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I had two goals heading to Cabo to play 6 straight days (2 practice rounds, 4 tournament rounds): first, I wanted to be able to play without ending up gimping around and being miserable because my back didn’t hold up, and second, I wanted to play well and earn some extra cash. I ended up feeling pretty decent after it was all over, which is a victory of sorts, and I shot 71-71-73-73 – 288, which is even par, not so bad until you consider that the winner was 24 under and the leading senior was 15 under. What you see here is footage I took after the 3rd and the morning of the 4th, and since I shot myself not only hitting full shots but pitching and putting as well I feel that I have a nice list of things to try to improve on over the winter.
I am of the mind that I need to flatten out my backswing a bit so that my overall pattern encourages me to rotate faster in transition and the downswing. I can’t really try too hard to compress in the backswing because of my back, so I am just going to have to live with a level to slightly lifted movement. I will still try to load my right heel but I can’t purposefully lower as that puts too much stress on my hips due to my fusion. I think if I can lower my hand position by lifting my arms less in the 2nd half of the backswing then I should be able to match that up with a more rotary start down and a more leftward exit. I will be watching my left foot closely, for as you can see here it always replants with the weight heading towards the front of the foot while the heel backs up. When I watch the greats who lift the heel the forward movement always pushes that heel forward so that it lands closer to the target, not further away from it.
The fix for my pitching looks fairly simple, but I won’t know until I get back into competition whether or not it’s as simple as cocking my wrists more in the backswing on my short ones. My putting has mechanical issues that I can work on indoors, and I am going to have to be more attentive to alignment as well. All of this begs for more practice, so I am going to have to put in the time if I expect to come back and play better. At least if my back feels OK I will be encouraged to do just that. One thing is for sure, and that is that golf is much more enjoyable when you don’t suck.
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