The physical part.

The Auld Invitational at Salt Creek Golf club in Chula Vista, CA is 2 days away!! Need to keep the focus and with this weeks weather and lack of range time we shall see just how far my game has come!!

As I look at my current game the lessons, drills and practice I'm applying are paying off without question. As I continue to grow in this game I am always looking for the next step. The next phase of learning and training. Last evening while watching the replay of the Bob Hope Classic they had a little bit piece on Zach Johnson about fitness. As I was watching that, I realized I was leaving a HUGE piece of the golf puzzle out of my daily routine......FITNESS! As I progress and move back tee boxes, length and long iron play are going to become more important each round. Short game improvement goes without saying so lets just assume that I have that as a everyday focus already. Any golfer knows that the game becomes different when your hitting driver short iron compared with driver 3,4,5 iron. In this quest I have sought out the assistance of a teaching pro who specializes in golf fitness. He has a second level certification from the Titlest Performance Institute. I begin this Training the week of Feb 1st. The evaluation will be humbling as I am sure I'm not in "playing shape" whatsoever:).

Fairways and Greens to all!!

The Next Chapter

Well, Goal #2 for this season has been accomplished. I have FINALLY won my first tournament. It was quite surreal to be perfectly honest. the round started out like most others, a few pars, a couple bogeys, but before I knew it I was +2 after 9, and that got me to thinking, "I've got a great chance to break 80 and run away with this". Well thinking is usually what does people wrong in competition and I was no exception. Started out the back nine with a par and bogey, very tolerable. But then it happened. we were coming up to the tee box on the 200yd par 3 third. there was quite a backup on the tee box so we wound up waiting about 10 min to hit. I snap hook the tee shot into a lateral hazard, and to make a long story short, a bad chip, and three putts and I was 4 over after 3 holes on the second nine!! Part of my growth process as a golfer has been the mental game. I paused on the was to the next tee box to try to get out of my own way mentally, wound up lacing a 3wood off the tee and hitting my approach to 10 ft. made par on that one. the next hole I was able to sneak in a 12 ft putt for birdie, made bogey two holes later. Had a few pars and then wound up on the last hole. 370yds, blistered a three wood and had 107 to the pin, 116 to the middle with wind in the face and an all water carry to the green. just wanted to get on the dance floor and get home in 3 for a 79. hit a great shot, caught the ridge in the middle and spun the ball back to the flat area by the cup for a 6 footer for birdie. Knocked that one in and here I stand, 2010 Kick Off Classic champion! The next event is next Saturday the 23rd so stay tuned!!

tweaks and leaks

As I've attacked each range session this past month, everything seems to be more under control. I'm still hitting bad shots but the "bad" shots are not as bad and the corrections are happening a lot quicker. For example, yesterday I hit a small bucket at lunch and I would say seventy five percent of the shots were quality. Now that may seem like a low number when I stated that things are more under control, and rightfully so, however, my statement reflects the amount of swings it took to correct the poor shots. about 4 or less each time. That is my metric with which I'm measuring my progress at this point. We are all going to hit the bad shot from time to time during our round and the difference I think between shooting 85 and 75 sometimes is making on course corrections quickly. When I used to be a bowler back in the day, I would be cruising along in a three game series and then in the middle of the third game a shot would get away from me. If I took to many frames to correct it, a 750 series could easily become 690.

Tournament prep is in full swing(insert pun) this week. Twin Oaks on Sunday. I will be putting and chipping the rest of this week with mirror swing work in my apartment each night. My main focus this tournament will be putting a good swing on the ball and avoiding the +3,+4,+5 holes. if I can do that(insert family guy child voice) VICTORY IS MINE!

Focus and drive

As the tournament season starts my mindset is on staying focused and maintaining consistency within my mind. I'm a habitual mind drifter and staying on task is a major weakness, one that has drastically affected my life path. I've been pretty good within those constraints so far . Lets hope the implementation of a new diet and fitness program next week does not allow me to get off task. schedule is going to be busy each day, early mornings, healthy foods, minimal booze. I must focus on staying the course and seeing it through the tough mornings when I don't want to get up, through the weekends when there are big parties, and finally to vision the end result when I think I'm ready to quit!

2010 goals

quick listing of my 3 golf goals for 2010:

1. Shot par for a round
2. Win two tournaments on the GCAT
3. Qualify for nationals in the Palmer flight
(index of 4.0-7.9)

These goals are in no particular order but I will achieve each one by the end of this calendar year. Hard work, focus and belief is all I need!!

If your not moving forward your moving backward!

progress?

Yesterdays range session was quite the adventure. Balance appears to be the next major hurdle I must leap in order to continue to improve my swing. the ball flight and swing plane issues I have been battling are for the most part under control. I'm going to stay with those swing practices until after my self imposed Jan 17th deadline for implementing this new swing completely. My length has returned to normal so now I must focus more attention to my short game, learn some new pitch and chip shots as well learn better sand play. Putting is, as we all know, an ever ongoing process so no need to state the obvious.

So fresh and so clean!

Happy New year to everyone!! It has been quite a journey in 2009 and looks like 2010 will be every bit as adventurous as 2009 was and beyond. New goals are in place along with focusing on attention to detail. The newly tuned golf swing is at about 90 percent, right on target for the opening tournament of 2010 at Twin Oaks on January 17th. Shot 82 yesterday at Tijeras Creek from the tips which were playing at 6900yds. Anyone who has played there knows it's quite the track from the tips so I was very proud of the way I played. I'm not seeing the really low scores I would like but I think something better is starting to come about. Consistency. I had one triple bogey and zero birdies so quite a few pars and that speaks volumes. Now we need to figure out how to knock some birdies down and get under 80 more often in 2010!!