thread btw. Yesterday I played Mt Lorette at Kananaskis Country GC, which was closed for four years due to flooding. It was an awesome course, not too dissimilar from Banff Springs, just a few less tourists and less elevation change. I wouldn't put it in my top 5 courses, but I've been fortunate enough to play a bunch of insanely good courses for a golfer of my skill level and it's definitely a must play if you happen to be in alberta and want to play golf. The course was in impeccable shape and the greens and hole location were a joke. I shot 102, and was really disappointed in how many times I just straight shanked or topped my driver or hybrid. Really weird.