Personal golf records

[johnnybiarritz]

Longest Drive: over 400 and that was about 15 years ago. Course didn't have fairway irrigation and it hadn't rained in several months. Most of my drives that summer went over 350, probably 80 yards of roll.

Birdies in a row: 2. Yep, 50 rounds in a row with a birdie, better than scratch handicap at times, never more than 2 birdies in a row.

Birdies in a round: 6

Best course I ever played: Pebble

[tacks451]

very nice Pebble Beach !!

[SmoothBomber]

Now these are the types of records I can get on board with and keep myself!

Long Drive: 340 (wind aided) finished off back on a short 325 par 4.

Birdies in round: 4 ... with 3 in a row! lol. Wow Johnny, not sure how you can be sub scratch and have a birdie in 50 rounds in a row and not get more than 2 in a row just by chance somewhere. My 3 included a 50 footer and a missed 10 footer for eagle.

Longest par streak: 8 , with a nice double bogey to finish the 9 cuz it got in my head.

Best Round: +2 72 at Humber Valley but I'm hoping to crack par next season. Still played fewer than 100 rounds in my short playing days so it would be nice to get it in lucky year number 7 of playing and before triple digit rounds played.

edit: my first year I played 3 rounds and did range like 5 times and wonder if I should even count that. This year I played the most of any and got up near 30 thanks to underpar replays.

[nomullies]

Don't do it for golf but do for my 12 year old girls bball team. Free throws are killing me.

[tacks451]

Yes I used to do that with High school hockey.

[SmoothBomber]

Don't do it for golf but do for my 12 year old girls bball team. Free throws are killing me.

Girls around this age learning FTs came up in this other thread...maybe you can try something similar. Won't click for everyone so easily as this girl is an elite athlete but def worth a go if your team is in the 30% range...

Here is a young girl learning basketball story that has many parallels to ppl learning golf by positions...

I know this 11yr old girl to be a great athlete who is extremely coachable and I see her shooting hoops in the playground....horribly. First sport I've seen her be bad at so I suggest a little experiment and have her shoot 10 free throws; she made none and airballed 5. She says she's trying hard to do what her coach told her...how to hold the ball, how her arms should look, how the finish should look. I then had her unleash her natural athleticism by throwing the bball straight up the school wall as high as she could but straight up in any way she wanted to. She then picked a spot about rim height and threw to there, taking a couple steps back every few throws until she got as far back as the free throw line. 10 more freethrows and she sunk 5 and airballed none. This took less than 15min including our catching up chat. I took a vid on my phone and showed it to her and asked "are you doing the things your coach told you to?".
"Yup."
"Does it feel like it?"
"Nope."

It isn't the positions, it is how they are achieved. More importantly, intention is key and if your intention is to move your body parts a certain way, your performance will be trash even if you are very athletic. Internal focus is a killer.

When I see athletic guys sucking at golf, sometimes unable to even hit the ball, let alone hit it with power, I cringe and think back to this experience with the 11 year old girl. It shouldn't happen but it does because instead of bringing their abilities from other spheres to golf, they treat golf as a separate thing from other sports and build from scratch, usually with an awkward feeling, mechanical manner full of internally focused swing thoughts. Not the way to learn and yet this way of teaching is more common than the alternatives.

[nomullies]

Girls around this age learning FTs came up in this other thread...maybe you can try something similar. Won't click for everyone so easily as this girl is an elite athlete but def worth a go if your team is in the 30% range...

Here is a young girl learning basketball story that has many parallels to ppl learning golf by positions...

I know this 11yr old girl to be a great athlete who is extremely coachable and I see her shooting hoops in the playground....horribly. First sport I've seen her be bad at so I suggest a little experiment and have her shoot 10 free throws; she made none and airballed 5. She says she's trying hard to do what her coach told her...how to hold the ball, how her arms should look, how the finish should look. I then had her unleash her natural athleticism by throwing the bball straight up the school wall as high as she could but straight up in any way she wanted to. She then picked a spot about rim height and threw to there, taking a couple steps back every few throws until she got as far back as the free throw line. 10 more freethrows and she sunk 5 and airballed none. This took less than 15min including our catching up chat. I took a vid on my phone and showed it to her and asked "are you doing the things your coach told you to?".
"Yup."
"Does it feel like it?"
"Nope."

