Graham Averill is turning 50 this year and he’s crazy. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he’s decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He is a 13 handicap trying to get to zero in a year. Welcome to his midlife crisis.
OK, I’m almost two months into this crazy goal of trying to get to zero by the time I turn 50, so I think it’s time for an update to my game. I started the process as a 13 year old handicapper with some obvious swing issues. I got a golf coach (Sam Hahn, CEO of LAB Golf), joined a country club, and spent the first few weeks of the project re-drawing my swing with Sam’s guidance, working on everything from grip to follow through.
So after eight weeks, with a lot of hard work under my belt, I’ve gone from a 13 handicap to a…12. Yes. I’ve dropped a stroke from my golf game. 12.0 on the nose. Please hold the applause until the end.
Let’s get into the details.
process
The first weeks of this process were devoted entirely to swing work. I was hitting the net, watching myself on video, adjusting the smallest moves and trying to bake in certain patterns. I didn’t play much golf for weeks. It was very early in the season and I was content with attempting a massive movement overhaul. The swing work had to be done and is still a work in progress. But within the last few weeks, I’ve gotten more comfortable with my “new” swing and have been playing rounds where I’m trying to score.
So how much golf am I playing? I haven’t quit my job and I’m still married with kids, so I wouldn’t say the amount of golf I’ve played is “embarrassing,” but it’s pretty close. There are times when I have to travel for work, but I’m generally on the golf course four to five days a week for at least a few hours a day. This is broken down into two practice sessions a week where I focus on specific movements or skills, and two or three rounds a week. But those rounds are mostly nine holes because I don’t have time to play 18 often (see: wife/kids/work above).
Repairing the swing was an unpleasant process. There was a golf tournament with friends in between that job where I shot a 103. I pulled every single ball stuck hard in the woods. Literally, every single ball. Sam told me that changing my swing was going to be a long process and it would take time before it started to show big results. He said I should expect the whole process to take about six months. We’re still working on various technical aspects, but the swing is at a place where I can take it to the course and not shoot triple digits. Which brings me to…
What is working
Honestly, my swing feels pretty good right now. I’m hitting the ball with my irons more often and have increased the distance across the bag. That extra level didn’t come from more time in the gym – it came from fine-tuning my technique and engaging my core in the swing. I have a real twist now instead of just dislocating my shoulders. It has made a huge difference in consistency as well as distance.
The driver has also gone from a liability to an asset in the last two weeks after addressing my setup and trying to go from a draw to a fade. As a result of that work, I’m hitting a lot more fairways.
Overall, I have fewer bad shots per round overall. You know the shots I’m talking about – the occasional chipped wedge or slice out of nowhere. They will still happen, but they don’t seem to stack up like they used to.
As a result, my scores are dropping. Over the past two weeks, a standard nine-hole round is four to five over par. I’ve shot some 18 rounds in the very low 80’s in the last few weeks as well. I had a terrible round last weekend with two triple bogeys on the back nine and came away with an 87. At the beginning of this process, I would have been pretty excited to get an 87. Now I feel like I have to take a round to punish myself.
According to the software I’m using to track my rounds, I’ve made the biggest improvement in the last few weeks off the tee and around the green. Driver and chip shots.
All the other shots? Well…
What still needs work
I mean, kind of everything. Yes, I’m hitting fairer more and getting up and down more often, but there’s no aspect of my game that I don’t need to improve.
But I know that to do the most damage to my handicap, I need to focus specifically on two areas: approach shots and putting.
I’m giving up an average of 2.9 shots per round on shots from 50 to 150 yards. When I have a 50-75 yard drive to the pin, I only hit the green 50% of the time, and when I hit the green, the ball is eight feet farther from the hole than the average putt player.
I can find the short grass off the tee, but these approach shots are killing me.
Oh, and putting. I’m losing an average of 1.9 strokes per round with the flat club. If I’m 20 feet from the hole, there’s a 15% chance I’m going to three putt, which maybe isn’t that bad, but I’m missing almost all of my putts on the shorter putts. The six to nine foot range is my kryptonite with only a 5% production rate. I need to start removing more of them, but the most frustrating (and embarrassing) aspect of my game is three to five endings. I’m only doing 33% of them.
That’s like making 33% of my open shots in a basketball game. This is sad.
In other words, I’m leaving too many putts on the table when I’m really close to the hole. I’m not closing the account. If I were a character in Glengary Glen RossI would not take any coffee “because coffee is close”.
But here is the trickiest thing I need to work on moving forward. Somehow, I have to learn how to stop thinking about my score and just try to hit good golf shots. It sounds easy – be present – but the only measurable aspect of golf is the score. The title of this project is only about the score. And yet, I have to find a way to let the score go while I’m in the middle of a round, and just focus on one swing at a time, because letting go of the bottom line will ultimately yield a better score.
Golf, man. It’s strange.
I knew that trying to get to zero would not be easy. I knew the shots wouldn’t come soon. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth trying. If I wanted it easy, I’d play pickleball.
Am I satisfied with my progress? Hell no. But I am encouraged. It’s still early in the season and I’m giving myself a full year for this project. My swing is in a good place thanks to Sam’s help. I believe I finally have a solid foundation to build on and a process that will help me continue to improve.
Scratch that with 50. Let’s go.
Dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to get better at golf in middle age and read last week’s Scratch by 50 about how Graham came to terms with his driver.
