After a long, cold New York City winter, I recently got back on the course for the first time this year. I had spent the last few months hitting almost exclusively on a simulator screenso that the sight of the ball soared even as the air was euphoric.
That is, when I actually caught the ball hard.
You see, after a winter of hitting mats and synthetic turf in the simulator, figuring out how to hit CURRENT grass comes with a learning curve. Practicing on the mats, you don’t get the same feedback in your swing as you do when hitting grass. In fact, if you practice enough on the mats, you can fall into a trap that instructors call the “illusion of competence.”
The mats don’t allow you to make a divot, which means you usually won’t know where the bottom of your swing is landing. With natural grass, when the clubhead hits the ground behind the ball, it produces thick contact. But off a mat, the clubhead can simply “jump” to the back of the ball and produce what feels like solid contact. If you’re not careful, this can give you a false sense of ability to hit the ball.
So how can you protect against this? It starts with monitoring your low point. On many launch monitors, you can check your low point after each swing. If that low point comes after the ball, you know you are making first contact with the ball.
If you’re not using a release monitor that can track the low point, try placing a towel a few inches behind the ball when swinging. Avoid hitting the towel and you’ll know your swing is coming to an end ahead of the ball.
Getting back into golf after an off-season with the range and sim work can be tricky, but staying alert to your low point will make the transition much easier.
3 things I’m thinking
1. Adam Scott is absolutely crushing his driver this year. At 45, the Aussie has an average ball speed of 184.12 mph – up 3 mph from last season – good for 16th on Tour. Impressive stuff. Scott said the drive didn’t come from training. “I actually took a driver’s degree off after the Sony Open,” he said at the Players this week. “So I dropped it from 10 something to 9 something. And that definitely increased the ball speed.”
2. If you haven’t had a chance to watch Gary Woodland’s interview with the Golf Channel before the players, I would highly recommend it. Woodland has been struggling with PTSD and he bravely opened up about his ongoing symptoms.
3. Speaking of players, my money is on Scottie Scheffler this week. Choice of player no. 1 in the world may not be groundbreaking, but I don’t see anyone topping it at TPC Sawgrass. Based on reports from Sawgrass, conditions could get spicy. When setups play fast and hard, the cream usually rises to the top, and there’s no one more willing to stay on the field than Scheffler.
