First Rounds of the Year in the Books

Well, the first rounds of the year have come and gone. And there has been room for a lot of improvement - as shown by my Strokes Gained data from the month of May at the bottom of this post.

The month was pretty rough overall. It saw my handicap index absolutely balloon from a 12.0 to a 13.1. I spent a lot of my time at the range working on my game, trying to improve my strike location with foot spray on the club face and ground contact with my divot board (until I rocketed it into the driving range from hitting so far behind the ball and had to re-glue it).

I only managed to make it out onto the course 6 times this month but my plans for finding lower scores seem to be making a difference even if the scores haven't quite been following. just yet.

Approach Shots

While my Strokes Gained for Approach Shots took a hit this month, that was in large part to some infuriating hosel rockets in my first few rounds of the year and had less to do with target selection. The Sweet Spot and Hack it Out podcasts often talk about taking more club when going into a green. Specifically, they talk about how the dispersion in your shot distance is just as important in selecting a target as the left-to-right dispersion. Many people choose their club based on what they think is their average, even using tracking data to back that up. But there are always going to be shots that do not go as far as your best shots. So, as a way to increase greens in regulations, they suggest taking the distance to the back of the green when selecting your club.

After hearing this, it makes a lot of sense. After a month of employing this strategy, I was very happy with the results. Compared to last season, my greens hit percentage is up a whole 4%! Yes, it's a very small increase but I will take every bit of improvement I can muster. Granted, this is a small sample size but it's definitely encouraging and I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out throughout the rest of the season.

Tee Shots

I'll be honest here, my driving has been great for me this year. Even on the days when I felt that I have not been great off the tee, I have been scoring pretty well as far as Strokes Gained data goes. If only I could figure out how to hit my irons like the driver...

Putting

Putting has been quite a struggle for me to get my Strokes Gained to a positive value. While every other category has at least seen some rounds with a positive value, that has yet to happen with putting. I've started to get better with my pace control with much more putts being left within 3 feet than last season - thanks in part to a new putting drill I've started using for warm-up.

In the drill, I practice putting to a tee in the practice green rather than to the hole. The idea behind the drill is to force you to have a more finely tuned distance control by removing the possibility of a firm putt dropping into the hole or one hit slightly off-line dropping into the side. It really is focusing more on hitting your target and less to do with getting the ball in the hole. I've found that doing this before a round is a great way for me to get my feel on the green dialled in.

Strokes Gained May 2023

What's Coming up in June?

Well, I'm sure you can tell from the date I posted this that this info may be a little dated. But, I will have a new post up in the coming days detailing a few things that happened to start the month of June that I am pretty excited about. I played my first tournament of the year this month and have discovered a great new putting technique that has shown immediate benefits.

Stay tuned for some interesting updates on those and more in the coming days.