Hello and welcome to the very first post in my brand new Journey to Scratch series. I am excited about this one and hope you are too.
Let me begin by telling you how we’ve got to this stage, and why I’m not a scratch golfer already.
The Problem: Good Intentions, No Results
From the outset, the main reason for creating this blog and my social media channels was purely to document my progress toward becoming a better golfer. Yet, over time, my focus has slowly moved away from documenting my journey towards writing general golf blog posts, creating tutorials and producing equipment reviews. Don’t get me wrong, I love testing and reviewing golf equipment, and I’m always keen to hear from golf brands looking to collaborate, but right now, I also want to do what I originally set out to do – become a better golfer.
Year after year, winter after winter, I’ve planned to put in the hours, work on my swing, and emerge in the spring as a significantly improved player. However, the reality is that life always seems to get in the way. Whether it’s a lack of time, busy schedules, or something else, the practise and improvement just haven’t happened.
This year, however, will be different.
Keen to remove any practise barriers, I decided that if I couldn’t get to the driving range, then I’d bring the range to me. So, recently, I spent a few months converting wasted space in my back garden into my very own golf practise area, which I discussed in a recent blog post where I shared details of how you can build your very own premium golf practise space on a budget.
The Solution: Bringing the Course to Me
Given that I live less than 5 minutes from my home golf club, which has a range of practise facilities, and less than 10 minutes from a local driving range, I really have no excuse for not practising. Despite being so close, I’ve always still found it difficult to make time to practise during the winter. That might be down to the weather, shorter days or something else, who knows, but I’ve just really lgiacked commitment to the cause.
The biggest benefit of having my own back garden practise area is convenience. Day or night, on lunch break, when dinner is cooking, it doesn’t matter – all I need to do is grab my golf bag, head outside, and I can hit some golf balls.
However, one thing I have realised since creating this set up is that hitting balls into a net can be a bit of a guessing game. It’s useful for working on movement and the fundamentals of the golf swing, but it provides minimal feedback on ball striking quality, shot shapes or distances. To help with this, I’ve invested in the Flight Scope Mevo Gen 2 launch monitor. This device gives me real-time, in-depth data about each swing and ball flight. The level of data that it captures is incredible, and it’s going to be a real asset as I will be able to use it to track my progress, compare sessions, and pinpoint exactly where I am making improvements and where I still need to focus.
Prefer Video? Watch Episode 1 Now
If you’d prefer to watch episode one of my Journey to Scratch series, check out the full video below.
View video transcript
Hello and welcome to episode one of this brand new Journey to Scratch Series. In this video, I’m going to tell you a little bit more about what you can expect from this series, I’ll talk about why I am looking to build my golf swing and become a better golfer, and I’ll explain how I plan to do so.
First of all, this series is something that I have been looking to do for a long time. The whole purpose of creating my golf blog and YouTube channel was to document my journey to hopefully becoming a better golfer. The problem is, as I approach the off-season every single year, I have good intentions of working on my golf swing and putting in the hours, but in practice, it never really pans out that way. Life is busy, and to be honest, I end up starting the new golf season where I left off from the previous one, if not a little bit worse. But this year is going to be different.
If I can’t get to the golf course regularly, then I’ve decided to bring the golf course to me. I have spent the last few months working on the back garden to turn it into my very own golf practice area. I now have a large net and a space big enough to hit all of the clubs in my golf bag. I’ll be using this space as often as I can because all I need to do is step outside, day or night, and I can work on my golf swing.
I’ve noticed that hitting balls into the net makes it difficult to get feedback about what I’m actually doing well. So, I have decided to buy a Flight Scope Mevo Gen 2 launch monitor. This gives me real-time data about my ball striking and my golf swing, and the level of data I get is absolutely insane. I’ll be using this to capture my data from various sessions and then I can compare to see what I’m doing better and maybe where I still need to make improvements.
I’ve got the setup and I’ve got the equipment, but one of the things that I need to do is to actually work out how I can get better. Whilst I can analyze the data and try to interpret it as best as I can, I want to actually go through some coaching. I have tried in-person coaching and online before, but I find that the in-person is really reliant on having the time to actually go to lessons, which I usually struggle with. And whilst I like the online coaching, it is varied from instructor to instructor and it is quite expensive.
