How I shaved 11 shots of my previous best!

[Farneyman]

I can only put my recent good form down to 1 thing.

As golfers we are always looking for something to bring our own game on.

I want to share with you something I have only just found that helped me enormously straight away. It may help someone here also. I also believe it will continue to help me reach my golfing goals.

Firstly just a little about my game and where I am looking to take it and how I am going to get there.

I have just recently (June 1st) joined my club. Having not played much golf in the previous 9months. I was playing some golf for the previous 3 years. I wasnt in any club before I joined this new one.

I have set myself a target of a single figure handicap in 5 years.

When I was telling my brother this he showed me a website about a guy who went from shoting 103 (I think)to shoting a par round of golf in 1 year.

Having checked out his website and blog and watched his videos I brought 2 tips onto the course and straight away I was playing great and shot a personal best 83, 14 over par.

Is anyone else following this guy? He had six pages in Todays Golfer last month and has released a load of videos in the last few days with more to come.

Here is a link if you want to check it out. Its definetly worth it as I am it putting down to help my game straight away as I only looked at it properly Monday evening and shot my best ever score 2 days later!!!


http://scratchtoscratch.wordpress.com/
http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/

To give you an idea of my recent score from 12 medal rounds you will be able to see how it helped my score.
My 12 medal scores are as follows as a 17 handicapper on a par 69, since I joined June 1st.

100,92, NR 21 over for 17 holes, NR 32over for 17 holes,101,103,97,94,105, NR 29 over for 16 holes, NR 26 over for 16 holes, 83. So you can see from this how happy I am with my 83

Heres to breaking 80.

I looking forward to reporting my progress on the forum .

 

[Spoff]

A lot of what he says appears to be common sense, but it never harms to hear it said.

 

[Farneyman]

Its just come at the right time for me as Im fairly new to golf and I can see where it already has helped me.

 

[Jonny_Stevenson]

I saw that Todays Golfer article. It's a pretty amazing story and there's some fascinating stuff on that Break Par blog.

What were the tips you used?

 

[brendy]

Ive just started reading this, im amazed ive never seen any of this before as I live less than a mile from blackwood, mark mcmurray is a member of our club and I play at bangor GC, brilliant!

 

[time_vans]

just gone through this and noticed the little(but obvious) left movement of hands prior to the back swing.tried this today (with my hybrid on the park) and found i was hitting long and straight. coincidence?????

 

[brendy]

You mean pressing your hands forward? Yea I know a few fellas that use it and it helps them strike the ball a little better.

 

[Jonny_Stevenson]

Yep - I noticed he had a forward press too. I use one and find it really helps to create a fluid "start of momentum" at the beginning of the swing. Somebody once told me to imagine I was swinging a bucket and you had to swing it one way first to set up the momentum to get it going the other way.

I've been through the site too and there is some really interesting stuff. I'm intrigued still as to what Farneyman used to get his improvement.

The John Daly chipping tip is brilliant. I tried this out (in the garden) and after hitting some horrible shots and thinking it was a pile of crap suddenly miraculously began pitching the ball much, much better afterwards!

http://breakparblueprint.com/blog/2008/0...from-john-daly/

It may seem a bit daft but give it a go.

 

[Farneyman]

Just a reply to Jonny Stevenson and anyone else who reads this!!

You were wondering what tips I found helpfull.
Bearing in mind I only looked at the website/blog a couple of days before my medal round I only took two things on course with me that day.

The two tips that I have taken the most benefit from were:

1.In one of the videos he talks about Seves hand. I took a mental picture of them with me to the course as I tend to hold the club too tightly this really helped me get the ball close especially around the green.

2. The second tip was regarding putting. This is not a strong part of my game but he explained, also in one the videos, about how Tiger and Seve putt with no fear of the consequences. I found thinking like this helped take a lot of the pressure off myself when I was putting which helped me to a great round of putts.

I have also starting practising with the left arm only drill for pitching/chipping and putting. This is in the John Daly clip mentioned above. Its a really good tip.

