How to Chip and a Glimpse of Success

Written on 7-8-2020.

        I’ll talk about how my short game worked well at Green River later.  I had my second lesson with Luke today, and we focused on chipping, so I want to talk about that first.  This lesson focused on a 9-iron chip that Luke says should land the ball at a spot 30% from the starting point.  Or, maybe a better way to say it is fly 30%, roll the rest of the way.  Then, and this is where it got a little complicated, he said it would go up 10% from there with each club with more loft and 10% down with each club with less loft.  In other words, a pitching wedge would/should land at about the 40% mark (10% more), and an 8-iron would land at the 20% (10% less) mark and roll more.  Sounds like I would used the same motion, a putting type motion, and I would want to get the ball rolling as soon as possible.  All of this to decrease the margin of error in chipping.  Makes sense to me.

We never got to putting, and his lessons go really fast.  It’s like playing a round with Guy.  We tee off on #1, and then we are putting out on #18 a few minutes later.  With Luke, we start talking, and I start swinging, and then we are driving the cart back up to the pro shop....

         Speaking of putting, I wanted to add more details for how my short game went during that round now.  I only three-putted one time at Green River, and my total number of putts was 13 on the front and 14 on the back.  Is 27 a good number of putts for a round?  It felt like it should be a good number to me.

Back to the lesson.  About halfway through the lesson, Luke had me move to a spot where I had very little green to work with, so this was where he “allowed” me to use my sand wedge.  Using his formula, that made sense.  The sand wedge meant 60% flight time, and the rest roll, but it wasn’t a flop shot.  I still kept the club face square, but he did allow for more hand action to get the ball to go higher, and he did say I could use the same principles of a bunker shot if I wanted to go even higher.  What he said I really want to avoid with these kinds of shots was a club face that aims well right of the target with an outside in path.

We ended with the 5-iron upright chip shot, or that’s what I will call it.  This is a shot that can cut through the rough, if that is what I need to do, and he said it was akin to putting with the a club that could be used off the green and/or in the rough.  When he said that, that really resonated with me.  I use the toe end of the club, and I close the face a little, and the shaft is straight up and down, and then I make my putting stroke.  

Some other takeaways were more weight on my left side mostly, which I already knew, and I always want to keep my lower body quiet.

My third lesson with him will be on Tuesday, July 21st.

7-12-2020

I am watching the pros playing on a Sunday afternoon at the Workday Charity Open on my computer.  I just finished watching another Todd Graves video on YouTube on the perception vs. the reality of the Moe Norman golf swing.  It had to do with the teachings of the Natural Golf system, and how Todd refined or improved that system by learning more about Moe’s swing.  I think that is what the Graves Academy has done overall.  It refined the teaching of Moe Norman’s swing.

What he said that made sense was to turn into a braced left knee and keep that trail foot down throughout impact, and that will set up for a turn and not a slide, and it will also allow a release and that very important unhinging of the club and the arms.  That’s amusing, because I have written that before, but now that I have tried out this swing, I see the importance of it.

I also found a video of Todd swinging in slow motion, and I compared my swing to his for the first time using the videos I had made on Swing Catalyst.  Two things were very obvious to me right away.  

First, I am not keeping a steady head.  I somehow believed that in order to hit down on the ball, I would move my head towards it.  Or rather, when I moved into my left knee, I thought my head had to move down, but I see that my head (on most shots) moves well forward and down.  Todd’s doesn’t.  

The second blatantly obvious thing is that my trail foot does not stay on the ground anywhere near as long as his does.  His stays down until the club is fully released and almost near his lead shoulder.  Wow!  That is a long time. 

When I was recording my swings, I was focusing on that, and I still couldn’t do it.  That is something I will continue to key on, and it makes it feel like I am hitting a punch shot.  

Well, I played again, and I played with other people, too.  This was the second time I played with this new swing, and I felt guilty, because the book says not to play until after six months and just focus on the process.  I don’t know how anyone could wait for that long.

I set a tee time for 10:20 this past Friday, and I invited Eric, C.J., and Shawn, but Eric and C.J. couldn’t come, so we played with Herman (not his real name) and Tim instead.  It was going to be blazing hot, near 100 degrees, so we rode in carts.  That was a good decision.  We would have died if we had walked.  Not literally, of course, but it was a baking, dry heat, and if we had walked, we wouldn’t have been able to get much relief from that heat.  

Shawn set me up with Herman as a partner for best ball match play, since I was figuring out my new swing.  That was perfect for me!  I didn’t have any pressure, since Herman is like a 6 handicap, and I never contributed either, but I did have a stretch of five holes that gave me a glimpse of what is to come.  If he had faltered on any of those holes (#13 thru #18), I would have been there for him.  Our team won 3 and 1, and he shot a 38, 40 for a 78.  That’s incredible scoring!  It was fun to watch him play again (we have played together once before), and it was fun to be his partner, too.  He’s funny.

I had a superb drive on #13, the longest I have ever had.  According to the scorecard, I swung it 350 yards.  I only had 150 yards to the front of the green after that, and I chose my 9-iron for my second shot.  My little pitch with my sand wedge rolled across the green and went off the back a little bit, but I played the 5-iron upright chip shot that Luke had just taught me to get it really close after that.  It worked swimmingly, and I earned a par.  

On the next hole, I used my new Warrior 3-wood and then my sand wedge to earn another par.  I was just off the green again, but I used my putter, because the grass was dead, brown, and just not as thick as it was on #13.  

On #15, it was my 9-iron and a green in regulation for another par.  On the par four #16, I pulled my tee shot, but I then had a recovery shot with my turf buster that sent my ball past the green from just over 200 yards away.  I chipped from behind the green and used up only two putts for my one and only hiccup bogey in that stretch of five holes.

On #17, one of my favorite golf holes, I swung a low drive that made it to the bunker on the left side.  I plucked it cleanly with a 7-iron that went higher than expected, but I got it out of there and up to the 150-yard marker.  From there, with the wind in my face, I clubbed up two clubs to my 6—iron and got my ball on the green for another GIR.  

After that stretch, I am more determined than ever to keep moving forward with the single plane swing.  I could see the potential.  When I had bad holes, like on #9, I would just take swings to work on the form, and I had good results with those swings, also.  Once again, I had no stress, since Herman was my parter.

Shawn didn’t want to mess me up by telling me anything about my swing, but he couldn’t help saying that I was swaying when I had bad results.  When I didn’t sway, I had better results.  That actually helped me, and I tried to keep a steady head and be more centered over the ball after that.  He told me about the swaying on hole #11, so go figure.