It isn't the positions, it is how they are achieved. More importantly, intention is key and if your intention is to move your body parts a certain way, your performance will be trash even if you are very athletic. Internal focus is a killer.

When I see athletic guys sucking at golf, sometimes unable to even hit the ball, let alone hit it with power, I cringe and think back to this experience with the 11 year old girl. It shouldn't happen but it does because instead of bringing their abilities from other spheres to golf, they treat golf as a separate thing from other sports and build from scratch, usually with an awkward feeling, mechanical manner full of internally focused swing thoughts. Not the way to learn and yet this way of teaching is more common than the alternatives.

Thanks Bomber, I appreciate the help. I had read this earlier. The story above relates to a girl that couldn't shoot to begin with. We do have a beginner practice player like this. Look at my girl #2. Flat out superstar who is shooting 40% from 2s and 3s. Her form is perfect. She only averages two trips per game. It may have more to do with how seldom they get there and something mental. Too much pressure they put on themselves maybe. Also, we have had shooting clinics with high level instruction and video analysis, etc. FYI, we are 8-2 playing against mostly the top teams in the province. Two losses were to big and strong teams that dwarf us. Our schedule gets tougher from here to the end and the star above just got her second concussion with 20 seconds in the last game. Mild, but a concussion nonetheless.

[SmoothBomber]

Thanks Bomber, I appreciate the help. I had read this earlier. The story above relates to a girl that couldn't shoot to begin with. We do have a beginner practice player like this. Look at my girl #2. Flat out superstar who is shooting 40% from 2s and 3s. Her form is perfect. She only averages two trips per game. It may have more to do with how seldom they get there and something mental. Too much pressure they put on themselves maybe. Also, we have had shooting clinics with high level instruction and video analysis, etc. FYI, we are 8-2 playing against mostly the top teams in the province. Two losses were to big and strong teams that dwarf us. Our schedule gets tougher from here to the end and the star above just got her second concussion with 20 seconds in the last game. Mild, but a concussion nonetheless.

Yes she couldn't shoot to begin with, but went on to shoot better than anyone on your team from the stripe...granted like I said, she is an amazing athlete that just got in her head a bit much and that lil bit on making the shot a full body activity was obv just what got the ball rolling for her. She ended up being leading scorer that year, though just for school team and not against such high level competition as your team...def wouldn't fair as well if not the biggest, fastest, highest leaper in just about every game she played.

Your superstar and the other girl shooting around 40% def should be better from the line and I can suggest one thing that worked for me coming up in the game. I was a rhythm shooter and was getting too static and mechanical at the line, sometimes even thinking about my stroke rather than just picking a target on the rim and letting it go like I would in play. Kind of like golfers who never seem to get still over a ball with something always moving to not let tension creep in, I developed a routine at the line which kept my entire body relaxed and my legs engaged the whole time shifting weight foot to foot or just taking tiny steps while I took dribbles and finally got into my shot closer to the way I would off the dribble. This made my FT more like my shots from the field and my FT% went from the 60s to the 80s in a hurry (in practice anyway, don't really know what my game % was but much improved either way), which helped a ton bc as a big guy I got to the line a lot.

You can test if this is the culprit by just having your girls take rhythm shots off the dribble from the line or in rhythm catch and shoot from the line and if they really outperform their FT% like I think they will, they can work on bridging the gap between the feels of the two.

Either way, Good Luck this season! Coaching 12 yr olds is no cakewalk.

edit: Shooting clinics are great! It was actually the coach from Bathurst Heights (who killed us by 50 when I was in gr9) that came to my HS a year later and did a clinic for us that got me to change up my FT routine so I shoot more like I did from the field. The biggest take away from that clinic that I never fail to repeat to my students: "You don't snap the wrist...the wrist snaps". I did a few clinics like 10 years ago...it's funny how they hang off every word you say when you swish every example, but are nowhere near as attentive when you brick a few lol.