In my last Blog Post I hinted at some of the work I wanted to do over this winter, I thought I’d give an update on how that’s going and some of the challenges I’ve faced. As I said previously my vision of how I play good golf has never been clearer and I feel I’ve learnt so much about how important my preparation is for different types of tournaments, definitely a focus on making sure I have at least a Practice round and some time on the Putting Green before events to develop some speed control is key. So what things over the past 7 or 8 weeks have I been working on?

Long Game wise I’m really happy with my Golf Swing work I’ve done, I’ve gone from 2900 ClubFace Closure Rate down to around 2000, which essentially means the speed in which the clubface is rotating during impact is lower and therefore easier to control. I’ve improved this by changing the way my body moves through the swing, the club reacts to the force put on it by the hands and the body is a huge driver of this. Hundreds of repetitions of the motion wanted has begun to show a huge improvement when in the Swing Studio, it still relapses a little on the course but in general I’m seeing a better ball flight consistently in both situations. This also has a knock on effect into my wedge play where I’m able to control loft and face direction so much better, so I’m able to focus on distance. On the course especially I’ve seen a massive increase in confidence that I’m going to hit it close with a wedge, for me that means I can be less aggressive off the tee as I trust myself to make birdies with a wedge in my hand, this is something that has always been huge when I’ve had my biggest wins.

Putting has seen some real improvement, I am reading the greens so much better. I recently had a week in Dubai for a Pro-Am and although I didn’t hole as many as I’d like my reads for both myself and my amateur team mates were much better and resulted in them holing a lot of putts. By spending 2 sessions a week focussed on my ability to read the slopes its really transformed that area. Pace is something I aim to work on when the weather gets warmer and the greens get quicker, because slower greens mean less break and less importance on speed control.

Overall I’ve managed to develop a great plan and have a fantastic facility to practice over the winter, which is something I’ve not had for a few years due to Covid etc. With my first tournament in Portugal January, I’ll be using that as a chance to really test where my game has got to under tournament conditions and can review what I need to change over the next couple of months to be ready. 

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and I’ll speak to you all in the New Year