Underdog Golf Blog

My First PGA Tour Experience

Patrick — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:00:42 +0000

This weekend I got to attend my first ever live PGA Tournament. Living in San Diego, CA, I am lucky enough to have an annual event hosted at Torrey Pines 10 minutes away from my house. I didn’t really know what to expect when I got there as I had heard mixed reviews about attending these tournaments live.
People had told me that I wouldn’t be able to see anything and it’s better to watch from home, yet others told me there was nothing like it. I have to say I agree with the positive reviews as I had a blast and loved every second of it. It also didn’t hurt that it came down to a 2 hole playoff between Brandt Snedeker and Kyle Stanley.

I attended the Farmer’s Insurance Open on Sunday, the final day of play. Kyle Stanley had a commanding lead over the field and through the entire round it looked like he had a victory all but locked up. On the par 5 18th hole still maintaining a 3 shot lead over Brandt Snedeker, Stanley put his 3rd shot into the water after hitting the green and the spin on the ball causing it to roll back into the hazard. No worries, he still had three shots to put it in the hole for the win. This wasn’t the case as he eventually three putt and sent it into a play off.

I was able to make my national TV debut at this point when they were choosing to see who would tee off first to start the playoff. That’s me below with the white hat next to my buddy Jason in the blue and his girlfriend Alex in the black. I took this pic while watching the DVR’d replay of the tournament on Golf Channel. I’ve made it public I’m not currently looking for an agent, but I’m still open to accepting calls for other national tv spots and feature films.

On the second playoff hole, after both golfers birdied the first, Snedeker had an amazing up and down for par from behind the green and Stanley missed a 5-6’ putt for par ending his hopes for his first PGA tour victory.

My hat goes off to Kyle Stanley as I’m pretty sure at least 90% of the crowd was rooting him on. I don’t know much about him but from what I saw he’s a pretty stand up guy. While walking from the 10th green to 11th tee box there was a young boy standing there waving to him. Kyle had the good nature to toss him a golf ball and the kid’s face lit up with a grin stretched ear to ear. I thought that was very cool of him as he could have easily just walked by without even acknowledging the little guy.

It was great seeing these pros play the game. Some of the shots they hit were absolutely amazing. Each time one of them would pull one off it wouldn’t even phase them, just another day in the life of a pro golfer. I was amazed at some of the shots they missed too. You think these guys are untouchable but every so often you’d see someone miss an easy three foot putt, causing you to realize these guys are just like everyone else. They just happen to be really good at an amazing game and make a ton of loot playing it.

All in all my first PGA event experience was a great one and I can’t wait to attend my next tournament. I’m thinking next year the Waste Management Open in AZ might need to happen. That 16th hole looks awesome to watch and I hear it’s a wild time.

Swinging for the Fences…Literally

Patrick — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:07 +0000

The easiest way to get better at anything in life is to examine past patterns, whether they be your own or that of history and learn from them. This is why in golf so many players keep track of specific results throughout their rounds.

I myself keep track of fairways hit in regulation (tee shot), greens hit in regulation (with at least two strokes left before par) and total putts. May golfers even go to the extent of keeping track of up and downs, sand saves, distances with each club out of every lie and so forth. I’m still have so much to learn and my swing is still evolving at such a changing rate that I only focus on the first three mentioned.

This weekend I started to notice one pattern in particular, that at first glance seems glaringly obvious, but I hadn’t pinpointed until now. I noticed that all of my worse than bogey holes come after a bad tee shot.

Now there could be a number of reasons behind this and here are a few theories:

1) Bad tee shots put me in a trouble scenario that I may tend to “go for” instead of playing the safe shot. Often times going for it leads to an added 2 or 3 strokes on a hole rather than the most likely 1 playing it safe would add.

2) When I have to hit a provisional second tee shot, I’m not able to put the bad first one behind me and end up hitting a crappy shot trying to “make up” for the first one. Typically if I push the ball right on the first one, I’ll pull it on the second out of fear the second one ends up like the first.

3) I start thinking about the potential bad outcomes a high score on the hole will do to my total round score rather than focus on the next shot at hand.

4) I still suck at golf.

5) A combination of one or more of the above reasons.

