The Rough Draft — A Quantum Leap

Welcome everyone to the rough draught. The date is August 8th 2023. I am excited to be, uh, filling in, filling every everyone in on where my golf game has been over the past six weeks or so.

Um, it's been an exciting journey for me and I That's why I titled this Post the Quantum Leap.

Actually, my buddy Nick, who is probably a scratch golfer, would always say that

at some point you're gonna take a quantum leap, and I feel like I have over the past uh, really, this whole summer.

I mean, so

you know, at the end of June, I had just broken 90 for the first time. Um, I'd say pretty, pretty much pretty consistently that since then I've been either shooting in the eighties or, you know, I was just like, you know, I I'll I'll I'll throw in some, like, high 90 rounds here and

there. But for the most part, shooting in the eighties and just hitting it really straight hitting it with hitting my good shots, I'm I'm hitting Great.

You know, I'm I'm I'm birding more. I'm I'm getting a lot of pars. Um, things like that it's It's just been

it's been fun. So, uh, you can see on the right hand side of my current swing? It's not, I don't know.

It doesn't It probably doesn't look that different if you compare this to a previous video, but I'm definitely working on a lot of different things,

and I can go into into what those are in a moment. But before I do that, I wanna celebrate. Well, first of all, I wanna,

uh, acknowledge the visual representation of my golf game. In the last two months, it's just been surging.

It's just been it's been Yeah, definitely surging and go. The current goal is to break 80 at Lake to Golf course.

It's kind of the I mean, that's I've been almost exclusively playing there, Um, and then break.

I still need a break 90 somewhere else because I just haven't played any, um, anywhere else. And my current handicap is 12.5.

At least that is according to

my official

GHIN Handicap, which I just started.

I just started post, uh, posting to recently. So it's not Oh, man, is this.

I'm gonna just see

stats

now. There's a way to see

Oh, no, I'm trying to find,

I don't know, just the recent rounds. It won't let me.

I just wanna look at I just wanna look at recent around, So I didn't do that.

I know there's a way to do it,

but is not showing up here. I guess this is it.

Oh, the graph. You OK? That's what I was looking for. Um, you can see handful of recent scores.

A lot of low, ladies. All right, let's talk about the 82 round. This is a couple of days ago, uh, Saturday

this round was I was just

It was just a really good round. Um, you can see, first of all, just like everything. This is all compared to an 18 handicap, which I've now surpassed, but, um, everything was was stroking.

Honestly, um, I was hitting it pretty short off the T. Actually, I'd say average just in 2 27 is not very impressive, especially in altitude.

But I had a lot of fairways. Really. What I would say I would say my approach game was incredible.

Um, I'm kind of surprised that it's only plus 2.3 here, but five girls

I don't know. I just felt like I was hitting a really straight a lot of really good shots and landing really close.

Yeah, they probably didn't even ship out that that well, I put it pretty well. I just did everything pretty well.

I didn't hit too many amazing shots. Maybe I had some long puts. If you look at the scorecard,

I had one birdie, which is nice. Two birdies, because I also breed 18. So it's nice. Um, just a lot of parts.

This is what this stretch of holes at Lake to Golf course two through six have been

or two through seven. I've kind of been dominating, Um, like, getting a lot of parts and and birdies and things like that, uh, for the most part.

So he shot at 41 with a double bogey on nine.

What was funny about this round is I was playing with a scramble or not the the other guys that were playing with the the other three guys were all part of a bigger scramble.

And so they were a team of three, and I was I would say I was winning like single-handedly three on essentially three on one.

for most of the round, they ended up shooting a plus seven. I ended up with a plus 11, so they ended up, you know, beating me overall.

But it was pretty close. And

if you look at Yeah, the the double Bo. Yeah. Nine. This is This is so silly, because what I?

I hit my drive into the rough,

and then I decided to use a three wood to try and hit it out of the rough to get close to the pin.

It was just unnecessary. I could have used a just gone for a layup, but I had hit three. Wood ended up hitting it right?

Like 20 yards into the into trouble or something like or like, maybe it was up here into trouble.

So I was unfortunate and just kind of blew up this hole. That's it's a It's an easy par five to really be.

You know, I par that one. I'm I'm at a 39 or something and really in contention for breaking 80.

Um, and then on the back nine, I was crushing it again till really 16 17. This 15 was pretty incredible because I hit it out.

I tried to. I try. I try to drive it, drive it to the green, hit it out into these trees. Took a drop in the fairway.

I'm not sure if that's totally legal, but I I took a drop in the fairway way behind where I hit it out and then, um hit my five iron to like

10 ft and then sank the put. So it was a ridiculous par. It's a ridiculous par save.

Yeah, and And the guys I was playing with were just like

they just kept giving me props almost on on almost every hill. And they were part of a bigger group and the group had kept on seeing my ball like being really close.

And they kept being like they just kept saying stuff along the lines of like, You're playing really well

and so finished with 82 and really, really could have gone lower. Um, I mean, this is the This is the the thing With golf, it's there's always what ifs.

But, man, everything was just I was just hitting everything straight, Um, and so let's talk about that.

Why am I hitting everything straight? Straight? Well, I took a lesson at Old Greenwood with Jeremy.

The same guy I took a short game lesson with the other day. And, um, he just had me really trying to see I'm not doing it so much there.

But he had me really trying to, uh, close my club face and my takeaway. He he he said it was all my takeaway, like that's the problem.

