The other day I was hitting balls and I was having a really hard time squaring the club face up at impact.  My shots weren’t terribly off line, but they weren’t flush and they weren’t as straight as I had hoped.  It was quickly pointed out to me that on my takeaway I was rolling my left forearm over too much.  The best way to describe this is if you were to stand up straight and put your left arm straight out in front of you and then rotated to your right as if you were making a back swing your arm would stay straight and the palm of your hand wouldn’t rotate up at all.  Mine was.  This was causing me to bring the club way too far inside and on the down swing I was really fighting to bring the club back to square.

In order to fix this, I got a great visual tip.  The tip I got was to picture that my left palm was going underneath the club on the takeaway.  At first I felt kind of weird with this, but it turns out that it really helps me keep my left arm straight on the back swing and not rotating to the inside.  When I pair this with taking my back swing to just above my right shoulder and not much further I get the club perfectly on plane and am able to release all the clubs energy down into the ball.

Out of all the small changes I am making this season this has been one of the most eye opening in terms of something glaring I was doing wrong.  Can’t wait to go hit balls again tomorrow and keep working on this.

Since I never took lessons growing up I was spending my time at the driving range hammering in bad habits and bad fundamentals into my swing.  This off-season I have put an end to that.  I took the time to find a swing coach that has gotten me to think about the fundamentals of the game and begin to understand the golf swing.  The funniest part about this is that it is the middle of the winter in Chicago, there isn’t an open golf course anywhere to be found, I am not hitting a ton of golf balls and I know that I am getting better every week.  It is possible to get much better over the off-season in golf by focusing on the fundamentals of your game and your physical fitness.

I will share more about my off-season regiment of drills and work outs later in more detail, but I wanted to share that it is possible to make positive progress in the winter time.  I used to think that winter was just a time to wish I was somewhere warmer so I could be out playing golf.  Not anymore.  It is an opportunity to really solidify the fundamentals of my game so when the snow melts my game won’t have any rust on it.  It will be ready to go and hopefully better than ever.

If you are like I used to be and love pounding balls at the range but have struggled to dip your handicap take a second to think about how you practice and prepare your game.  Are you working on things that actually help your game?  When was the last time you changed your practice habits if ever?  Are you repeating the same habits over and over again and expecting a different result?  If you are, STOP!  You are insane and need to make a change!  Don’t let an offseason, winter weather or old habits hold you back from seizing an opportunity to actually get better.  It is 100% possible to get better at golf, we all just need to stop being insane and start being more realistic with how we intend to get better.  I, for one, am doing it with fundamentals.  How are you planning to make your game better?

I am starting to see the winter off-season for what it really is, a golden opportunity.  I have four to five months in front of me where I can focus on nothing but my physical fitness and my fundamentals.  I don’t have a tee time this weekend or a score to worry about.  This is a prime opportunity to improve my game and I intend to take full advantage of it.  I am lucky enough to work in an environment where I can take an hour in the middle of the day to go work out or make a few swings in the gym.

I have been so focused on breaking 80 for so long that I have very much neglected the fundamentals of the golf swing.  This will not be the case this next season.  This winter will be a “back to basics” approach to the game.  If I don’t break 80 next season it will not be because my fundamentals were off.  I am committed to working on them for an hour each day if not more every day until the snow melts and the courses open again.  For anyone else out there who is dealing with a few months of winter I urge you to do the same thing.

The other interesting aspect of winter, is that Golf is back on TV and it gets me fired up.  Watching the two opening tournaments in Hawaii makes me think about how fun it is going to be to tee it back up when the weather heats up.  I get fired up to go work on my fundamentals because I know what is waiting for me in a few months.  It is obviously tough to keep this enthusiasm throughout the entire winter, but I am going to give it a shot.

As far as I am concerned, my 2012 season started today even though I won’t play a round of golf for nearly four to five months!  Here we go!

The very first thing we discussed was how I measure my game on the course.  She gave me a book that her advisor wrote called “Smart Golf” by Dede Owens and Dan Kirschenbaum and one of the very first concepts they discuss is playing to your own personal par.  I have been very caught up in the idea of breaking 80 and getting myself to a single digit handicap.  Every time I go out and play and I don’t break 80 I consider it a failure.  Since I have yet to break 80 you can imagine how many times I have walked off the course feeling like I didn’t accomplish anything even if I played decent.

