Yesterday we talked about working toward goals, and I said that I wanted to talk about mine a little more. As I said, I get the feeling that people are a little unsure of what I’m really trying to accomplish so I’ll clarify a bit.

My tag line says it all: “My quest to become a golf pro”. But what does that mean? I said yesterday that goals should be specific and that’s about as broad as it gets. Have no fear. My goals are very specific, but I just haven’t done a good job relating them to all of you.

Some people have probably misconstrued that to mean that I believe that I’m headed to the PGA Tour after a little practice and a couple of competitive rounds. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I look at my ultimate goal like a ladder. I’ll begin climbing and will keep climbing until I determine that I can’t climb any further. For me, the bottom rung of that ladder is to become a teaching pro or a club pro. That is the minimum achievement that I will accept as a successful realization of my goal. I think teaching golf will be lots of fun. And it will open the opportunity for me to spend more time immersed in the game. I’ll be able to play in competitions locally or regionally. I’ll be able to do the things necessary to try to climb more rungs on the ladder. I’m aware of what I need to do to reach that level (that will make a good post for tomorrow), and I have complete confidence that I can meet that part of my goal.

But I won’t stop there. After that, I’d like to consider playing competitively. That brings up the possibility of being a tour pro. Does that mean PGA Tour? Not necessarily. There are tons of tours across the U.S. and in the world. Some just require a financial buy-in and some require players to play their way in. But there are many outlets for competitive golfers to play.

If I ever get to that point, I’ll evaluate the situation and make a decision on the next step at that time. Since I’m on a ladder here, I only want to climb one rung at a time.

I’m getting the feeling that there are those who look at me and think that I’m just naive and don’t know what it takes. Believe me, I do. I may not have the physical skill (I think I do…but weight loss is key). And even if I do, I’m flirting with the possibility of financial hardship or even ruin if I get my foot in the door and find that I’m not good enough to make any money.

But I won’t go to my grave wondering if I had what it takes.

That brings up the question: what does it take? It seems like such a huge leap between a run of the mill scratch golfer and a player on the PGA Tour. I submit to you that the difference between a scratch player and a tour player is mainly mental and also a matter of dedication. A scratch player has the physical ability and consistency to play every shot in the book. From there, it’s a matter of further refining skills through serious dedication. Not a couple of range sessions each week. I mean serious dedication. A willingness to spend hour upon hour exercising, reading, learning, practicing, refining, playing and then doing it all over again the next day. That’s dedication.

The other component is mental. There has to be a mental toughness, an ability to handle pressure, a drive to compete. You have to be able to take the plunge with confidence in your ability. You can’t succumb to the fear of failure. You can’t crack under pressure. You can’t let your focus or determination waiver for even a moment.

You could point out thousands upon thousands of people who have tried and failed over the years. And I don’t mean to trivialize their own stories. I’m not saying that they failed because they weren’t dedicated or skilled. Sometimes luck is a factor. Sometimes you need a lucky break to get over the hump and a lot of people just never get one.

Do I have what it takes? I don’t know. I’m a long, long way from even being a scratch player. But I promise you: I’m going to find out.

This isn’t a golf-related post so much. But it might have occurred to you that I’ve undertaken a pretty big task here. My goals are clearly defined, but what am I doing to reach them?

Do a little self-reflecting with me here. Do you have goals of your own? If not, why? Is there nothing in life you want to achieve? Ok, so let’s say you do. And let’s say that maybe you aim high with your goals and dreams, so it’s going to take work (maybe a lot) to achieve them. Well, what are you doing to achieve them?

These questions aren’t necessarily easy to answer. But once you set goals, you have no hope of reaching them without a clear understanding of what they are, and a clear plan of how you’re going to reach them.

The goal-setting part is a little easier. Figure out something you want to achieve. Don’t just make it nebulous. Like, “I want to lose weight.” That leaves too many questions. How much weight? In what time frame? Make your goals as specific as you can.

Next comes the harder part: figuring out what we need to do to achieve our goals. Unfortunately, this is obviously specific to the individual goal, so I can’t give you a magic pill answer. What I can tell you is, learn as much as you can about whatever you’re trying to achieve. Read books, search the internet, talk to people who have done what you’re trying to do. Often times, we even have to blaze our own trails.

That only leaves us with the execution of the plan. You might think that this is the hardest part. But if you have well-defined goals and a well-defined, realistic plan, execution is easy. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be hard work and set backs. But you’ll be marching toward your goals full steam ahead. Don’t be afraid to periodically review your goals and plan and refine as necessary.

