Outside In vs. Inside Out

Ok, so one of my many aspects of my game that needs improvement is the "Big D".  Whatever you want to call it a "block", fade, banana, slice, or just plain pushing it to the right this is the ball flight my driver has been going for an extended period of time.  I have played with the "block" in my game accepting to give myself roughly about 20 yards to miss to the right off the tee.  If I hit 10 tee shots I will push 5 shots with a pretty big slice, 3 manageable fade shots and maybe 2 shots where I am happy with.  I have used a Taylormade R7 SuperQuad driver for the past 2 and1/2 years.  It has served me adequately during that time. 

I completed a driver fitting at an authorized Callaway performance center to receive feedback on the results from swinging the driver.  I have never received detailed results from my driver swing.  I have recorded my swing in the past and currently analyzing my swing on a kodak playsport.  The performance center records information such as swing speed, backspin, attack angle, carry, total distance, side spin and a whole other information that is over my head.  The key components I remembered and concentrated on were my swing speeds, the backspin speed, ball speed and side spin. 

I brought my R7 to have my current information recorded.  The results I saw were 230 yards carry, 102 mph for swing speed, over 3500 mph on backspin, 141mph for ball speed, and over 800 yards of side spin.  Those results on a course equate to about 25 yards to the right of a target you are aiming at and maybe 240-270 yards of total carry for a drive.  Adam, who was administering the fitting informed me that I want to be under 3000 mph for backspin, around 500 for side spin, 150 mph for ball speed.  The fitting lasted a little over an hour and during that hour I hit about 10 different drivers and hitting approximately 5 drives per club.  I was pretty much stumping Adam on the combination of driver head and shaft to use.  Adam agreed that I definitely needed a stiff shaft driver and looked to get my backspin mph reduced to under 3000 mph.  On all of the drivers minus the square head Nike driver I was hitting, I was making good contact on the drivers but still getting a lot of backspin.  Reducing the backspin on a drive will cause the ball to float in the air covering more distance.  It was during this time Adam suggested when I go to the range that he noticed during my swing plane I was making an outside in swing plane and was causing me to push my driver to the right.  He wanted me to practice a swing plane on the driver to make an inside out swing plane.  With any new tweaks to a swing, its going to be feel uncomfortable at first and gradually feel more natural once muscle memory kicks in.  Well the results from making this tweak was that I was still pushing the ball a little right but my backspin numbers went down below 3000 mph, side spin decreased, and my carry distance were now showing 250 yards with a slower swing speed of 97mph and the ball speed at 141 mph.  My swing speed decreased by about 5 mph and I was getting better results.  My ball flight is also slowly going back to a right to left flight path.  With my outside in swing path the problem I was having was either having a fade or a slice with not a whole lot of carry with the driver, again I can hit my 17 degree 4 wood close to a 230 yard carry and have mostly used my 4 wood of the tee the past couple of rounds only using my driver on "wide open spaces".  The problems I will now face using an inside out swing path will be sending the ball right if my hands don't turn over, hitting a good shot straight or slightly right or left with some good carry, or attempting to turn my hands to soon and hitting the ball about 20 yards in front of me.  Either scenario is not a good thing but something I will need to work on.  I am a little concerned since I have a tournament this weekend in Hershey, Pa for a 2 day tournament playing on Hershey's country club east and west course.  I'm competing in the Golf Channel's amateur tour this weekend playing on the east course on Saturday and the west course on Sunday.  I have hit the range earlier this week working on the driver hoping to utilize the driver this weekend.   I will definitely update the blog with my results.  I have uploaded a video on you tube to show my latest swing that I was working on Monday.  I plan to hit the range a few more times before I tee off on Saturday.  I just have to remember to tell myself to not force my hands to turn over too quickly, the swing naturally should turn over(or that's what I'm telling myself). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gJXy-7gc8

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36 holes later a new low is notched on the belt with a caveat and a asterik

