So......did it work?

[Deleted Member 1156]

Just read through a few threads on here about people having lessons through the winter last year, targets they are/were working towards, swing changes falling into place etc etc.

So.....be honest people......how many of you actually achieved what you set out to do? Whose handicaps tumbled? Or was it all a waste of time and your handicap stagnated or went up?

 

[Coffey]

Been playing golf for 2 years now. My first club I was given a handicap of 21 which quite quickly went up to 22. During this season I had about 4 lessons which quite drastically changed my setup and swing. It took me quite a while for this to embed and I wasn't playing that good golf.

I moved to another club for my second year and had about 6 lessons during the winter to work on other areas, mainly focusing on my driving as it was really poor.

I had set a target of a handicap of 18 which I knew I could do if I just improved my tee shots.

My handicap is now sitting at 16.9, I did get down to 16.3 but once I got cut I started playing terribly and it quite quickly went up to 17.1 and then I got cut again back down to 16.6.

Overall I'd say I had a good season and by the end of the season I was playing well to my new handicap. I am more confident in my swing now and barely lose a ball whereas before I was losing 2/3 a round.

I was a bit annoyed at how I was playing during the middle of the season as I just felt I couldnt hit a good iron shot which was a strength of mine while playing off 22.

Hoping for another nice cut this year as have been practicing a lot and playing well

 

[turkish]

Didn't have them last year but did this year and feel that I am swinging better but on the course when I am playing I am not scoring better. the proof will be when the season starts

 

[njrose51]

For me, the lessons and additional hard work at the range, better course management, plus using our Roll Ups as 'practise' (helps with strengthening my mental attitude) has worked for 2016 and has put me in a good place, I think, for 2017.

I qualified for my monthly league grand final, which was my 2016 priority, and achieved a few more goals, so yes, it 2016 went as planned. I also posted recently that my first comp in January 2017 brought me 35 points which would have placed me 1st, 2nd or 3rd depending on how the countback went, but I got disqualified for signing for a wrong score. (perhaps I need lessons on filling out the scorecard correctly?)

More lessons planned, plus a new fitness regime with a TPI Certified trainer. New wedges and driver on the shopping list. So lets see how the rest of this year pans out but so far, its looking okay.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Stagnated and went up last year. Had a really good winter last year and was swinging great until I was ill in February and struggled with my health throughout 2016. Touch wood all is getting back to normal and I'm having the first winter lesson on Saturday. I want to at least go from 14 back to 12 which is where I was this time last year. From there, we'll see and give it a good go for single figures

 

[Snelly]

In my first season of club golf for 13 years, my target of getting to 4 was missed by miles. In fact, every medal I played in cost me plus 0.1 and I have gone up from 5.5 to 6.0. I attribute this to several factors:

My course is difficult - one of the hardest in the region in fact. It has taken at least 6 months to get to grips with it in terms of course management, judgement of the (very strong) winds, the rapidity of the greens and when to defend and attack.

Secondly, the pressure of a medal card. Having not had to do much more than the odd lowest gross in society events, the pressure of a medal round has been missing and it has taken some time to get back into the mindset required for this.

My swing - a major flaw had crept in and I was struggling with a hook or block that ruined several good rounds.


However, I now feel I really understand the course and how to score well, my swing flaw has definitely been ironed out and my game is in very good shape. Whether I can put everything together in the April medal remains to be seen of course.

For now though, I am really enjoying being a member of my club and my form is sparkling. My last five rounds have been +4, +2, +1, -1 and -2.

Consequently I am aiming for a significant handicap reduction this season and feel that I can be competitive in Open events too so have a short list that I am going to enter if possible.

 

[Region3]

I can't remember what I said. Off to do a search........

 

[Curls]

Well I certainly would fall into that category. I took a few lessons this time last year with our very own Bobmac and while I absolutely believe they have made me a better golfer I made some mistakes along the way. The upshot was I went up 0.1 all year until everything fell into place at the very end of the season and I got down to about where I started. I played about 20 comps, half of which I missed buffer by a shot or two. Frustrating. Had a handful of horrendous rounds, high 90s and even a 103 (club champs day 1, lol). My year was punctuated with a lot of travel with work, so I'd often rock up to a Medal jet lagged and unpractised, it was so frustrating not to get a run in.

My last 4 rounds were gross 83, 88, 80, 77 and I felt like I was on a different level to previous years, I just ran out of season. That 77 saw no doubles and only 1 birdie, it was not only consistent, it felt easy. That's where I'm hoping to be next season.

