When I started my leave of absence last fall, my goal was to improve my golf game as much as possible. Another goal was to find something I was passionate about that I could work on as a career after golf. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t posted in a few months and that’s because I’ve found that next thing, and it’s a dating app called Spottle.
Spottle Logo
I first got in touch with the Spottle team in December and learned that they were working on a dating app based on live video chats. I was very intrigued because it was a space I had been interested in for years. Eventually I signed on and that decision has completely shifted my priorities. While my handicap index is below 6 and I’m playing better than ever, I moved back to DC a few weeks ago so I can have a bigger impact with Spottle.
Why the change from golf to a dating app?
Some have sounded disappointed that I’m cutting my 12 months of golf short and “giving up” on it. Here’s the thing. Golf will always be there, but the Spottle opportunity wont. Spottle is something that I believe in. It will help people make better connections more efficiently and effectively, and will make them happier as a result. And I want to make it a success.
What is Spottle?
It’s a dating app that’s a mix of virtual spin the bottle and speed dating. Instead of ‘liking’ profiles based on a few pictures and a bio, users spin a bottle and when it lands, have a 30 second live video chat with another user before deciding if it’s worth continuing the conversation. The video chats only happen at set times throughout the week so this can’t turn into a major time suck. We also have facial recognition which will prevent this from becoming the next Chat Roulette.
Here are a few Spottle screenshots
The goal is to get a real impression of someone before spending time texting or meeting up in real life. We want to reduce catfishing and improve safety by making online dating much more transparent.
If you know anyone who spends too much time on dating apps or has lost faith in dating, see if they want to give Spottle a try by downloading here: get.spottle.app!
My coach and I are really happy with how the swing is coming along. But for the last month we’ve discussed having my clubs lengthened/getting fit for new clubs. My current irons are 1/4″ long and my driver is 1″ long. Specifically, I’m looking for someone who has experience fitting someone with similarly unique physical dimensions (tall with short arms):
height: 6’5.5″
wrist to floor: 39″
wingspan: 6’3″
It turns out that most fitters and pros do not like to recommend long clubs. They say that longer clubs are harder to control and it’s harder to get the weight and shaft flex right. That makes sense, but it ignores the obvious fact that someone who is very tall would need longer clubs to reach the ground with a normal swing.
My recent fitting
I went to True Spec Golf in Jupiter to get fitted a few weeks ago. I told them that my current clubs are 1/4″ long and that Wayne and I think I need longer clubs. They didn’t measure my heigh or arms, and I only hit irons that were 1 in long. But is that enough? Is it too much? I don’t know because we didn’t test different lengths. I believe they said 1″ long was the longest they had for me to try, so I couldn’t have tried longer than that.
They also told me that their drivers and woods only came in standard length. I asked about length many times and I they told me that they believe that for most players, they can get a better fit with the different shafts and club heads than with longer shafts. You know what happened? My current driver, which is 4 years old and 1″ long, performed better than all the combinations of new heads and shafts. So they recommended I stay with my current driver.
Last week I had 3 of my irons (6, U, and 58 degree) extended to 2″ long so I could test out how the swing plane felt and looked. When I was hitting on the range, it felt like I was able to strike the ball without being so contorted at impact. However, Wayne pointed out that lengthening the clubs has made the weight much higher than normal.
Looking for a great fitter
So right now I’m still looking for someone who has experience fitting tall people with short arms, and is willing to see if very long clubs will work better than slightly longer than normal.
If you have any recommendations please reach out to me at rosenbergmaxa@gmail.com!
Here is a recent drive cutting the corner on a dogleg.
What’s the skill that you most recently worked on? How long did it take for you to start improving? Were your results uniformly better, or did you still revert back to poor performance often?
There’s no doubt that I am a much better golfer than I was a few months ago. My swing is different, my short game has improved, and my decision making is better. My handicap is now trending below 6. I’m hitting more fairways and green and record fewer putts.