If you are one of the 4 followers of this blog you should be aware I have been somewhat in a slump with my game.  Whether I'm thinking too much to score low or not concentrating enough, the proof is in the pudding(or scorecard).  Prior to this weekend my scores for the past month or two are as follows:  90, 83, 91, 80, 95, 88, and 98.  An average of 89.29, basically playing bogey golf.  Nothing great, nothing too terrible.  I personally would like to be on average at around 85.  My last post I was in the belief where I will have no expectations on scoring due to my better days on the course resulted in having no expectations at all and whenever I attempted to score low, the opposite would occur.  So for the time being I will use that philosophy.  There is no need to put unnecessary pressure while on the golf course, the game is hard enough itself to concentrate for 18 holes.  As a note especially for those of you starting out I like to break up the 18 holes into couplets.  Depending on how your concentration level is, I tend to tell friends to look at the 18 holes into 3 hole intervals.  It is almost immpossible for a beginner to concentrate for 18 holes and to set a realistic goal for those 18 holes.  If you break up the holes over the course of the 18 holes you will eventually be able to handle concentrating for more holes.  ie.  if you start with 2 hole intervals work you way up to 3,4, a 9 etc.  For those of you trying to break a 100 on a consistent basis I'm talking to you. 

Now this past Saturday my friend and I decided to play 36 holes.  Since I knew I wasn't available to play this upcoming weekend I would need to balance it out by playing 36 holes.  I'm using the fuzzy math methodology in my thinking.   We played 18 holes at two locations.  The first 18 was played at Stonewall Golf Course in Gainesville, Va and the 2nd 18 was played at Heritage Hunt and Golf Club also located in Gainesville, VA. Stonewall an upscale public golf course where the course is usually kept in great conditions did not meet my expectations this past weekend.  The greens were not in tip top shape and the fairways were patchy in a lot of places.  Not sure if the lack of rain in the area is the culprit but for a course that charges a premium, it was dissappointing to see.  On the other hand Heritage fairways were in great condition and was located 15 minutes away.  At Stonewall I was unable to get a true feel for the greens as my 36 putts would reflect my issues.  I ended up shooting a 92 on a course with a 70.2 rating and 136 slope at 6191 yards.  I don't think I necessary played a bad round but the poor putting probably added 5 to 6 strokes to my round and on top of that I struggled from the bunkers.  When I say struggled I can remember two holes, one on a par 5 where I attempted to reach the green in two and found the greenside bunker.  I'm thinking to myself hit a decent bunker shot and I'll give myself a good look at birdie, what happened was I skulled the bunker shot probably about 40 yards past the green out of bounds.  I end up taking a drop back into the bunker and leaving the hole posting a double bogey 7.  On the other hole also a par 5 where I was trying to reach the green in two(common theme here) I reached another bunker approximately 30 yards to the green.  This time I skull the ball 40 yards past the green into a hazard where I'm able to locate the ball.  I hit the ball in the hazard back into the original bunker I skulled the first shot.  I leave this hole with a snowman 8.  And folks that is how you shoot a 92 hitting 71.4% of your fairways. 

Now for better news the 2nd 18 holes were played roughly 45 minutes after our 1st 18 holes.  Heritage Hunt and Golf club is actually a private course that my friend and I were trying out.  For a country club its really cheap with no initiation fees and no minimum spending a month.  So whenever something sounds too good to be true it usually is but in this case I was pleasantly surprised.  The course is intertwined in a retirement residental community for people over the age of 55 and up.  So you can guess on who makes up the majority of the golf community and why the membership is fairly inexpensive.  The rating and slope from the tees we played from were as follows 70 rating and 127 slope at 5809 yards.  Yes very short and not very difficult.  The only thoughts I would take into the round were that a driver would not be necessary for this round.  I would use irons/hybrid/4 wood off the tee and worst case scenario use a driver for par 5's or really wide fairways.  I end up shooting my best round to date with a 77.  Shooting a 38 on the front 9 and a 39 on the back 9.  My stats for the round were surprisingly average only hitting 50% of my fairways, 31 putts and hitting 55.6% of greens in regulation.  I would definitely say my short game around the greens allowed me to break 80.  For most of the round I used an iron to tee off occasionaly using a 4 wood or hybrid.  As my scorecard shows I also used my driver on a few holes and the lone double bogey was due to losing my drive into the woods.  But there was one thing I forgot to account in my round.  I retee'd my ball on the first hole.  I hooked my 5 iron into someone's yard and I only remember this due to the fact I recorded the incident.  I recently started to record my swing on the range and with time permitting on the course.  So technically instead of the par I posted on my scorecard for the 1st hole, I actually had a double bogey 6 for a total score of 79, tying my personal best.  So no personal records were achieved this weekend but I will take two things from this weekend, 1 keep the driver in the bag and 2 continue to have no expectations on scoring.  I've posted the video of the retee and the scorecard below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnXAKYOKg9o

 

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