What I did right

I stuck by the swing changes even when I was spraying balls everywhere and shooting average to horrendous scores. So much so I can't even remember my old swing. My swing now is better than ever, but standing on the range hitting targets and playing golf are two very different things. I had to put the graft in and groove a better more reliable swing, but in doing so the rest of my game suffered, I wasn't ready to score well Saturday morning. Thanks to Bob I have a far greater understanding of my swing, what I'm doing, what I'm doing wrong if one goes haywire, its a level of understanding I never had and Im the better for it. I'm now able to shape the ball both ways with reasonable success and use different clubs to the same target, my game is a lot less 1 dimensional, but none of this fell into place until the end of the year. Up til then, it was a slog.

What I did wrong - a longer list

1. I expected too much too soon

Hitting it great on the range before a round I'd be convinced this was the big one. And on the range I might be consistent, but one loose shot (usually on the 2nd hole), queue a 7 or 8 and my confidence would evaporate. I could hit it great, just not consistently, and that doesn't help scores much.

2. Changed all my clubs.

I started playing in 2010 with ancient rubbish clubs. In 2011 I got fit for G15s at Gainsborough and they saw me from someone with no handicap down to 9. Following lessons I felt like the new contact I was getting was being let down by clubs designed to do something else, I had the opposite problem to being able to get the ball in the air. I changed my irons and wedges, put a 3 wood in the bag and persisted with a 4 iron driving iron thing that I never really liked. I had little real understanding of how far I was hitting these most of the time, I only got this towards the end of the season.

3. Changed my putter and putting stroke

I never classified myself as a good putter. I bought a putter off the Forum. Never took to it, don't like fat grips of Centre shaft putters, lesson learned. Took a SAM lesson, realised some flaws, practised ironing these out. Bought a putter off ebay. I like it a lot. Its certainly a summer putter with the soft insert but I feel a lot better now than I ever have about my putting. Do I need to work on this more than anything else? Yes. Did it suffer last year spending my practice time trying to beat my swing into submission? Yes.

4. Never went back to Bob

I probably would have benefited from a return visit at some point, but I was just struggling so much with consistency rather than knowing what I needed to do. I was afraid that going back would start the process all over again, I'm quite sure now that fear is unwarranted because Bob is an excellent teacher, but at the time I was struggling to walk, I didn't want to be shown how I could run. Bob will definitely hear from me again (sorry Bob!), but not yet.


What am I doing this year?

Playing golf. I'm aware of a swing fault that will be a major task to fix, if I can fix it at all, and if I plateau I'll see about fixing it, but for this year I'm going to see how far I can go with my new grooved swing and found appreciation of the game. Half shots, 3/4 controlled irons, these are things I never tried until Bob shone a light, but I was so caught up in the full swing I forgot about them until the end of the season. I'm looking forward to a more multifaceted game. I'm also more focussed now on getting the ball in the hole. I'm less accepting of bogeys and certainly doubles. I'm hungry for birdies. It's different from what I used to do and to me is what the better guys I play with do naturally. If I improve anything it'll be putting, but lets see how the season starts.

In short I equated hitting better shots on the range to having a lower handicap. No no no no no. It doesn't work that way. But did I need the lessons? Absolutely yes. Without them I'd be stuck yo-yoing around my current number forever I reckon.

Bring on the White Tees

 

[Region3]

I found 2 threads. In one I posted what I wanted to do AND that I had already failed a little while later.

The second one I said this:

Get my swing to a place where I can watch it and like it.

Finish top 10 in a club stableford.

I'd class this as a win. My swing doesn't have as many things in it now that make me cringe, and I came 8th in a stableford in May with 38pts.

:thup:

 

[Capella]

Definitely worked for me.

I went on two golf holidays with lessons (I always take my lessons during my holidays, because that way I can make sure to have enough practice time as well and I kind of like to suck up a lot of input at one point and then setting out to practice and put it into play bit by bit.) The first one was a week in Spain in March with a two golf coaches and a greenfee and lesson flatrate (meaning you could spend as much time on the course and/or the range as you wanted and one of the pros was always available to give feedback when you asked) as well as daily group lessons. It was fantastic, helped me to resolve some issues I had with my wrist-set and take away and jump started me into the season nicely. In June I returned to Lytham for more lessons with Peter Finch (I had had some lessons with him the year before) and even though I had a very hard time to get the things he was trying to teach me to work at first (we were mostly working on hip turn and impact angle to give me a bit more distance), when it finally clicked on my last day there, it was a huge step forward and I hit my first ever 200 yard drive that very day.

