So how do I get better: Goal Setting and Tracking

Got to know where you've been, where you are, and where you are going

We have my overall goal outlined. (Please see the title of this substack if you need to reaffirm it.) At the start of the month, I will list where my handicap is, and since it isn’t posting season yet it’s going to remain the same until March 1st unless I travel to some warm weather locations.

To get to the destination there are a lot of stops along the way. I need to break this down further and keep myself honest. The off-course stuff around diet and physical fitness are the easiest to track, each month I will log at the start of the month my start weight and the number of workouts I have scheduled. Then at the end of the month, we will see what advanced I have made.

My goal weight I think is 185, I would like to get into the habit of weight training with a focus on golf three days per week. Additionally, I need to up my conditioning, one thing that has been clear to me is that as I get tired the mechanics of my swing breakdown even further. I am going to set a goal initially of getting in three miles 5x a week for a total of 15 miles. This does not include rounds of golf, hikes, or anything else. Pure treadmill work.

As far as my lessons and practice I need to figure out how many hours are realistic for me to practice per month. I need to be realistic about having a kid and a job. I think if I average seven hours of pure practice a week that is an attainable goal.

With this I will include a video of my swing, so we can see a progression from lessons.

Beyond practice we can dive into deeper metrics such as length, strokes gained, and really nerd out. I’m not ready to do that yet. Let’s keep it high level for now. It’s all about building blocks.

Here are my baseline stats as of Jan 4th.

HDCP: 21

This actually went up playing in some warm weather places. It’s a bit misleading because there were also three local rounds I couldn’t post that were at my handicap or lower. So I‘m not exactly down about this.

Weight: 226.4

I was over 230 at one point in December, the heaviest I have been in a very long time. So there has been some progress on this front even with Christmas and the holidays factored in.

Off course training: x out of 12 workouts

I started working out last month 3x a week using the Fit for Golf program and have been hitting the treadmills while on conference calls. This is just a placeholder for the end of the month, I think this will be hit reasonably easily.

Miles walked: x out of 60 miles.

This is just a placeholder for the end of the month, I think this will be hit.

Hours practicing: x out of 28 hours

This is just a placeholder for the end of the month, I think this will be hit.

Swing Video: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CYjiPpDNKFC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link