I recently had a conversation with someone about goals that resulted in both of us agreeing that each day, if we consciously take at least one action toward reaching our goals, then we’re doing ok. I would like to further refine that to say that if each day is a net positive, we’re doing even better. Depending on your individual goals, maybe you take a small step back in one area, but make up for it with big positive movement in another area. I call that a positive day.

That brings us to my specific goals. The encouragement I’ve gotten from family, friends, co-workers, and strangers has been very positive. At the same time, I can feel people’s unspoken (maybe even subconscious) reactions ranging from genuine support to “who does he think he is?” to “is he nuts?” I’ve kind of laid out what I’m trying to accomplish on the About Me page, but I think it needs some more clarification and I think I’ll do that in a post tomorrow.

Does that mean that I feel the need to justify my journey to anyone else? No, not really. The mere act of talking/writing about it does nothing but make my plan and my path more clear, though.

What have you done today to reach your own goals?

Even tour pros miss greens every round. Check the latest stats and you’ll see that they miss greens roughly between 30% and 50% of the time. That means that they need a solid short game to have a chance at getting up and down for par. That also means that most of us may miss even more greens each round. Depending on how much we miss greens by, we’re likely to find ourselves in chipping situations a few times every round. Those few strokes can mean the difference between an up and down for par and a bogey or worse.

My chipping has improved a lot this year after I made two improvements that were causing me trouble. First, I was standing too far from the ball. This kept me from being able to just let my arms move freely back and through. I was having to guide the club head at the ball which caused inconsistency. The second thing I did was narrow my stance considerably. I now play chips with my feet almost together (but not all the way), where before I was playing them with my feet several inches apart. With the ball played off the back foot it was difficult to make a nice, crisp, descending blow and I was catching them fat a lot.

My basic chipping technique comes from Dave Pelz’s Short Game Bible. I play the shot standing relatively tall (not hunched over) with my feet almost together and my toes flared about 20 degrees toward the target. Pelz says that about 65% of my weight should be on my left foot, but I think I prefer just a little more. I choke down on the grip and employ the “dead hands grip”. Essentially, I’m using just enough grip pressure to hold on to the club. The ball is fairly close to my feet and about even with my right ankle (it helps to line up the ball before flaring the toes toward the target for a more accurate ball position). My hands start ahead of the ball. From there, I just swing the club back and through using a nice, even tempo, making sure to accelerate through the ball and strike it with a slightly descending blow. My wrists are quiet and firm but not tense.

I typically use a 54 degree sand wedge around the greens in most chipping situations because I feel more comfortable with it. It’s more common, and frankly better practice, to get the ball on the green and rolling as soon as possible, so it’s normal to chip with anything from a wedge up to a 5-iron, depending on how far the ball needs to carry and then how far it needs to roll. With a wedge, there will be more carry and less roll, and the opposite will be true for longer clubs.

If you have trouble with chipping, give this technique a try and I think you’ll see some improvement. Practice with different clubs in different situations to see how the ball reacts and you’ll get a better feel for how to play the shot when the pressure is on.

Golf is a numbers game. To excel, it requires both art and science. The art can be there from birth and might even be developed some over the years. But the science is there for everyone to use to their advantage. This is one of the reasons that I’m a serious stats guy. I’ve been a little overwhelmed with the journey that I’ve just embarked on, so I’ve been a little lax in keeping my own stats, but I promise you, that will change as I get settled in.

When you do your practice sessions, what do you work on? Your stats tell you what to do, don’t they? Right?

In my opinion, and this isn’t groundbreaking theory here, one of the biggest issues in people’s practice time is that they don’t practice the areas that need the most work. Psychologically, people like to do what they’re best at. If you know someone who might have a relatively high handicap but hits his driver well, go to the range with him. I bet he hits a lot of drivers. Meanwhile he three-putts 12 times per round. Duh!

Keeping accurate statistics is the best way to help us target our practice time. Remember when I talked about perception versus reality? Well the same problem arises when we try to honestly evaluate our own progress in between rounds. Sometimes we don’t realize how bad (or good) our performance is in a certain area, and sometimes our egos won’t let us face the issue(s).

Whatever the cause, keeping good stats will help us to figure out what we really should be spending our time working on. Sure, conventional wisdom tells us that the most time should be spent on short game/putting and to an extent, that’s true. However, if every time you stand on a tee you run the risk of spraying the ball out of bounds or in the water, don’t be afraid to pay some mind to that part of your game.