My handicap dropped from 54 to 32.5 during the year, and I am quite confident it will continue to go lower this year (my goal is to get it down to 24). Oh, and I came second at the netto club championships and one of the monthly medals and won our founder's cup, so even competiton wise I did pretty good. Couldn't be happier, actually.

So I will try a similar approach this year. I am going to Portugal with Andy Carter and Chris Fletcher (ImproveMyGolf) for four days in February and booked the week in Spain in March again (with the same two coaches I went last year). I hope that will give me a good start into the season. I plan to do another visit to England also, and seek out Pete in their new facillities in Burnley, but I haven't decided yet when that is going to be and how many lessons I am willing to afford

 

[Garush34]

Didn't achieve most of my targets. Managed two new PB in comps so happy with that, and my handicap did come down but only by 0.3 so not where I was looking to get too.

I played enough to have the chance to lower my handicap, I just haven't practiced enough. Hoping to change that this year and get more practice in.

 

[Junior]

I started 2016 on 7.4, and finished on 7.8. I started the season pretty poorly with a run of 0.1's (just missing buffer) but my worse scores in 2016 were no where near as bad as in 2015, and I had my best competition score towards the end of the season after a couple of lessons with Jason Dransfield. So i'm hoping i've broken through the wall I hit at the start of last year and that 2017 will see me score better. I certainly feel that through the Winter i've been playing great and striking the ball more consistently. Just hope that I can do it with a card in hand.

 

[Lump]

Had 3 lessons last winter, came out swinging well into the new season. Had 2 under par rounds with cards in hand and loped 2 shots of my then 6 handicap. Cruising along until late in the season when the shanks set it, went from 4 to nearly 6 again before getting a handle on it just in time to consolidate a 5 handicap. Disappointed as I was on the verge of a 3 handicap.

So this winter, no lessons, swinging just as well as the start of last year. So hoping for 3 handicap or better (a real push)

 

[Deleted member 17920]

Just read through a few threads on here about people having lessons through the winter last year, targets they are/were working towards, swing changes falling into place etc etc.

So.....be honest people......how many of you actually achieved what you set out to do? Whose handicaps tumbled? Or was it all a waste of time and your handicap stagnated or went up?

Waste of time for me, had a few lessons and that only made things worse.

Went from 9.5 to 10.6 last year

Had a couple of lessons recently and I am hoping that this year will be better.

 

[SteveW86]

I would say lessons have worked for me. Throughout last year I was scoring in the mid 90's consistently, so far this year Ive had 2 rounds in the 70's and 3 between 80-85.

 

[Soft hands]

I didnt set myself handicap target for the first time but it came down more than expected.

The goal i gave myself was to shoot a level par round and fortunately it came in a competition.

Only goals next next year are cat 1 and to just enjoy golf and not worry about the score.

 

[garyinderry]

Didn't do any specific lessons or winter work last year. Game was up and down as you would expect through the summer.

Had two lessons so far this winter. Jesus it is hard to stop swinging flat. :rofl:

 

[HawkeyeMS]

I started in May 2015 so it hasn't just been a winter thing but I have completely changed my swing. I didn't really have any targets apart from to improve. My handicap started on 10.3 and finished on 8.4 with a low of 7.4. The results have been up and down, as I had a lesson, got used to the change and then had another lesson. Each change has ended in me hitting the ball better. I'm not finished, the Pro at Blackmoor calls me "his project" and I feel like I am heading into another good season.

Last time I got down to 7 I did so by virtue of a 2 shot ESR cut and I wasn't good enough to stay there, I feel like this time I can get to 6 or 7 and once I get there I believe I am now equipped to stay at that level. Time will tell.

 

[One Planer]

Just read through a few threads on here about people having lessons through the winter last year, targets they are/were working towards, swing changes falling into place etc etc.

So.....be honest people......how many of you actually achieved what you set out to do? Whose handicaps tumbled? Or was it all a waste of time and your handicap stagnated or went up?

Wanted 12, hot to 11.8.

With the arrival of our second child 3 months ago, practice and play has been sparse.

Next lesson is next week, hopefully not left it too late to get lower next season.

 

[Liverbirdie]

I had a few of a night through September to December.

Still cant play golf, but I now speak conversational Mandarin and do a mean Carribbean chicken.