So let's see if I

do a good. OK, so right there, this is This is the angle that he wants me to do and that I agree He wants me to have this really closed.

And then as I bring it to the top, close it even more and just use my body to turn. Um, I think a lot of my swing historically still using a lot of er flipping and doing a lot of early extension.

And so it's just a lot of, uh, rotational movement through through impact versus you can see there.

I'm I'm just moving my body I. I like the the the my hands don't move relative to my body. Um, ideally And so this is what I've been working on a lot, especially after that lesson.

But after during that lesson, I just I was just hitting everything dead straight.

Um, I've lost some distance, I would say, Just using kind of changing, uh, following the tweets from that lesson.

I'm still trying to Yeah, I don't know. It's just like you tweak stuff. And like,

as when I like when I was flipping and and during the extension, I got really good at that. And so

it's my good shots were I was hitting a little further, but now I'm readjusting to this new, uh, swing thought.

And so that's not the only lessons I'm doing now. I actually have also, um, an online coach, Alex Shad,

and he's really great because he just gives me feedback on

Really? So

he's giving me feedback on different drills and different drills to do. And like, he's comparing me here to tigers.

Um, like, take away and and things like that. So he's just got me doing different drills to try and get a better swing.

What are we?

Um, so this is something I'm working on basically, every day, a little bit every day. Uh, just doing at least some drills and and uploading videos and he's, uh, providing me with this feedback to try and get me to.

Ultimately, I wanna like I don't just wanna post good scores. I want a good golf swing like I think this is a huge part of golf.

And, uh,

really, this is the golf as an analogy for life is, is, uh,

there's a lot of self improvement in golf that you like it just it just naturally like it. Like it.

It satiates my hunger for self improvement. Like II. I want to improve and get better. Um, there's also it's golf is such a roller coaster and the winning like the the success I've seen recently.

It's just it's almost like it's some of the most winning I've done. It feels like in a while, in, like any part of my life, Um, which is kind of weird to say, but it's just like I don't know, golf seems so hard, so that so if you start to do well, it's like, Wow, you can

if you put if you don't really put in the work you can. What else? What else can you win at? You know, there's a a quote that my one of my coaches, uh, as mentioned before, I don't know.

It's It's I guess it's a parable about the, uh, stone cutter who's, I guess, uh, hitting, hitting a stone, trying to trying to, uh, crack it.

And and he hits it. He has to hit it 100 times. And on the 100th whack the stone finally breaks away.

And the question that the parable asks is, Well, what Stone act or what? What? Um, hit which hit number hit actually broke the stone?

Was it the the first one? Or was it the 100th?

And I think that's a really good parallel parable for life, but also in in other areas of life, but also for golf, because it's like

for a while for a while, over the past year, I've sucked just really badly. Just shooting well over 100 clearly had regressed from even the year prior, and I've only started playing golf during covid like literally, you know, late 2020 so

I just I just kind of grinded through it. I just kept playing through it. It's it was if you can find joy, even when you're sucking,

eventually things will start to click. And that's kind of that. That that parable of the, um you know, stone cutter hitting whacking stone 100 times It reminds me a lot of golf like you just gotta keep trying to improve.

You won't always see your scores improve. Um, but as long as you're putting in the work and doing it in a smart way, ideally, um, eventually something will get through.

But there's there's, like a minimum threshold at which you need to try to.

I in my from my experience, you III I needed to be playing golf probably at least twice a week to, like, actually see improvement if you if I'm playing once a week or less like the the the Gap in time between each, you know, outing.

I lose what? Whatever I learned from the previous one, whatever feels I gained and, um, with golf you every time you go out honestly, even if you just go every single day, there's something new going on in your swing.

So if if you're going out like once a week was just not enough time,

um, and that's another good analogy for life. You just don't know you never know what cards are gonna be dealt in in in golf.

Um, so I really enjoyed getting better at golf and just like seeing that translate there like parts of it translate to other areas of of life.

It's pretty cool.

So, anyway, um, yeah, my golf game has just been

really great. Uh, it's been It's been a lot of fun recently. Um,

let's see. We got an 86 and the Bucks got an 87 82 48. Not good. 99. Not good. I went through.

You know, I'm still going through roller coasters and whatnot, but, you know, posting some low scores.

And, uh,

this is the first. This is really the first one back in June. I think I did a general upset about that and then, you know, continued to shoot some high rounds but then got through to some low rounds,

and I only started posting my hand CAPP Index at on July 11th. So

that's why my handicap, my official handicap index, is also pretty low. But it it takes it to the top eight rounds, which at this point, I have, I think, eight rounds in the eighties at Lake to golf course, so it would be pretty low anyway.

What else do I want to go over?

Yeah, I mean,

I think that's probably about it. I mean, it's just been it's been a fun journey. I've been driving it really straight.

Um, again, lost distance more recently with the recent changes. But you can see my swing there.

I'm that was going dead straight. Um, not a lot of spin left or right, and mostly the same with my iron shots as well.

Yeah. So I'm hoping this quantity continues. I'm really gunned for breaking 80 uh, at Lake Tahoe golf course.

Like I think that would be just like an awesome achievement. Like it's a It's not a huge percentage of golfers that get to to breaking 80 I would say probably less than 20%.

But I don't II I think I read that somewhere. Um, but I could be I could be making that up as well.

All right. Until next time