So how do I fix this? Practice, practice and more practice. The next question is how. There are two ways to approach and I’ve got to figure out what works best for me as a person and as a golfer. The first is by inducing a pressure situation. This is done by getting myself in the mindset I’m in after I hit a bad tee shot, whether it’s with a consequence should I not overcome it or positive reinforcement if I do.

The next way to approach this and this is the one I feel will work for me the best, is to focus on eliminating that feeling all together. If there is no pressure of the second shot, I won’t be affected. If I’m investing all of my focus and energy on the present moment, on the shot at hand there will be no room for me to feel any pressure from what has happened in what is not the past, or what my happen with my score in the future. And quite honestly it doesn’t matter because there is nothing I can do about it.

Say it with me. THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. What can I do? Hit this shot well. Let all the hours of practice I’ve put in go to work. Because the shot before this one cannot be changed, and if I’m focused on how my score will turn out in the end, my round is already wasted.

And for those of you wondering what the title of this post has to do with any of this, I actually hit a fence this weekend. But all pride aside I’m glad I did as it kept my ball inbounds. I could have easily gotten mad at the crappy shot or that I hit the fence but I didn’t. I saved that for the next shot when I hit the tree next to the fence on an attempt to punch it under and back into the fairway (see reason number 1 above). But that’s another story for another day…

Happy golfing everyone.

Chest Out Tough Guy

Patrick — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:00:13 +0000

I’ve always thought of myself as having decent posture. I’m 6’4”, so it’s not the easiest thing in the world as there is a lot of me to lean one way or the other. Recently though I discovered that I carry my weight on my toes.

There is never more evident than when I swing a golf club. There are a million things that can happen and the main two that I experience is dropping my head and/or falling forward afterwards. Little bit tricky to have consistency if you’re flopping all over the place.

Before

After

To correct this I initially started focusing on distributing my weight evenly in my feet when setting up to the ball. This feels to me like I’m on my hills but my mirror and golf teacher say differently. Then Brian and I decided I needed to really start focusing on this all the time.

I had no idea how much I was leaning forward in life but it explains a lot of things having to do with my posture. One of the oddest felling things to adjust is when I’m walking. I literally have to puff my chest out to stand up straight when I’m walking. I literally (and physically I guess) feel like I’m going to fall over backwards walking. I don’t even know if that’s possible but if someone can find a YouTube video of it please do share.

It seems to have helped a lot and combined with working on having a steeper backswing, I’ve been able to add about a club’s distance to each of my irons just in the past week.

Speaking of steeper back swings, Brian and I have really started breaking apart Adam Scott’s (the golfer not the actor) swing to use as a model of how my natural and optimal swing should work. I’m a very similar build to him so it works out naturally.

As I said it’s added about a club to each of my irons, but the driver and fairway woods still need some work. It’s a completely different feeling and I’ve got to work on getting the weight transfer smoother as it feels so much different.

All this will be put to the test this weekend as I try and get 2 rounds in, depending on whether or not the weather holds up. It’s supposed to rain Saturday but I plan on doing a little “No Rain” dance tomorrow, so hopefully that works.

Man Sized Baby Steps

Patrick — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:00:21 +0000

Tonight I’m staring at my computer screen, the cursor blinking on a blank page almost taunting me. I’ve got so many things going through my head on what I need to work on, but none of them translating to words. It’s almost hard to describe the learning curve I’m on right now.

As I start to understand more and more about my swing, my game and the proper way to do things around the course, I realize they are things I will need to practice much more before they register. During a putting lesson last week, we realized that I was standing too far forward over the ball and that my through swing was too long causing me too decelerate my putter head through the stroke.

Well obviously I need to learn to do it right, but man did this cause a shake up during my round this weekend. We played Lake San Marcos Country Club. The course wasn’t in the best of shape because apparently they put all their time and money into greens up keep. These greens were fast, fast, fast and my new putter stroke did not help. But so is the game of golf and if you’re going to learn how to do something, learn how to do it right.

I haven’t been able to get my photo captions to work, but I told Jason he’d make the Blog.

