With Bubba taking his second green jacket the 2014 golf season is officially upon us. This year I didn’t actually see any of the coverage as I was away on my honeymoon in Bali learning to surf. At the beginning of November 2013 I set out to increase my swing speed by 15mph. This increase would see my swing speed reach 112mph, the PGA Tour average. To increase my swing speed I set to work on three areas, my flexibility, my strength and to perform the Gravity Golf driver drill. Early on in to my winter project my focus was to change when a close friend Brian Tigg sadly passed away suddenly. With his son (my best friend) I signed up to a 126-mile charity bike ride in July this year in his memory. Flexibility I am pleased to report that my flexibility has improved, however rather than improvements being gained through traditional static stretching I found the greatest benefits from doing dynamic work. By using my posture belt from Mark Bull I have been able to work on improving my flexibility in some golf specific areas. The compound exercises that I decided to do in my strength training have also helped me with my ranges of motion.

I purchased Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performanceto ensure that I was doing the exercises correctly. I knew that it would be very important that I got my technique correct in the gym otherwise I would run the risk of getting injured. I discovered by using the correct technique that I improved my range of motion in both my hips and shoulders. Cycling To date I have cycled just over 1200 miles in preparation for the 4th July charity ride and I expect to do a further 1200 before the day. I have been cycling three times a week and due to the amount of time I have spent in the saddle I have only been going to the gym and practicing twice a week. Strength Training The plan for the gym was to work on 4 basic compound exercises, split into 2 workouts with three gym sessions a week. Deadlifts and Bench presses on one day, Squats and Pull-ups on the other. Squats place a heavy emphasis on the quads and with all the cycling which also places a lot of emphasis on the front of the legs I was struggling with DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). I therefore decided that as dropping the cycle training was not an option I would stop doing the squats. As I was only going to the gym twice a week I decided I would change things so that I would start with deadlifts, then do bench press and finish with chin-ups. I did 5 sets of 5 reps twice a week, always trying to increase the weight each session. Driver Drill The driver drill is the one thing that got a little sidelined over the winter. I was expecting this to be the main focus but after my trip in December to Gravity Golf I decided that my focus should be on resolving the right arm routing issues that I often have. The rationale being that if I was able to resolve this for good then the leaked shot to the right with my driver that I can hit when under pressure would be eradicated. To practice I have been hitting a large percentage of my practice from either right hand only or from my heels. The routing is feeling much better and I am now going to be performing the Driver Drill more often. By practicing the drill with my increased strength and flexibility along with my improved routing I should be able to keep seeing swing speed improvements throughout the season. Results My fastest speed to date is 109.5 mph and increase of 10mph. When I say fastest this didn’t involve throwing myself at the ball as if I was competing in a long drive comp but a swing where I remain balanced and hit the ball on line. In fact when swinging at around 107 mph I feel very comfortable and in control, a speed that I would be more than happy to use on the course, its hard to believe that this is a full 10 mph faster then my quickest from last year. This all goes to show that if you have an area of your game that you want to improve, formulate a holistic plan, stick to it then improvements can always be made.