But as I improve, so do my expectations. And unfortunately, golf is a sport where some days it clicks, and some days it doesn’t. So even though I feel like I should par or birdie every hole and shoot in the 70s every round, I still play poorly pretty often.
Some rounds I can’t hit the ball straight, other rounds I can’t get up and down (when you miss the green with your approach shot, but get the ball in the hole with 1 chip and 1 putt), and then there are the rounds where I have a bunch of 3-putts.
These are my most recent scores.
So even though I’m 100% better, I still shot 85 or higher in 6 of my last 15 rounds. That’s super frustrating.
When I play and it all clicks, it’s incredible. I feel like I’ve finally figured it all out, only to card an 87 the next day. I still have not yet had back-to-back rounds in the 70s.
This whole experiment wouldn’t work if I was addicted to playing well. I would have already quit because I don’t play well often enough (yet). Fortunately, it’s the challenge, improvement, and game itself that I love and brings me back each day.
Focus on the challenge and the future
It’s not easy improving a skill as an adult. We don’t like being bad and the learning/improving process is easier done as a child. But we still CAN learn new things. Whether it’s a new language, card game, cooking, excel, networking, or golf, I’ve found it’s best to focus on the challenge and where you want to be in the future, rather than how well you perform on any given day.
With golf it’s easy and hard. Your handicap objectively measures your results over time, but you also see your rounds bounce up and down every day. AND your score doesn’t even always reflect how well you played. Some days I hit the ball great but shoot 84, and other days I feel like I’m playing poorly and end up with a 77. That’s golf.
No matter what you’re trying to improve, figure out a way to objectively measure your performance over time. But don’t be discouraged when your results don’t consistently exceed your expectations. Life isn’t that smooth or predictable, and it wouldn’t be fun if it was.
This is the second swing analysis video that my coach, Wayne, put together. If you missed the first video analysis, you can view it here.
In this video I work on:
Simplifying my backswing by not over rotating
Maintaining width
Shallowing the club on the downswing
Getting my arms away from my body at address
The full swing analysis video is at the bottom of this post.
Shallowing the club
Of everything I’ve been working on, it’s been hardest to shallow the club. A lot of the other changes like going to an overlapping grip, having a neutral stance at address, and keeping my hands in front of the ball at impact have been relatively easy. So far I’ve been able to be slightly more shallow than before, but it’s still a work in progress.
We’ve worked on shallowing by doing a number of different drills, including pausing at the top of the backswing and trying to get the right elbow to make a new move down, trying to get the feel of throwing a baseball with a submarine motion, and using sticks in the ground to adjust the club path.
I used to just hit a ton of balls on the range. But now, even when I have something to focus on with my swing, I still spend over half my practice time working on chipping and putting.
While on the range I use alignment sticks to help with my aim at address, work on controlling the trajectory of the ball, and focus on shallowing the club to hit a draw. I still throw in a few intentional cuts to make sure my body remembers how to hit that shot, though.
Check out the full video below.
This swing analysis video from December 12, 2018 covers what I’ve been working on over the first month with Wayne.
When I started this journey I knew I would need to get some professional help. Watching youtube and instagram swing analysis videos can only do so much. I had 2 separate pros recommend the same guy in Boca, and it’s worked out great so far.
I’ve made a bunch of changes since I started working with Wayne. We’ve had 5 sessions over the past month and a half, and have already made a ton of progress. I’ve smashed my personal best score, posting 73 twice in the last 2 weeks. And I know that I’ll break 70 any day now.
This is a screenshot from the video from 11/13
A bunch of you have asked for more swing analysis so I’m going to periodically post the swing analysis videos that Wayne puts together.
This first video focuses on some of the initial swing changes I made over the first couple weeks. It’s a few weeks old at this point, but I’ll post the more recent video analysis in the next couple of days.
Some of those changes are listed below, but please keep in mind that these are changes based on MY original swing. Making the same changes will not necessarily benefit your swing, but the concepts in the video will definitely help.
The changes I worked on
Switching from a baseball grip to overlapping my right pinky on top of the knuckle of my left index finger.
Moving the ball forward in my stance (closer to my left foot).
