I’m not sure if I could survive that for 90 days, but if I suddenly won the lottery or something of the sort, I would certainly do that for a month to see what would happen.
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If I had the time, I think I’d want to alternate practicing, playing an 18 hole match and then taking a day off.
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I actually spent my summer after college playing golf pretty much every day for 3 months… occasional lessons, not much practice…
Successfully got down to a 4 handicap with a 74 (finishing bogey bogey) as my best round… I still look back on that time and regret not using it better in terms of improving at golf.
I also lost 60 lbs of weight, so that was good!
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Lol not sure if I could do that either. That sounds pretty intense.
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Last month I decided to take on the Tour 25 Blueprint Challenge referenced in the book I mentioned in an earlier post. I was able to do 8 days of it… however, only 4 hours a day, versus 8 hours. I stopped due to having a pinched nerve in my mid-back, not due to the golf.
So yesterday I restarted the Tour 25 Blueprint… with the two changes, only 4 hours a day versus 8, and only 6 days a week, versus a continuous 25.
I plan on chronicling my practice – and doing the challenge in 50 days (well actually it will take more since I am only doing 6 days a week), since at 73 years young my body does not like 5 plus hours a day, day after day. So about late February I will have a handle on how much this has helped.
At the same time I am doing work with a mental coach… so it should be fun. I will check in occasionally with progress reports.
As a reference point, I averaged 79 in my last three rounds with scores of 78-79-80.
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Thanks, I was definitely wrong in what I had thought you meant. One thing you didn’t mention, did he actually make it to Scratch from a 12 handicap?
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According to his book, he did… some time in mid to late December. So he was doing his 90 day challenge intensive for 9 months from May 1 until mid-December.
I do not remember how many rounds he played in the earlier part of the year, however, if he was playing 8 rounds a week from May to December that is 32 rounds a month for 7 months or 234 rounds!! So he had lots of practice taking his range game to the course!!
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Playing golf in college on a pretty good team made me very good at golf but I hated it at the end. It was such a grind that all the fun was beaten out of me. When I got home after graduating, I played a twilight round with my dad and tied the course record at our club. But, I was grumpy the whole way round because I three putted the first hole. Even playing an awesome round with my dad was not very fun and it was then that I knew I needed long break from golf.
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I manually record (write stuff down on scorecards), then put it all into spreadsheets because I’m an Excel nerd.
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What do you keep track of during your rounds?
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V nice. In excel myself, but not enough detail to separate out penalty strokes!
FWIW, this is what my scorecard looks like:
Score, FW (+/-), approach distance, GIR (circles), up-and-down (+/-), shots <100 yards, # of putts, first putt distance… I also add a “P” for penalty, “R” for rehit/recovery, “S” for sand save opportunity where appropriate.
Been keeping track for 20 years. Takes me ~5 minutes to punch into Excel after a round. There are some data points I wish I had captured over the years, but for the most part, this has always been helpful in directing my (usually limited) practice time.
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I’m happy to have Arrcos tracking all that for me now =)
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Question, what gets punched into excel?
Hole by hole record or just a summary?
Hole by hole record. 8 data points per hole. Spits out lots of things like GIR breakdowns, short game effectiveness, etc. I stare at my Excel, which points to different places to practice…
Practically speaking though, the biggest takeaway every single time I stare at this is the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm. I’ve written this somewhere in this forum before, but I’m constantly amazed at how many strokes I just throw away per round. As a 3 handicap, over the last 20 rounds, I’ve averaged 4 “stupid” shots per round: chunked chips/pitch shots, three putts, and penalty strokes.
Haha for sure… I’ve started using Arrcos too. I don’t trust the insights yet, but hopefully they’ll get better!
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You just summed up decade foundations!
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Fairways hit.
Fairways missed and why - I write a little blurb so I understand and can track patterns for specific things to work on i.e. pull hooks or dead blocks (usually pull hooks).
GIR
Putts per round/hole - and what my misses were (usually right pushes and too fast)
Penalties
Up and downs/Sand saves (scrambling percentage)
Scoring inside 100 yards and approx proximity to hole inside 100 yards
My scorecards look like physics homework by the end of my round, but these things really help me hone in on what I need to work on so I’m practicing with purpose.
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Is it per hole input or do you punch in round summaries?
I do something similar but keep it in a journal that I fill out post round. Then only a few basic stats go into excel.
I agree that actively writing these things down and thinking through it provide massive value. In my mind, the mental exercise of review is actually more valuable than the excel “database”
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I started a topic in this How do you track your stats? as I think it’s an important aspect in actually improving at golf.
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I’m going to steal the fairway tracking system. I haven’t been keeping fairways, have only been focused on greens, near greens and putts but this seems very useful.
I like the yardages as well on approach and strokes inside 100. You and @Bigdadenergy have definitely got my analytical juices flowing.
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