I also intend to spend some time working out all my wedge distances. I have completed my pw distances with my 60 and SW to do. This will again hopefully help me reach my golfing targets.

I fully believe that if I follow his tips I will be able to practise smarthly instead of just bashing balls!!!

I am looking forward to more of his videos.

 

[Farneyman]

Seve is my hero!!!

Using tips from Breaking PAr Blueprint(check it out) I had 13 putts for 9 holes!!! A new personal best.

A medal on Saturday so here goes....

 

[Parmo]

Seems great, but don't you have to pay said fella for the video & blog of how he did it?

 

[Farneyman]

Parmo,

He has a programme available but the tips I have used are in the public domain and available to anyone. Check the link above. I cant wait to see what I get when I join the programme.

 

[Parmo]

nice one, I had heard the Seve grip one before, grip like you are holding a bird in your hands, you dont want to kill it just keep hold of it, works for me.

 

[billyg]

Parmo,

He has a programme available but the tips I have used are in the public domain and available to anyone. Check the link above. I cant wait to see what I get when I join the programme.

This guy seems affable and earnest enough and there's clearly a little bit of his obsessive mentality in all of us here and I can see how attractive it is. His advice on books, for example, seems to tally with our own collective opinions which adds weigh to his claims.

I would be more than curious to hear what you get out of his programme be it silver, gold or platinum. I'm sure that in time the free blog videos will not be available and depending on the success of his first marketing strategy I could see a series of DVD's or perhaps a critically acclaimed book available within the next year or two if a major publishing deal can be agreed (his methods so far indicate that at least so far, they cannot agree terms)

One thing I have no doubt about is that the facade of a slightly scatterbrained, well meaning and distracted lunatic belies a keen business brain and I commend him for both his acumen and foresight in finding a refreshing and original niche within a crowded market that strikes at the heart of the insecurities we face as hobby golfers.

To distill the collective wisdom of the greats is no mean feat yet I expect , initially murmurs, then shouts of complaint from the establishment if he turns out to be right ( look for evidence debunking his claims anytime soon).

Either way, if it has merit and longevity we'll hear about it soon enough, perhaps from the compiled results of the first batch of guineapigs on this first marketing thrust.

It only really took me one look at the Hogan book to realise that much of the mechanics I had read about in other tomes were just a contemporary re-hash of his timeless wisdom(and frequently presented in an overcomplicated manner just to make copy and pad out what is frankly an essentially simple set of ideas).

If this chap can similarly extrapolate that philosophy from a cross section of the greats in all their specialist fields then i'm all for it and it may yet , at the very least, usher in an era of clearer, demistified and unambiguous teaching methods and books.

are we seeing the first true amateur messiah of golf instruction?

Revolutionary or simply selling oil to the Arabs?

It's to early to judge but it's a stroke of genius either way.

I'll be keeping an eye on this chap from now on without doubt.

bill

 

[Jonny_Stevenson]

Great insight Bill - I reckon you're pretty much spot on too.

You're 100% correct about the Hogan book thing. I think it was Ernie Els who said that you'll still find a battered copy lying around pretty much every top flight player's bed side table.

I think the intriguing thing about this guy is that he has taken all this stuff and sort of put it together in a model that works (maybe) for "normal people". Maybe I'm getting taken in by his marketing (which as you say is a hell of a lot more clever than he pretends it to be) but I like the concept of learning from somebody who has the same challenges as the rest of us. I've had a lot of lessons from pros over the years and some of them have been utterly useless. I'm surely to blame as much as them but some are way too technical, some are too clever for their own good, some are incredibly boring, some just won't listen to you etc. etc. If you get a good one that's great but in my opinion fairly rare.

I think a lot of this guy's stuff is short game and mental though. I'm very tempted to buy to be honest. But then I'm a junkie for instruction anyway. I sat nodding my head during his "60 books..." video and I reckon I'd probably read half of them too!

 

[Jonny_Stevenson]

nice one, I had heard the Seve grip one before, grip like you are holding a bird in your hands, you dont want to kill it just keep hold of it, works for me.

That was Sam Snead. It's a great analogy.