Not flipping my hands at the ball – this is pretty common for amateur players. The idea is that your hands should be ahead of the ball at impact, and that you don’t need to try to lift the ball in the air.
Check out the full video below and let me know what you think!
This is the first video swing analysis that my coach, Wayne, sent over.
It’s been a month since I moved to Florida to pursue golf. While I had goals, they were not good goals. I look back on November and can’t say whether or not is was a success, even though I definitely made progress. I didn’t have “November” goals. 30 days have passed, and even though I was very intentional with all of my time and practice, I could have been a lot better about evaluating my success.
I will change this in December by having SMART goals, writing them down, and sharing them with others.
What are your goals for December?
Before you continue reading, try writing down your December goals. Did you already have a list? Was it easy? Has thinking about them caused you to think about what you should be doing to attain those goals? That’s the point!
SMART Goals
Putting practice
Goals push you. They exist to prevent you from becoming complacent. They help you schedule and prioritize tasks and activities, and keep your foot on the gas pedal. Without good goals it’s easier to spend your time inefficiently, procrastinate, and ultimately not do what you set out to do. Try to have SMART goals, which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-sensitive.
Specific
If you want to be more productive with your mornings, you might want to wake up earlier. But that is not specific. If you wake up at 5 am, it’s early. But what about 7:30 am, or 8:30 am? Is that early? Without a specific goal, it’s impossible to evaluate yourself. To make this one specific it should be something like “wake up by 7 am every morning.”
Measurable
Can the goal be objectively measured? There should be no debate if the goal was achieved or not. An example could be “go to the gym 3 days this week for at least 30 minutes.” When the week is over you can count to see if you achieved that goal.
Attainable
The goal should be reasonable. It shouldn’t be easy, but it shouldn’t be something like “win the lottery.” Yes, there’s a chance, but not really. They exist to stretch and make you better. If you’re looking for a new job it would be more reasonable to have a goal of “apply to 15 jobs this weekend” rather than “find and start a new job by next week.”
Relevant
This one might seem more obvious than the others but it’s still important. It ensures you spend your time making progress toward what you are trying to achieve. If you want to lose weight, eating 2 vegetarian meals each day would be relevant, but finishing this season of The Voice would not.
Time-sensitive
This is a deadline. The goal has to be achieved within a certain time period. Without a deadline, there’s less urgency to take action to accomplish the goal. Setting a deadline provides the structure to actually do whatever it is you want to do. While a deadline could be a date, it could also be an action. If you’ve ever told yourself “you can go out with your friends after you finish this project,” that is a time-sensitive and effective goal.
Write down your goals
Keep a notebook, google doc, or even the back of a used envelope to actually write down your goals. If you write them down, you are more likely to achieve them. Once you write them down, they are set. You will feel worse about adjusting them if you are momentarily lazy or unmotivated. If goals are only in your head, did they even really exist?
Make your goals known
Chipping practice takes up a large portion of my time, but it’s beautiful!
If you are the only person who knows your goals, it’s easier to forget them, make them easier, or sabotage yourself in another way. If you make your goals known, now you have some outside accountability. You will also have people rooting for you. Yes, others will know if you fail, but you are MUCH more likely to accomplish your goals if you tell other people. And you can’t be afraid of failing!
I’ve been talking about leaving Accenture to go to a startup, travel, or start my own business for YEARS. Life was good and I wasn’t working hard enough to make a real change. I realized that I needed to set a deadline and tell some people. It would force myself to take action.
Back in the spring of this year (2018), I decided my last day at Accenture would be November 1. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after November 1, but telling people this date lit a fire under my seat and I ended up leaving work a month before my self-imposed deadline. Now I’m on this great journey.
Michelle and I try to share our weekly and monthly goals with each other. Getting a significant other, friend, or sibling to do it with you definitely makes it easier!
