Context
So, first golf course after the second quarantine. I have think about a lot of stuff during it, and apply most of them on the practice range. But I have not yet have a chance to transfer that on the golf course. This is the occasion to do so.
For this golf course my uncle have invited me to play where he his a member, for free. Even if I like playing with him, we usualy take the start directly when we arrive, without warming up. So when it come to scoring, that’s not realy optimal.
And this one is not exception. We arrived at 8:15 am before the sun rise. Just the time to setup, and we went directly toward the first tee.
Not warming up might not be that big of a deal when you are in summer. But today here are the condition:
- Winter
- Rainy
- 2°C / 35°F
- Still night
So yeah, if I’d asked me to choose the worst condition possible to start playing golf. We are pretty close to it. It just miss a 50 Kph wind and we would have got it all.
That being said, let’s dive into my performance on the golf course.
Performance
Yeah, rough start as anticipated, but as I warm up things start getting better.
I had a lot of difficulty to apply my new technique. Realy Big Miss, that I should not do on the golf course. On the first driver I litterely past over the ball and it hit the ground a few feets after the tee, to finish it’s run 100m from the start.
Even if I didn’t warm up, that’s not an excuse to hit those kind of shots.
Difficult on th long game. But I was actualy supprise on the quality of my putting and short game. Given the fact that I didn’t know the green speed, I manage to pull well away from the hole always given myself a chance to make a second easy putt.
Also I have been pretty solid on the short putts. I think I only missed one putt under 9 feets / 2 m on the 9. And this one was just a lack on concentration, I was thinking about something else and I didn’t give enough speed, the line was perfect, but it just didn’t have enough speed to reach the hole.
No clearly the real issue today was about my second shots toward the green. Difficulty to hit green in regulation, which put pressure on my short game and putting, and even if I was sold on that, statisticaly it’s normal to miss some shot from time to time.
I mean that’s not an excuse, regardless on how my long game is performing I should be able to recover or to limit bad score using my putting and short game.
Heart Rate Analysis
As explain on my last training session. I was lacking a reference point about my heart rate on the golf course. Now I have it.
More that that, I can safely says that this is an upper bound example. Because this golf course is relatively physical. It goes up and down all the time. And also, compare to what I will do as a pro with a caddy, here I push arroung my 12KG bag during all the session.
So I have and average of 116. Some rare pick above 130, and rare lows bellow 110. The picks can be explain by 2 things. The first one is of course the golf course. The 159, was most likely just after one of the steepest uphill track of the course.
And the second is, my swing themselves. Because what I have find experimenting on the practice range is that after each swing I got a spick in my heart rate. So I can safely say that each time my heart rate went up realy quick, it was just after a swing. The biggest spike may be after a drive swing.
So what I am concluding is that before each shots my heart rate is around 110-115 and after each shot around 120-125. Now I know what physilogical state I need to have when I am on the practice range to have a coherent heart rate from training to golf course.
Plan For Next Training & Golf Course
Realy, I think there is no need to overthink this bad performance. I am just lacking Playing, I need to do a lot more golf course, progressively applying my technique on the golf course. And become more natural with it.
Because so far everytime the situation was normal, I managed to swing well despite my lack of confort with my swing. But when the situation was strange or the lies were uneven, I realy struggled to swing well.
Also I didn’t understand a few things about my swing. Nothing on the core fondation. But more about what I am doing wrong compare to what I have in mind.
I am realy confident in the way I think about my technique. I am sure I am in the truth. It took me realy long to be able to stabalise what was in my mind but now I have it. Next step is to transfert what I have in my mind toward a perfect execution.
So let’s do that. Just keep practicing my technique to get more confortable and schedule a golf course for next week to play more.
And for the short game, practice the bunker play. Out of the 2 I had I missed both. And truly they wasn’t realy touch bunker shots I could have done better. I think the technique is good, I like the way I do it. I just lack practicing with this new way of doing.
So for the bunker play practice the failling point consistency.
That’s it for today.