I met DJ around 11:00 AM on the range. He beat me to the course and was already on his second bucket of balls. This was unusual for him as he usually begins all practice and pre-tournament rounds by first going to the putting green and then to the driving range, short game area and then back to the putting green before teeing off. But today was different because we were working on tightening up his swing and getting him back to focusing on Technical Excellence (TE) in his setup swing.
I was really pleased to see that the setup and swing points we worked on yesterday were all in play and he was concentrating on doing them all. I didn't have to make many changes, only some fine tuning and handing out compliments for good shots due to his TE in his setup and swing. The key to playing consistently and hitting good shots is paying attention to the details of setting up properly, which is the foundation to making good swings. Players at all levels can get careless about paying attention to the details of getting into a good setup and the details of making a good swing. When attention to details or TE is overlooked, problems start creeping in.
My job as an instructor is to bring students back to paying attention to details and their Technical Excellence. That includes my amateur students, me and all the way up to DJ. This attention to details also includes all aspects of the short game, pitching, chipping, bunker play and, of course, putting.
DJ hit balls for around 2 hours from the wedges to the driver. After that we went over to the putting green and spent around an hour putting. DJ and Camillo Villegas got into some small talk about their Cameron Putters and spin rates and feel of their Titleist balls. DJ plays the Pro V 1, considered softer and to have more spin than the Pro V 1X Camillo plays.
From the putting green we went over to the short game area and worked hitting pitches from lobs to pitch and runs, then a bunch of bunker shots and pitches from the greenside rough. He finished off his range practice by hitting drivers on the left side of the range working on hitting it extra high over the trees on the corner into the range. He said this was for the height he wanted to have to hit to the reachable par 4 fourth hole. It has a huge deep bunker in front and is a narrow green in depth on the angle the drive lands on the green.
With the range practice done we walked into the parking lot to catch a shuttle to the first tee which has to be what seems like a mile away. We played the front nine with Jeff Overton. Jason Day joined up for holes 5 and 6. The main plan for a practice round is to figure out the strategy for playing every hole, what clubs to hit, and most importantly, to get the feel for the greens. The players and caddies putt and or roll balls in all the likely spots for pin placements, mapping the breaks on their yardage books. They are also noting the slopes and mounds on the greens that will throw the balls toward the pin placements.
It was a good nine holes with only a few wide shots, mostly caused by poor alignment. The best point was that DJ hit a lot of quality shots, especially working the ball with some good high cut shots with long irons. We only played nine holes finishing around 5:30.
We headed back to the clubhouse with DJ having Todd (his caddy) take his clubs to the Titleist Tour Van to be re-gripped. He told Todd to bring his putter and 3 balls to the putting green. DJ went to the locker room, changed shoes and he and I went up to the grill room for a snack and drink while we went over his practice session and 9 holes. We also discussed what I thought we still needed to concentrate on tomorrow and the plans and time for a dinner engagement that he and I had to attend tomorrow night.
The day finished with around 30 to 40 minutes of putting where DJ and Todd had their putting challenge. I don't know who won but if it wasn't DJ, I am sure he would catch a lot of ribbing driving back to Boston with Todd. We left the putting green and were done for the day with plans to return around 11:00 AM tomorrow for another day of fine tuning the Technical Excellence for Friday's first round in the Deutsche Bank Championship of the FedEX Cup Playoffs.
The Surge!