We’ve also been working on getting my swing to go more inside-out to hit a draw. While I felt comfortable on the range with this new swing addition, this was not the case on the course, not yet at least. I started off shaky but pulled it together on the last 5 holes of the front nine. Then on the back nine I started second guessing myself and part of the non-draw swing came out and made babies with the draw swing and half were going short and left and the other half were slicing as I tried to over compensate. We’ll just add that to the “Needs Work” list. The list is getting pretty long but that’s to be expected.

All this said though I was able to keep my cool throughout the entire round which is something I continue to work hard at. There were a couple instances where stuff I won’t repeat was muttered under my breath but then I let it go and stay in the past immediately. I’ve come to a point where I realize no good can come from me getting upset at a bad shot, a bad hole or even a bad round. The only thing it can do is affect my future progress.

This week I’ll continue to focus heavily on putting, my short game (70 yards in) and embedding the key points of my golf swing to develop more consistency.

I’d love to hear what others are currently working on. Always makes it easier to know others are continuing to improve just like I am.

Now We’re Lagging!

Patrick — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:35:46 +0000

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. I’ve grown to love that sound so much. The sound of connecting with the ball first and launching it off the club face. Anytime you watch a PGA tournament you hear this sound with almost every shot. As an amateur, and most importantly beginner, the occurrence of this is a bit more spread out.

One of the main things Brian and I have been working on lately is lagging the club on the downswing and forward shaft lean at contact. This traps the ball between the de-lofted club face and the ground launching the ball much further than releasing the club early which in turn scoops the ball or hits the ground first.

When learning to do this I was getting stuck on two parts of the swing, releasing the club early giving up all club lag and dropping my arms at the start of the downswing first rather than lead with my shoulders.

Being 6’4” I’ve got this inherent thought that if I don’t release the club early there is physically no way the club head will connect with the ball. This all leads back to my earlier habit of moving my head all over the place during my swing. Being a visual learner I had Brian show me exactly what he was describing then he physically moved my arms from the top of my back swing down to contact to show me in slow motion what this would look like if we could slow down time.

That’s when the light bulb went off and I started to understand the why behind the lesson. Below are two pictures that show how my club was connecting with the ball and how the club should be and now is connecting with the ball. Keep in mind these were taking with my phone while trying to demonstrate with one hand.

The Before

The After

The motion transferred in my brain to all my clubs up through my driver and is going to just take some practice to get used to doing without having to think about it. We’ll see how fast this actually sticks in my memory bank as I go play this Saturday in San Marcos.

I’ve also been working on my chipping and putting all week in preparation. My putting has suffered as of late due to lack of focus in my practice and I want to make sure this is not the norm. I’ve felt putting is the part of my game that needs to be the most solid. A lot of people I talk to about golf will always tell me if they could go back they’d have focused more on putting. I’m not going to be one of those people.

This Article is Not About Tim Tebow

Patrick — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:18 +0000

Patience is a virtue. I remind myself of this every day, especially those days that involve golf. This past weekend I had one of the best 9 holes of golf and one of the longest most trying rounds to date. The later round tested my patience and I feel I came out on top.

There were brief moments of sheer frustration with the slow pace of play and the group of 6 guys that somehow went out together before us, but that’s life. You can’t always get from point A to point B in the amount of time you had planned on it and you deal with it.

Besides learning that I can deal with this on the golf course now much better than I could previously, I also learned that fast greens still get the best of me. The course I play at most (Balboa Municipal) has slower and softer greens compared to some of the other area courses as does the short game practice area I frequent.

This has wrecked havoc on my putting and chipping the past couple of weeks as I have played courses with faster greens. I started getting back over to Torrey Pines to practice putting as their practice putting greens are in great shape and provide a great way to practice for these type circumstances.

Chipping though I’ve got to take a different approach to how I practice. Up until this point it has been about getting the ball to the target. My new approach is consistently landing the ball where I need to be. Focusing on where the ball hits and how high it travels in the air on its way there.

My thought process behind this is that it will allow me to adjust to the speed of the greens much easier and efficiently. Right now I approach each chip or pitch shot the same regardless of green speed. This way I take into account where the ball needs to land, not what I normally do from that distance no matter what course I’m playing.