As you know, I recently started a year long journey practicing and playing golf. I wanted to give myself the best shot at making big strides in a short period of time so I adopted a data-driven approach to improving my overall game. While this post is specific to improving my golf game, the approach can help improve anything. The three fundamental components are:
Understand what to focus on to maximize impact
Track current results/mistakes so you can make adjustments
Get the right help so you get the experience/knowledge of an expert
Understanding what to focus on
No matter what you do, it’s important to have data so you can perform some kind of analysis. If you’re a manufacturer it might be how long each step of the process is. If you’re in client services it might be ROI. It could be calculated by how much money you earn compared to how much time you spend on each client. You would see how valuable each client is on a per hour basis and could make adjustments to how you spend your time.
I wanted to figure out what part of my game I should focus on so I started keeping detailed notes of each shot. I tracked the club, distance, quality of shot, if it went left or right, etc. After each round I entered the data into a spreadsheet. This is what my typical scorecard looked like.
This is what my typical scorecard looks like after a round.
After just a few rounds I had some actionable data. The most eye-opening visual I created showed how often I use each club in my bag.
This shows how often I use each club. Please note, while collecting the data I marked the putter down for “1” even if I had 2 or 3 putts, so the putter circle should be about twice as big.
Everyone says the short game is the most important part of golf. I, like most others, was spending most of my time taking full swings on the range. This visualization had an immediate impact. I only practiced pitching, chipping, and putting for a few weeks. That small amount of focused practice drastically improved my short game, and I’ve seen the results on my scorecard.
Tracking mistakes to improve
Hypothetically, let’s say your subordinate comes over and says “I’m sorry, I just can’t get this right. I keep messing up.” You might say something like “let’s take a look,” and start to diagnose what’s wrong. The important thing is that it helps to know how you’re messing up, so you can figure out what to adjust.
In golf, some common “mistakes” are hooking and slicing, and pushing and pulling the ball. All of these are caused by different “mistakes” and knowing how you mess up makes it easier to make the right adjustments.
It’s clear from the charts below that my typical mistake is a hook/draw (these were measured compared to my attempted ball flight. So if I tried to draw the ball and it drew the amount I wanted, I marked it down as straight).
This chart shows how often the ball curves left or right in the air for each club.
This chart shows how often the starts too far to the right or left for each club.
Getting the right help
Golf, like many other things, is very nuanced and technical. It’s important to get the right help so you know that the changes you make are actually going to cause improvements. This is consulting, and I like to view any lessons, coaching, training, or service as such. A consultant works with you. The answer is not one-size-fits-all, and the consultant is there to be your expert. Doctors, lawyers, personal trainers. They all should have recommendations and a plan catered to your needs.
From the charts above and below, you can see that my shot quality was not consistent, so I asked around and got a few recommendations for coaches. One stood out and I’m currently working with him. We’ve been working specifically on not hooking the ball and having a lower trajectory, both of which will help my game. Hopefully I can post a new and improved chart in a few weeks!
This shows my shot quality for each club.
One last chart
This last chart shows one reason why I chose golf for this journey. A lot of sports these days require you to be a physical specimen who has genetic gifts. Read The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance if you’re interested in going into more detail (thanks for the rec, Shane!). In golf you just need to hit the ball straight and the correct distance. The one physical benefit you can have is hitting the ball far. That I can do.
This shows how far I hit each club.
Key Takeaways
If you want to get better at something, merely putting in hours is not the best approach. Get whatever data you can, do some analysis, and see what you can improve, and how you can improve.
“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect” – Vince Lombardi
Focusing on where and how to improve will help you have the best value impact with your time and money. This, with the help of an expert, is a great approach for getting better at anything.
Please feel free to comment or email me at rosenbergmaxa@gmail.com if you have any questions or want help collecting data and doing your own analysis, even if it’s something completely different than golf!
I’m almost 30 years old and took a leave of absence from my consulting job October 1 for 12 months. One major focus is golf with an ultimate goal to play professionally in the future.
The first thing most people say is “I didn’t know you were that good.”
Well, I’m not. Not yet, at least. And the more I think about the statement, “I didn’t know you were that good,” the more it puzzles me. Keep on reading!
