- Sep 1, 2004
- 6,546
- 4,982
I thought I would get our pro to run through my swing as it is the start of the season. He took me down to his swing room, which is full of all the gizmos. I wanted him to check grip, posture, alignment etc and to look at ways of increasing my distance. A few very interesting things happened over 30 mins.
He put some dots around the face of my six iron and asked me to hit 6 shots on his simulator. I hit them about 155 yards, a few slight pushes, but reasonably consistent. He then videoed me from behind and from straight on. Great I thought to myself, I’m good to go. Wrong!
First thing was posture. Mine, it turns out is poor. Not athletic enough, slightly stooped over the ball, chin into chest, rounded back. I guess it is a combination of stuff over the years. He showed my set-up relative to a pro and I was a little stunned. The fix was to stand taller, hinge from the waist, shoulders back, chin up and chest over the ball. I felt a bit wooden at first, but it did make sense and was relatively straightforward to make the adjustments.
The second thing was ball position, I needed to move the ball back a little in my stance, easy!
Lastly was the most problematic. At impact, I start to flip my wrists. I watched it in excruciating high definition slow-mo. He even had some numbers, I was hitting on a slightly ascending blow, by about 2 degrees. He told me pros hit on a descending blow at about 4 degrees (in other words I’m out by a delta of 6). By flipping I increase the dynamic loft of the club and lose a chunk of distance. Funny thing is I feel like hit the ball on a lower trajectory. I needed to try and work out how to keep the back of my left wrist bowed out rather than collapsing. So he got me to hit punch shots, holding off my left wrist, with a shortened follow through. Next thing I know I’m hitting these stingers. They were not all good, but lots of progress. I ended up hitting a lot of soft fades. My weak shot is either a block or a hook (down to my timing of my flipping left wrist). The pro reckoned if I get this technique sorted out I can take the left side of the course out altogether. Hoganesque!
He filmed me with my new posture, ball position and the new (awkward feeling) hold off technique and was able to show me the before and after on the same screen. I looked like a different player altogether. I hit a few at the end of the session and one was 168 yards, with a 6 iron. That’s 13 yards right there. And he reckons I have another 7 yards in me to get me to 175! I’ll take it.
Next session is with the driver!
In conclusion, its always good to get a lesson to brush out the rust. And technology is there to be your friend. The numbers don’t lie and can be very revealing. That way you can home in very quickly on specific fixes. I don’t see this as a quick fix, rather to identify areas of my game to work on over the coming season. I’ve written this all down as an aide memoir to myself. I fully expect to get the Limp treatment for writing a journal about it.
He put some dots around the face of my six iron and asked me to hit 6 shots on his simulator. I hit them about 155 yards, a few slight pushes, but reasonably consistent. He then videoed me from behind and from straight on. Great I thought to myself, I’m good to go. Wrong!
First thing was posture. Mine, it turns out is poor. Not athletic enough, slightly stooped over the ball, chin into chest, rounded back. I guess it is a combination of stuff over the years. He showed my set-up relative to a pro and I was a little stunned. The fix was to stand taller, hinge from the waist, shoulders back, chin up and chest over the ball. I felt a bit wooden at first, but it did make sense and was relatively straightforward to make the adjustments.
The second thing was ball position, I needed to move the ball back a little in my stance, easy!
Lastly was the most problematic. At impact, I start to flip my wrists. I watched it in excruciating high definition slow-mo. He even had some numbers, I was hitting on a slightly ascending blow, by about 2 degrees. He told me pros hit on a descending blow at about 4 degrees (in other words I’m out by a delta of 6). By flipping I increase the dynamic loft of the club and lose a chunk of distance. Funny thing is I feel like hit the ball on a lower trajectory. I needed to try and work out how to keep the back of my left wrist bowed out rather than collapsing. So he got me to hit punch shots, holding off my left wrist, with a shortened follow through. Next thing I know I’m hitting these stingers. They were not all good, but lots of progress. I ended up hitting a lot of soft fades. My weak shot is either a block or a hook (down to my timing of my flipping left wrist). The pro reckoned if I get this technique sorted out I can take the left side of the course out altogether. Hoganesque!
He filmed me with my new posture, ball position and the new (awkward feeling) hold off technique and was able to show me the before and after on the same screen. I looked like a different player altogether. I hit a few at the end of the session and one was 168 yards, with a 6 iron. That’s 13 yards right there. And he reckons I have another 7 yards in me to get me to 175! I’ll take it.
Next session is with the driver!
In conclusion, its always good to get a lesson to brush out the rust. And technology is there to be your friend. The numbers don’t lie and can be very revealing. That way you can home in very quickly on specific fixes. I don’t see this as a quick fix, rather to identify areas of my game to work on over the coming season. I’ve written this all down as an aide memoir to myself. I fully expect to get the Limp treatment for writing a journal about it.
United States