Despite all this, as I said earlier I shot one of my best 9 holes to date making the turn with a 44. This would have been even better but I put up two triple bogeys near the end. One of them was on a par 5 and on my approach shot I put the ball to the right in the rough. We looked for it for a good 5 minutes and couldn’t find it. I’m still baffled as to where that ball ended up. It couldn’t have landed more than 10 feet off the fairway but we couldn’t find it.

The other was a par 3 that I just screwed up on and carded a 6 after a horrific tee shot OB and my one 3 putt on the day. But none the less, it was a 44 with 5 pars, 2 bogeys and the 2 trip bogs. We got out late and didn’t get to finish the round, but I’m hopeful that the first sub 90 round is just around the corner.

Golf Toy’s for Big Boys

Patrick — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:03:17 +0000

If there’s one thing I haven’t perfected yet it’s gauging distances on the golf course. I’ve definitely gotten better with time, but I’m still not where I need to be. To help out with this, I asked my wonderful girlfriend Maria for a SkyCaddie SG5 as a Christmas present. I asked, I received, I screamed like a little school girl when I opened it Christmas morning.

I was finally able to use it this past weekend upon my return to San Diego and I can’t tell you how much of a difference this thing makes. I went from guesstimating on a 10 yard give or take distance to having an exact distance read I need with every shot.

Now before you say, “Well Patrick, you can’t use that in tournaments, why use it now?” I get that and here is why it is helpful for me. I’m able to start getting a feel for how each distance looks. By using this Skycaddie, I’m able to get a read on a 173 yard shot into a front pin placement and store that in my memory bank. Overtime this will develop into an ability to gauge distance much better without the need of a gps. Now I just need to get more consistent distance with each club!

I also got a great new putting aid from Eyeline Golf. I got the Eyeline Putting mirror that is supposed to help with correct shoulder, putter face and eye alignment. I’m showing the product pic because the one I got was cracked. However, the guys at Eyeline Golf were awesome and have already shipped me out a replacement and I can’t wait to get out on the practice green with this bad boy.

Last but not least, I finally got a pair of the new Adistreet golf shoes. I love these things and decided to get the black pair as my other two pairs of golf shoes are white. These shoes are so freaking comfortable and feel as if they offer as much support as all the other golf shoes I’ve tried. Plus, they just look sick. I’m playing my first round with them this weekend and will report back my thoughts. What are your thoughts on the street golf shoe movement?

On a ending note, I’m playing twice this weekend and hope to have the first sub 90 round carded by Sunday. I’m at 36 days so far and that’s $36 I owe Drop in the Bucket so far for not breaking 90 yet after shaving my moustache. Money well spent in my book though. Have a great weekend!

A New Year A New Outlook

Patrick — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:00:35 +0000

There’s an old saying, “Practice what you preach”, that I think has finally registered with this wonderful game of golf and myself. One of the things I did this past week was go back through and read all my previous posts and I started to notice that one key factor that I hadn’t mastered was playing one shot at a time.

When I got out on the course this weekend for the first time (real time) in a month, I told myself this would be my main focus. My swing thought was dialed in on paying attention to my balance throughout the swing, but everything else was simply “One shot at a time”.

I can proudly say I did this two rounds in a row and managed to put together my lowest score yet, shooting a 90 on Sunday at Balboa. I for the most part was shooting pars and bogeys but I still had a few holes that were terrible. As soon as I walked off the green on these holes I told myself, “Glad that’s over” and meant it. It was over. There was nothing I could do to change it and I couldn’t let it affect the rest of my round. It seemed to work because I made par the next hole each time.

So my new outlook is just that. 2011 will be the year of One Shot at a Time. Hopefully by keeping this a main focal point I’ll be able to engrain it in my brain and can have it occur naturally. Until then I’m putting it on repeat.

You may have noticed I didn’t post last week and this was due to the fact that I was visiting family on the East Coast for the holidays and between seeing everyone and the whirlwind of traveling I didn’t make time to do so. However, I was able to get out on the course with my brother and uncle and had a great time despite the less than ideal conditions.

