Shawn O'Neil Golf Fitness & Personal Training

Business Announcement 🚨

From August 2023 Shawn O'Neil Golf Fitness will be an online only service and I will no longer be offering in person coaching.

Good news is I do have a couple of spaces available so DM if interested 👍

This will be bespoke programming by me tailored to your personal needs via the TPI app

Benefits include
-Train when and where you please....no diary conflict
-Cheaper than in-person coaching with the same benefits...include more sessions for less.
-All exercises come with a description and a video to go back to as many times as you need.
-Still have access to me via direct message for any questions, feedback, equipment updates etc

🚨 New column 🚨

If you'd like to read my latest column 'starting your golf fitness journey' in then just click the following link, you can find me on page 41 of the November issue....

https://buff.ly/3UfPdSk

And if you missed the first colum 'are you got for golf' you can find it on page 43 of the October magazine by clicking this link.....

https://buff.ly/3fKSWZ4

🤓

Part 2/2 And it's another long one! 😂 Following on from yesterday's post, here are the numbers around approach play and why/how it's the meatiest metric one of the if not the most important in relation to how we score, and I'll tell how to improve it by doing only 1 thing! 🤓

It's a really good graphic, across the board as handicap gets higher the amount of greens in regulation goes down ⬇️....the more times you hit it on the green ⛳ the more chances you have for birdies and the less reliance there is on getting up and down ➡️ less bogeys.

So, how to get this number up... obviously accuracy and distance control are going to be your most important, however I can't help you with that....unless a poor pivot due to mobility restrictions is affecting your clubface control. So aside or alongside improving the above which is always a good idea....here are more time friendly ways with other benefits beyond golf that will help you hit more GIR guaranteed!

⚫ Get closer to the green off the tee - this is a biggy! As you can see from the aiding graphics the less club you have in you drastically improve your chances of hitting the green for e.g you are twice as likely to hit the green with a 9iron as opposed to a 6iron.
In handicap golfers strokes gained off the tee if the second furthest away from pros after approach.
⚪ Hit the ball further - this links directly into above aswell (strategy is the other). Increasing your speed will allow you to hit smaller clubs in from whatever yardage you have and therefore hit the green more often.
⚫ Combine the 2 points above 💪. By getting it closer to the green off the tee and being able to hit your irons further...let's go back to the previous example and say your now hitting a 9 iron into a hole you used to hit a 6 iron into, not only are you twice as likely to hit the green but more importantly if you look at the proximity graphics your going literally hit it almost twice as close on average leaving yourself 44ft instead of 67ft (check the last pic for a good visual).
⚪ The putting graphic explains why that proximity is so important! If we compare 44ft to 67ft you are 3x less likely to 3-putt, 2x more likely to make it and here's the big one...if we equate that strokes your saving 0.2 shots, 2.07 to get down from 44ft Vs 2.27 from 67ft. If your thinking 0.2 shots big wow, multiply it by 18 and you've saved yourself 3.6 shots! 👀
⚫ A few extra point relating to the above....
🔸The strokes gained model calculates gaining 20 yards will save you 4 strokes - that's 8mph...so easily achievable especially if your around 90 or less!
🔸Of course it's not as simple as multiplying your proximity strokes gained by 18 but these numbers are all averages across time and do add up.
🔸If 44ft doesn't sound that impressive, these numbers are average across all handicaps so 20-25 indexers will be more and 0-5 less etc. The best players in the world from 125-150 and 150-175 in 2022 are Hideki and Justin Thomas with ave. proximities of 19' and 23' so mainly wedges and 7-9 irons for reference 🤓

If you want save yourself 4 shots by doing nothing other than gaining 20 yards get in touch today and let's get started 🤝

Post 1/2....I've posted this image before but for a different reason....the category that sticks out like a sore thumb is approach, it's the biggest difference between pro and each handicap bracket by a MASSIVE amount....you'll notice even for really good golfers when the difference is much lower it's still a significantly more than the other areas of the game! 📉

Should you practise your chipping and putting?.... ABSOLUTELY YES! But if your a 10-25 (arguably could be 5-25) handicapper should you be practising it more than driving and approach play?... ABSOLUTELY NO‼️

Aside from the direct correlation between handicap with clubhead speed and with GIR...it's basic maths. Your average 20hcap hits 20% of greens in regulation which if generously rounded up is 4 and as you can see they get it up and down 19% of the time so from 14 greens missed that's 11 bogeys (provided the shot missing the green is the regulation approach). Now let's say the 20hcapper now gets up and down as often as a 10hcap golfer which you can see is only about 10% higher at 32% that's still 9.5 bogeys!! So getting your short game from a 20hcap level to a 10hcap level is only saving you 1.5 shots....not a huge difference is it?

It's not a coincidence that statistically as handicap goes down ⬇️....both driving distance and greens in regulation both go up ⬆️🤓

In part 2 I'll delve into approach more specifically and ideas of how to improve the most important scoring stat ➕➖⛳

I would to also add that I am not anti-shortgame or whatever, your going to have to off days ball striking wise where if you want to score your going to need to lean on short game....hence saying you of course should still try and get it as good as possible. But remember all these stats are averages of lots of rounds, and also your handicap index is best 8 across last 20 so longer term as an example if your a 20 handicapper, and you spend the majority of your practise time chipping and putting then you shouldn't expect your scoring average to get much better 🤷🏻‍♂️...also those up and down % maybe slightly generous as tour average is 58% not 64%

If you've made it this far, well done and thanks 😂...if you comment 'stats' below I'll DM you to arrange a free assessment 😎

Very interesting graphic here displaying basically the more greens you hit, the more putts you take....which seems like common sense but apparently some people still use number of putts as a sole metric of putting performance 🤷🏻‍♂️

The other stat on that graph, GIR, is one of the most correlative with average score.

If you want to make a significant reduction to your average score and thus your handicap, the most bang for your buck (if golf is your hobbie and not your job) is going to be hitting closer to the green so you can hit more of them 📋📉🤓

Putting is still very important, of course it is....but if you want to make the biggest improvement to your scores without huge input, it's not the low hanging fruit 🫐

Nice to see Peter sticking a really good score in! Has been working really hard on his mobility which has allowed for big improvement in his golf swing and the strength work we have done recently has resulted in some added yards. Only negative is losing on countback 😖

I remember once seeing a pro (tour pro, I can't remember who it was unfortunately) saying that if an amateur played all the tee and approach shots and he played all their chips putts their score would be atleast 10 lower...and as you can see from this chart for higher indexes he was absolutely correct!

...however you'll notice that for what most would call better golfers, 10 and under and it's progressive as that gets lower...it would be more beneficial for the pro to hit their tee shots 👀..and the main reason is distance 🏌🏻🏌️‍♀️ now strokes gained off the tee isn't all distance of course but the main marker.

aside from knocking shots off your scores, the prerequisites to safely adding clubhead speed will be hugely beneficial in general life... especially into later life 💪😎

..also for eagle eyes, I'm not ignoring approach as they're the clear and obvious standout figures...thats for another post 😉

Being a short hitter makes it hard to be good.
There are other factors, of course.....but more distance correlates positively with lower scores.

Make sure your body can handle the load via relevent mobility/work, get strong, get fast.

A very common MYTH is that increasing distance means increasing dispersion...this is utter 🐴s**t. The reality is if it's done properly it significantly reduces your scoring average ✅🏌🏻🏌️‍♀️

Here's a couple of graphics I like to highlight this.

Properly means having adequate mobility and stability in order to deliver club efficiently the way your coach wants you to. And building strength to be able to deliver speed with control and be able to deal with the forces placed on the body to avoid injury.