My recommendations are as follows: first, figure out what stats you want to keep. At a minimum, I suggest keeping track of fairways and greens hit, sand saves, up and downs from around the green, total putts, and penalty strokes. After that, you might want to keep track of driving distance, putt distance, total eagles/birdies/pars/bogeys, and anything else that tickles your fancy.

Second, you need to figure out how to keep track of these things during a round. The easiest way I’ve found is just to develop a meaningful shorthand notation and use the extra space on the scorecard for each hole (grab an extra card for yourself if you have four players’ scores to record). After the round, it helps to find a way to keep all these stats compiled and have something do all the computations for you. There are many websites that will do this for free. Right now, I’m trying a custom Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that was developed by someone and is available for a free 30-day trial on the web. It’s eventual price is $19. If it turns out that I like it, I’ll tell you about it later.

Finally, you need to make sense of what the numbers are telling you. That’s the difficult part because it’s hard to know how many fairways or greens we should be hitting. This is something you can team up with your pro to figure out. He/she will be able to see where you need the most improvement. But improvement is the real key. Once you have a baseline for comparison, then just look for improvement in the things you work on. Then try to target the things that aren’t improving.

Also, don’t be afraid to have a peek at the stats from the various professional tours, especially if you’re a low-handicapper. Look at the various categories and see what the highest and lowest ranks are. You might find that some aspects of your game are better than you think and maybe you’re in the mix. When I was playing my best, I was taking about 1.8 putts per hole, which puts me within the top 100 on the PGA Tour. Of course, the tour pros play on greens that are the hardness and speed of glass, but hey, we’re doing the best we can in the situations we’re presented with.

Join me on my magnificent stat-keeping adventure. Stats are your friend. Compile them, analyze them, live them, love them.

Well, I got over my apprehension about bringing my video camera out to the range with me. I was hoping to be able to share some stills and some of the video so we could analyze them together, but I’m having some technical issues. When I step frame by frame using my camera hooked up to my TV, the position of the club is apparent through the entire swing, but when I transfer the video to my PC, it’s much harder to make out the club near impact. I’m going to try again this week with the recording quality set to the highest setting and see if that helps.

Anyway, I’m really glad I went through with it. I was able to learn a lot about where my swing is at right now. I also learned that either the camera adds a few dozen pounds or I need to stay committed to my weight loss goals. Hey, it’s in my to-do list but it’s going to take time.

Here’s a breakdown of what I saw (I really wish I had some decent images to share):

• Last week, I said I suspected the “chicken wing”. Well, it’s confirmed. But, on the bright side, it’s not as severe as it’s been in the past. While I was taking the shots on the camera, I was trying the two techniques I discussed previously. Surprisingly, there were shots where the problem was almost gone. I’m thinking those techniques are working for me and it’s just a matter of time until it’s all resolved.
• I’m not thrilled with my takeaway. It almost seems as if I’m trying to “guide” my hands along the plane where the club head should be. I didn’t film any shots from behind the ball, but it looks as if my hands come out and away from my body. I think this is getting me out of whack early and adding to my consistency problems. I notice that I employ a one-piece takeaway and it stays that way for a loooooooong time. It looks kind of ridiculous. I’m thinking it’s a symptom of trying to guide my hands down the plane (subconsciously).
• I notice that when I finish my back swing with the driver, the club is perfectly parallel with the ground. But my swings with my irons (I filmed driver, 2, 5, 7 and PW) are all abbreviated. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but my perception was that I was making full back swings.
• I’m extremely happy with the amount of lag I generate in the downswing. No casting here. Definitely one of the sources for my power.
• At times, my head slides a little toward the target on the downswing. This causes me to get steep on the ball. I was consciously working on this and in some shots, it’s definitely improved over others.
• I start my swing with a little forward press that I was totally unaware of. I also fan open the club face right from the get-go. At the top of my swing, the club face looks closed. That could contribute to my tendency to hook the ball.

All in all, most of these are things that I’ve seen before. It’s funny how we revert to old habits. It’s almost like we’re made to do certain things and building a good swing hinges on leaving those things behind. But they’re never really gone.

I’m happy to have confirmed these things with video. I’ll be working on them in my upcoming practice sessions. I’ll also be going over them with my pro at my next lesson which I’m planning on scheduling in the next few weeks. I’m going to hold off for a bit and see if I can improve these things because they’re all problems we’ve worked on before. I know what I need to do. I just need to do it.

I’m going to try hard to get some usable video next week so it’s easier to demonstrate these issues.