I didn’t bring my clubs because I didn’t think we’d be able to play so I had to use what was available. With my brother playing hybrids which I couldn’t hit to save my life and my uncle’s larger grips, I ended up having to use my grandmother’s clubs. My grandmother is also 5’3” and in her mid 80’s. My brother and uncle both loved this because I looked like a circus act out there trying to hunch over to hit these things. Add in the fact that it was 34 degrees out and in my 7 years living in San Diego I have become a sissy to cold weather. However I did still manage to beat my brother which made the round worth every bit of the frustration.

Golf is a Balancing Act

Patrick — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:00:35 +0000

I have always felt like I had pretty good balance. That is until I started seeing my golf swing in slow motion on video with a little red line drawn around my head.

It turns out I, like many other beginner golfers “wave my hair back and forth” during my full golf swing. Admittedly it has gotten much better. My head used to go down during my backswing and then back up in my downswing leaving tons of room for inconsistency. I’ve worked hard and learned to keep my balance and stay more upright in the backswing but that led to my head going down just a tad in my downswing.

This is what I’m working on now and it feels like a whole different golf swing. It doesn’t feel weird, just good. Being so tall I think I got it in my head that I wouldn’t hit the ball if I didn’t “get down” but this is far from the case.

I also discovered that my weight has been sitting forward on my toes and this contributes to the dropping down just to maintain my balance. Wednesday during my golf lesson I took every thought out of my head except keep your weight back (which for me was distributed evenly) and the shots started to take a new ball flight. For the first time I was naturally hitting a slight draw.
This will be what I focus on most over the next couple of weeks along with getting more forward shaft lean at contact.

This is a short post as I’m traveling back east for the holidays and as I write this I’m running around making sure I don’t forget something important as I normally do.

It’s looking like the weather in Richmond, VA where I’ll be is going to be decent next Thursday so I’m going to attempt to get out on the course with my brother and uncle for a round of true winter golf.
I hope everyone has a happy holiday whatever holiday that may be you celebrate.

3 Ideas for Practicing Golf this Winter

Patrick — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:00:15 +0000

Not one day after my last post Back in the Swing of Things, I got sick again; one of the lovely benefits of working with people who are sick and continue to come into the office. This put my total sick time to over 2 weeks and my practice and productivity for this golf blog at an almost stand still.

While complaining to one of my college friends that lives in VA, he not so subtly reminded me that he has to take months off at a time due to winter weather. He also told me it typically takes him 3 to 4 months into the golf season to really feel like his game is back to peak level.

This got me thinking about what he could do to cut this recovery time in half if not almost erase it completely. There are a lot of ways I practice when I have limited time or there is crappy weather out. Here is a list of 3 things you can do to keep your golf game up to par during the winter or down periods:

1) Get in front of a mirror: I was recently brought up to speed on the benefits of this by my instructor Brian Bobbitt. All you need is a closet mirror and a place to swing your club where you won’t hit anything (or anyone). A range mat or launch pad comes in very handy if you have one but isn’t necessary. Practicing swinging in front of a mirror not only keeps the rust off your swing, but gives you a chance to get a visualization on any areas you may need to improve upon. A couple times a week for 30 min to an hour can go a long way.

2) Get an indoor putting mat: I’ve got a 9’ SKLZ putting mat that I use inside when I just want to work on my putting stroke. It’s got markings for 3’, 5’ and 7’ so I can practice various distances. This isn’t going to make you the world’s greatest putter, but will help you keep and improve your current stroke from some must make distances. I’ve also seen guys build their own putting greens in garages and basements. They get very creative and some of them look pretty awesome. Here is one to check out.

3) Indoor Golf Net: This one requires a little more room but if you have a garage or basement it is easier to pull off than one might imagine. I’ve got a 7’ SKLZ golf net I set up in my garage with a range mat and launch pad for fairway and rough lie shots. Be careful with this one as it is possible to hit a shank and end up breaking something. The first swing I made with this I was a little nervous and put a nice little ding in the wall.

If you’ve got any other ideas for keeping your practice and golf game active during down times please share.

On a side note, I do not have any sort of deal with SKLZ, just went a little crazy for my birthday last year and bought half their products. I will only endorse products on this blog I use myself and would recommend to friends. However, if anyone from SKLZ reads this and wants to endorse Underdog Golf Blog, I’m more than willing to talk!