A friend was recently quarantined on a cruise ship. Unwilling to pay for WiFi, and tired of basic cable, he discovered that he had access to his email cache. Among those emails was ROI Golf, sitting unread. (Hurtful, Thomas). Finally having the time, he read through the backlog. He presented me with his notes once we safely got back on his data plan. He mentioned that it felt like I had abandoned my putting practice, because I had not written about it in awhile.
I have not abandoned my putting. I have been slowly improving in small and boring increments over the past few months. My speed control is slowly getting better, and my biggest issue now is staying focused and making good strokes. I am in the montage portion of my training. I am hoping the work that I do pays off, but right now, I am simply in the middle of it. Grinding away and trying to get a little bit better one day at a time.
I have seen some on course results. I recently dropped a long putt that I hit perfectly, and my last round had no three putts. I am beginning to see my labor bear fruit, but it’s mostly just been time on the practice green, hitting putts and working on my speed control. I run through the various drills I’ve talked about, and I hope that I am making small, permanent gains as I practice.
It’s boring, mostly. One of the big things I have learned trying to create content for a golf blog is that the real improvements aren’t immediate aha moments, they are simply getting a little bit better in a way that sticks. There is no real secret to improvement. We simply have to dig it out of the dirt, which requires both work and time. The biggest question I have come to ask myself is: how do I determine where to spend my time and how do I figure out it is effective?
In other words, I am not sure my putting practice will pay off, and I don’t have much to say about it right now. I think I am getting better! I am doing a weekly test on top of my practice to see if I can track any improvement. Thus far, the biggest improvement I have seen is in the 6-10 foot range. I’ve found my ball speed to be much more consistent and that allows me to play appropriate breaks.
The struggle is there are not any huge revelations or big swings towards improvement. I got a little bit better today, I hope. An improvement so small, I’m not sure it’s measurable against the daily variance we face in golf. I had my lowest score ever today in my putting drill, with one 3 putt from 25 feet on the hardest pin location I could pick. I made 2 putts over 12 feet, but missed everything from 12 feet to 5 feet. On the golf course, my confidence has improved significantly.
There is not much to write about for most of the things I am working on. I got a little better today, I hope. In a few weeks or months maybe I will see real, noticeable results, or find a fatal flaw in my practice plan. I’ll find a new idea to train on, share it here and put my head down and work on it.
The montage part of improving is always boring. It’s why movies speed it up. Rocky cuts down months of work into a 3 minute song. SouthPark masterfully parodied the concept years ago. When you are working on getting better, and your plan is working, there is not much to talk about. You do the right things over and over again until your success becomes tangible. Hopefully I will be able to write about that success soon, but for now I’m focused on keeping my head down and grinding out the little improvements.
A great point (and a nice reminder) that it's not all eureka moments and instant fixes in golf. This is probably most true of putting.
What is your weekly test that use as a benchmark? Apologies if previously mentioned in a different post