When I go back to San Diego this week I am going to try this new technique.  I am going to approach each round with the mindset of simply trying to break my own personal par.  For me that means I get a stroke on the 14 toughest holes on the course.  If I go out each round and try to shoot below my handicap, eventually I will start to drop my handicap and break 80.  I really need a new metric of success on the course because the fact that I still have not broken 80 is getting very frustrating.  I am hoping this new approach will let me enjoy the game a bit more and allow me to start seeing small victories as progress on the road to my larger goals.

I am not the biggest Tiger fan in the world and I will be the first to admit that I never believe any of the rumors that he is back.  I truly believe that Tiger will never dominate the PGA Tour like he did earlier in his career.  That doesn’t mean I dont’ think he will win and win majors.  I think he will win next year and I am not sure if a major is realistic or not.  With that being said, you can’t deny the electricity he creates.  I know that he won the Chevron this weekend and not the Masters, but it felt like I was watching a major for the last two holes.  He has the IT factor and there is no denying it.

The reason I say he won’t dominate is because too many young guys have grown up on the tour in his absence.  They never experienced the aura of the dominant Tiger and they won’t be quick to back down when he is in contention.  Rory showed us all that he has mental toughness after absolutely embarrassing himself on the back nine at the Masters only to freakishly win the U.S. Open.  Westwood has been through a rebuilding of his game and has a huge chip on his shoulder of never winning a major.  He will get one eventually.  These are the guys who are going to challenge Tiger now that he is “back” even though I still don’t think he will ever be the Tiger of old.

I really think this next year on the PGA tour is going to produce some memorable golf.  Just like this year brought a bunch of first time winners to the winner’s circle, next year is going to generate some genuine rivalries and match ups that hopefully last all of us viewers a large chunk of time.  I, for one, can’t wait for it to get here and start all over again.

Before I do that, I wanted to take a look at the goals I was able to accomplish and the ones I wasn’t.  The reason is, I am going to San Diego in the next two weeks and plan on playing a few more rounds.  This will be my last real chance to break 80 before I am stuck in a Chicago winter.  In order to give myself a shot I need to see where I am coming up short.

The goals I accomplished are the following:

• Hit more than 50% of Greens in Regulation in a round – Encinitas Ranch (55%)
• Hit more than 50% of fairways in a round – Cougar Point (64%), Encinitas Ranch (71%)
• Beat my previous low score of 85: Shot an 83 at Encinitas Ranch in San Diego
• Beat my Brother in Law – Cougar Point: Brother in Law (88) Me (87)

The goals I did not accomplish are the following:

• Break 80 – Closest so far 83
• Lower my handicap to single digits: Currently 14
• Play a round with no 3 putts
• Get up and down more than 30% of the time.  This includes sand saves.
• Break 100 at the Ocean Course  110
• Break 90 at the Ocean Course?  110
• Play a Course that has hosted a Major Championship.  Don’t care which one.

I accomplished 4 and missed 7.  Not that great.  The two goals that stick out to me the most are “Play a round with no 3 putts” and “Get up and down more than 30% of the time.”  I truly and honestly believe that if I can get closer and closer to these two goals consistently I will break 80 and drop my handicap to single digits.

I am very excited for one more opportunity to try and accomplish my season long goal and plan to give it my absolute best.  Regardless of the outcome I will be resetting my goals for the upcoming winter season as well as a full new set of goals for 2012.  This project will keep going as long as I can get better golf, so a LONG time.  I have some exciting changes to share regarding my new goals and plans for achieving those goals, but I want to share them after the holidays and after they are final.  Stay tuned!

The fitting started by me hitting a handful of putts with my current putter on the SAM machine.  My stats really weren’t bad other than my path swings a bit to the inside on my follow through.  Next I used an adjustable putter to find what length felt best for me.  I landed right around 40 inches and started hitting some putts.  At first it was definitely awkward.  I wasn’t really sure why this would be an advantage since it seemed so foreign.

Once I got a few tips on how to properly use the belly putter it started to make more sense.  The biggest thing about the belly putter for me was how easy it was to replicate the set up.  All I had to do was put the butt end right above my belly button and get my hands in the right spot and I was ready to go.  I felt extremely comfortable that my set up was the exact same over and over again and this is not a feeling I get all the time with the conventional putter.  Once the set up was right it was all down to getting the ball position correct and swinging the putter.