Instead, I have decided to invest in a one-year subscription to Me and My Golf and I am going to work through their online courses. I really like about that platform is the fact that it’s all delivered in layman’s terms. It’s easy to understand. There are hundreds and hundreds of videos, but they’ve also curated videos into courses which are perfect for beginners or more advanced level golfers. I am a seven-handicap golfer. I’ve been on seven for quite a few years now, so I can play the game, but actually my ball striking, my setup, everything to do with my golf swing, it’s actually really quite poor. So, I have decided I’m going to work through their Pure Your Irons course. This is a perfect place to start because it goes right back to the basics. And what I like is they cover in the videos the fundamentals. They give you the information that you need. They explain why you do things in certain ways. Then they give you the drills and then they give you practice videos where you basically have an allotted amount of time to hit X amount of balls, let’s say 20 balls, alongside either Piers or Andy. So you’re able to work through the practice scenario having worked through the drills having learned from them in the first video. So the plan is to work through the Pure Your Irons videos, and then what I’m going to do is I’m actually going to include some of those videos with the permission of Piers and Andy in some of these future update videos here on YouTube so you’ll be able to actually watch the video to see what they’re talking about and then see me putting into practice hopefully what they have covered.
That is the plan. What I am going to do next is I need to find a sort of benchmark. I need to work out where I am just now before I start really going down the rabbit hole here on this journey. So the plan is for the next episode in this series is to actually film my golf swing from behind, so down the line, but also face on. And I’m going to do a gapping session with my Flight Scope Mevo Gen 2. So I’m going to go into the garden, I’m going to hit at least a minimum of 10 decent shots with every single club in the bag, and then I have an idea of where I’m at in terms of my numbers. I have a visual of my swing with each club either down the line and face on, and then I can keep going back and having a look to see not only in terms of the data where I’m improving, but I can see visually what is looking better with my swing.
I’m really, really looking forward to filming this video series. I’m looking forward to updating my golf blog with regular posts, and to be honest, I’m just looking forward to not only hopefully becoming a better golfer, but being able to share this journey with you guys. So if you are interested in following along, please do make sure that you hit the like button. Feel free to drop any comments or questions that you have in the comments area below, and if you’ve not done so already, please do consider subscribing to the channel and make sure you hit that notification bell so you’re notified when the next video from this series launches. But anyway, that is basically what my Journey to Scratch series is. So it’s going to be available here on YouTube. I’ll have shorts on Instagram, on YouTube, and on TikTok, and I’ll also have more detailed breakdowns and reflective posts over on my golf blog at andesgolfblog.co.uk. So I hope that you’re going to follow me on this journey, and I’ll see you in the next video in part two.
The Plan: Structured Coaching
Having a great practise setup and access to a premium golf launch monitor like the Mevo Gen 2 is only half the battle. The other half is knowing how to get better. While I can analyse some of the numbers myself, or use ChatGPT to analyse the FlightScope Mevo data for me, I know that I need and will really benefit from structured coaching as well.
In the past, whilst I’ve enjoyed in-person golf lessons, I have struggled with them because they are too reliant on me having a consistent, flexible schedule, which I very much don’t. Online coaching offered convenience, however, I found the lack of real-time feedback difficult to cope with, and because I wasn’t visiting the range often enough, I just wasn’t getting value from the plan.
So, for this journey, I have purchased a one-year subscription to Me and My Golf, and their library of fantastic online courses. What attracted me to their platform was the accessibility of the content. Everything is clear, well produced and delivered in layman’s terms, making it easy to understand. They offer hundreds of videos curated into specific courses for golfers of all levels.
I’m currently a 7-handicap golfer, a handicap I’ve held for several years now. While I can play some good golf at times, I’ll be honest – my ball striking, setup, and overall swing fundamentals are actually very poor.
In order to go back to basics and address the weakest clubs in my bag, I’ve decided to start their “Pure Your Irons” course.
The way that Me and My Golf courses are structured is brilliant. They cover the fundamental information, explain why certain techniques are important, provide clear drills, and then feature dedicated practise videos where you can hit balls alongside the instructors, Piers and Andy, to solidify what I’ve learned. The fact that I can watch and rewatch these videos, before, during and after my practise sessions is a big plus point too.
The Next Step: Establishing a Baseline
So, that’s the why and the how, but before I dive headfirst into this golf improvement rabbit hole, I need a clear benchmark. I need to know exactly where I am right now in terms of my golf swing and ball striking.
Therefore, the next part of this journey will focus entirely on data and visual baselining. I plan to conduct a full golf bag gapping session using the Flight Scope Mevo Gen 2. I’ll be hitting a minimum of ten solid shots with every club in the bag, whilst filming each swing down the line and front on, which will give me both the raw data (my current numbers for every club) and the visual evidence (my current swing footage) to compare against in the future.
In truth, I am genuinely excited to start this series and I’m looking forward to providing regular updates here on my golf blog, my YouTube channel, and on my Instagram and TikTok social media accounts.
Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to share your comments, thoughts, advice, suggestions or anything else in the comments area below. And, if you want to check out the next article in this series, you can find it here:
