I went to CGCC this morning and caught up with Toby at the golf shop and then borrowed a sandwedge from Jason and practiced pitching. Dongki met up with me and then we proceeded to the CGCC and worked on drills. We started with swing practice and exercises where I focused on the 3 drills of push, pull and jump, and flexing my body. I also did swings with a titlelist swing speed stick. He broke down my swing into 6 steps: (1) all-right or the starting position, (2) take the club back parallel to the ground but in front of my ands, (3) wrist turn up to a 45 degree angle to the ground, (4) swing down to the ball, (5) follow-through with club to 45 degree angle, and (6) pull back around. We also did exercises after a brief amount of time on the treadmill (which he says I should do for 30 minutes before I meet with Dongki in the future to warm-up), including: (a) taking a thick noodle and doing flexibility tests with each part of body moving it up and down 5 times, (b) throwing a medicine ball towards Dongki, (c) rotating back and forth while sitting on a giant bouncy ball, (d) doing the previous exercise with a 5-6 lb medicine ball, and (e) air squats. A lot of these exercises were geared at increasing my flexibility and also improving my swing. We plan to start meeting up Monday/Wednesday/Friday in the morning for 90 minutes regularly and increase it to more in the future.
Afterwards, I had a green smoothie at Jamba Juice with Amber and told her what I learned and I was excited about the day. Then, I took care of some business and banking before going over to see Dr. Sanderlee who completed the TPI fitness tests, which included everything from jump tests, flexibility tests, special tests, strength tests with a medicine ball, and coordination tests for standing on one foot for a long time. He stated that I had a starting TPI fitness score of 18, which is above average. On one of the tests, he said I scored above the average PGA Tour players; however, they usually have a better overall score. Afterwards, we did putting evaluation, where he had me line up the ball and test distances. He says that it would help me if I walk to the hold and pace back to understand the green; however, Dongki said that as well. He also had me experiment with having my left foot slightly forward and a foot away from the ball; however, he said many PGA Tour pros that have a stronger left eye like me will have their eye directly above the ball with their left eye looking down. So I would like to try that out as well for short game practice. I think I may be leaning back a bit because my club is kinda leaning as well.
9,782 remain. Random stat: Today was my first day practicing pitching at CGCC and Dongki is going to have me focus on short game for the next 2 months and not work on irons or driver until I master the fundamentals of short game and also understand the fundamentals of a stroke a lot better through the exercises he is having me do; in addition, I have scheduled short game training with Nick at Butch Harmon School within the week.
June 18, 2015
This morning, I went to the Badlands Golf Course to meet with Dongki Yang, who is a Titlelist Performance Institute (TPI) coach that specializes in fitness training, but he also is able to teach me more fundamentals of golf. He says I should stick with a swing coach for the critiques of swing motions, but he can develop a routine for fitness. We started on the driving range and he had me warm up by doing a few exercises:
Moving my body from from side to side with the hips (like swinging a club).
Grabbing onto the side of the golf cart (one hand pushing and the other pulling) – then reverse face to do it with the reverse arm and hand.
Stretching part ways down for 5 seconds with legs stretched with right leg over right, and then touching my toes – then reversing.
And swinging with an imaginary kettle bell from right to left and then up like a golf swing.
Afterwards, Dongki critiqued my actual swing with an 8 iron. He was surprised to hear I was shooting a 100 because I had a good swing. However, he critiqued a few things. First of all, he said my back was C-shaped and it should be more neutral. When I tried to make a S shape with my back, it became more neutral because I am so used to C-shaped. Secondly, he said I needed to be more upright. Finally, I needed to align my aim so that my hips, feet, and club all aimed in the correct direction.
We then went to the pitching range and practiced pitching. Followed by a trip to a par 3 hole and par 5 hole to have some criqiques and practices relaxing my swing to be softer instead of trying to hit too hard. We finished with time on the putting green from 5 feet, 10 feet, and 15 feet. Dongki had my align the ball a bit towards my eye.
One of the big takeaways is to focus on walking to the green when in short game and every long step that is about a yard could be measured to know my distance. Also, when driving, Dongki said I need to focus on the 3 main things: (1) looking at the obstacles, (2) figuring out where to aim the ball, and (3) finding an even space on the tee for the right shot. We are going to continue to meet tomorrow at CGCC’s gym for 90 minutes for more training.
Dongki would like to see me get my swing coaching at Butch Harmon School. He recommends I play golf and do gym 5x weekly and that he thinks I could shoot in the 70’s in a couple years with the right training instead of my expected 10 years to gain mastery. To improve my short game, we wants me to spend 10 hours/week on the pitching range to get better at measuring distances.
For gym exercises, he recommends (a) treadmill, (b) using a ball and swinging it from side to side, (c) the pull up/down bar machine, and (d) a small 3-5 pound weight to practice wrist rotation exercises. He says my lower body needs to regain flexibility and my upper body needs strength, and also I need to get rid of my potbelly and put on more muscle. So that sounds like a good gameplan.
The pain I’ve experienced in my arms, lower back, and hands will go away after I get the right workout routine and body posture for my golf swing he claims. I hope he is right and I will continue to follow the plan and meet with other professionals as well to get more guidance and reassurance that in addition to my golf advice, I’m also getting the correct medical and fitness advice.
At 1pm, I met with another TPI coach named Dr. Sanderlee, who has a gym in Henderson. We did flexibility tests and noticed my left arm is more flexible than my right and may be also pulling the club with more strength. I’m also meeting him again as well to do a putter fitting and finish the TPI tests.
9,786 remain. Random stat: My long game is looking a lot stronger than my short game because I have put a lot more practice in it, and I’m hitting the majority of my irons’ strokes well nowadays, and I believe I will get to the point soon where all my iron shots are at least going a correct distance.
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