Lesson 11/5/2009

I’ve decided that over the winter I’m going to get some lessons and refine my swing.  My goal is more consistency and accuracy.  I think I’m already long enough that I don’t need to worry about distance as much as accuracy.

We worked on a few different things today:

Backswing

On the backswing I need to get my swing a little flatter.  The swing thought is to get my hands over my right heel.  This puts me on a better plane.  At first it felt strange.  It felt really flat, but what it did was it gave me a more compact backswing.

Downswing

On the downswing I need to keep my right heel down on the ground longer.  It was kind of weird at first.  I need to do this because I have a tendency to almost stand up on my right toes and it throws my weight toward the ball.  When that happens, the only way for me to save the swing is to make an over the top move.  By keeping my right heel on the ground longer, it keeps my weight down, and back, and allows me to come from the inside more easily.  It also allows me to keep my spine angle intact.

The next thing is that starting the downswing I need to feel as if I’m bringing the handle straight down toward my right heel again.  This will also prevent an OTT move and allow me to come from the inside.

The Target

It seems that my target was the ball, or just behind the ball.  This is a bit problematic because it also encourages a steep movc into the ball.  The best target for me is approximately 3 or 4 inches in front of the ball and slightly on the arc outside of the ball.  Max gave me an drill to do where I have a ball in my normal position and a ball at the target, I set up to the normal ball, then just before I start my swing, I knock it out of the way and try to hit the other ball.  During the lesson it resulted in very solid contact.  I will work on this on the range before my next lesson.

Overall it was an excellent lesson.  I think I’ll be able to get a solid work done this winter. I have six months until the new season officially starts.  That’s a lot of time to make some strides.



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