I was surprised at how much I had to break my wrists down on the back swing and follow through to properly release the putter and hit good putts.  Once I got the hang of the new feeling it was surprisingly simple and comfortable.  It takes a lot of the mechanical thoughts out of putting which is a big advantage for a lot of players.  As I expected I hit certain putts much better and more confidentially, but not ALL putts.

It really came down to preference for me.  I am planning to stick with my conventional putter for now, but my interest in the belly putter fad definitely increased after using one.  If I were to go down the belly putter road I would get fully fit for one that fits me best and I would commit to using it for an extended period of time and practicing with it a ton.  It is very different from conventional putting and I assume it would take a lot of work to become really good with one.

I do, however, think that if you are a weekend warrior golfer and don’t have a ton of time to practice your putting it could help you out.  Like I said earlier, I think it takes a lot of the mechanical thinking out of putting which can be incredibly helpful.  I could easily see using the belly putter as an advantage simply because the set up is so repeatable and once you get your aim right it is a simple hinge swing.  I think truly great putters would shy away from the belly putter, but for the majority of golfers who are not great putters there is something to it.  I would suggest checking them out if you are the least bit interested.  I know I was surprised by them even though I wasn’t totally sold on them.

The change helped immediately.  It helped on my drives, my irons and my short game.  My contact was ten times better and my misses were far less drastic.  If I had putted halfway decent I would have put up a respectable back 9 score.  So is golf, that I didn’t and put up a bad score in my mind.

Putting the score aside, I think that being able to commit to my swing is a huge key going forward and probably something that most amateurs don’t do well enough.  We all tend to swing tentatively because we fear hitting a slice, topping the ball or missing the ball all together.  I have seen it in my own game time and time again.  When I let that fear enter into my though process I always end up making that fearful thought become a reality.  When I let that confident follow through image come into my thought process, good things happen.  Of course shots still go wayward, but the misses aren’t as bad and I never take myself out of the hole or the round with an out-of-bounds shot.

Take a look at your own game and think about what goes through your head while you are swinging the club.  If you are full of thoughts, like most of us are, then try focusing on just your release.  It has helped me control my ball flight and it just might help you too.

My point is, how many time have we heard the golf writers make their rounds saying that Tiger is expecting to “get a W” or that he looked great in the practice round.  All of that is just speculation and an attempt to generate media buzz for an otherwise off the beaten track tournament.  Having Tiger playing again is great for golf and hopefully he shows signs of playing better and can take that to the upcoming President’s cup.  Until he actually plays well in a four-day tournament, let’s all just chill out and stop speculating about Jack’s record and Tiger’s dominance.  Baby steps people.

How many times have you played a round with someone who gets overly frustrated by bad shots in their round?  They might throw clubs, swear or declare the game idiotic and renounce playing it ever again.  I have seen people break clubs, walk off the course and simply give up on their round before.  Since this is most common among amateur golfers and weekend warriors, I started to think more about what characteristics I see among average golfers and good golfers.

Average golfers let the little things get to them.  They are unable to move onto the next shot and fight back to salvage their round after a bad shot or a bad score on a hole.  There seems to be a point where the average golfer lets outside factors get to him more than the pros do.  Don’t get me wrong, we have all seen Tiger throw his clubs, curse and WD from tournaments.  For the most part professional golfers don’t show their negative emotions even if they are feeling them.  They are able to give off the appearance of a calm demeanor even when they hit balls in the water or double bogey holes.  They simply move on.

It is unrealistic to think that the pros don’t get pissed off and angry when they are playing poorly and a lot of their post round interviews reflect that.  They are never satisfied with their swing, putting stroke or score.  They are constantly thinking they could have done better, but they don’t show their negative emotions on the course like most amateurs do.  Why is this?  Because being able to control their emotions is a large reason they are in fact professional golfers.  It is the mark of a good golfer.  All of us could take a page out of KJ Choi’s book on golf course behavior and demeanor.  The guy doesn’t get rattled.

Think back on your past few rounds.  How many times did you blurt out a negative comment about the course or your game?  Did it help you play better?  Probably not and I include myself in this category.  The next time I go out and play I am going to set the goal to not say one single negative comment.  This doesn’t mean I won’t think it, but I simply won’t say them out loud to my playing partners.  Give it a shot and see how it helps your focus and ability to move on to the next shot.  I think you will be surprised.