A 6 Iron Reprieve: Notes From the Golfing Newbie
One of my goals for my lesson last month was to hit the ball over 170 yards with my 6 iron. In every lesson before I had improved and I felt that the goal was in sight. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen and to top it off I had a disappointing outing at an unfamiliar range shortly after that. I described the sad affair in my last article. Having these disappointments after my rapid progress before made it all the more frustrating. I needed some serious help from Brett at GolfTEC.
After failing to hit the ball well at the range I didn’t want to reinforce my bad hitting so I made another GolfTEC appointment. I hadn’t picked up a club for a couple of weeks so I was apprehensive that I was going to really embarrass myself during my lesson, but I knew that this was the only way I was going to turn my slide around.
I didn’t tell Brett about my disastrous outing, I figured it would become apparent to him soon enough. My warm-up swings felt very rusty, but I was at least making contact with the ball (most of the time). Brett joined me in the training bay for the last half of my warm up and I let it slip about my recent hitting woes. It occurred to me that Brett could probably already tell that my swing was off so I spared some of the gory details.
Brett was positive as ever and dove into the things that he saw in my warm-up swings that were off, starting with my setup. I was not bowing to the golf ball and my club was angled to point at my sternum instead of the top of my belt buckle. Lastly, I wasn’t lining up with my head behind the ball. Since I had corrected these issues before and being non-dynamic we quickly corrected these things and moved on to my take away.
Brett took a couple freeze frames of my take away and noted that I had developed a little lateral movement in my hips. Instead of loading my weight and power onto the inside of my right foot I was loading so far to the outside that my whole body was moving. My loose lower body was not providing a proper platform for my swing. It only took a few more shots to get the weight to the inside of my right foot again.
Things were feeling great, just 10-15 minutes into the lesson I was already making much better contact with the ball. Just to reinforce my good feelings, I managed to hit the plastic strip that hangs in the middle of the net a couple of times, filling the room with a great sound.
Brett continued to work through video of my current shots and 3/4 of the way through my backswing we found the big culprit, head movement. I had struggled with vertical bounce in the last couple lessons and it was really back with a vengeance. I think I lost track of keeping my head still when I started to concentrate too much on shifting weight to my right foot during the backswing.
This time, my head movement wasn’t just a simple matter of altitude I was also moving it to the right by a full head width. Brett showed me a comparison to pro golfer Stuart Appleby and it was pretty clear that I had some work to do in this department.
We worked on quieting my head for most of the rest of the lesson. Brett drew a blue square around my head on the computer during my setup and I tried to keep my head in that box. In the first couple swings I was able to put a serious dent in the vertical bounce, keeping my head almost entirely within the box. A dozen more shots and my movement to the right was reduced to just an inch or two, which Brett said was good enough. It felt very strange and robotic to keep my head still during the shot, but there was absolutely no doubt I was making better contact with the ball.
With every swing the sound that I heard and the feeling at impact improved. On a couple of the shots the impact was so solid it felt like I didn’t even hit the ball. Brett flashed my swing numbers up on the screen and reaffirmed my senses; I had hit the last couple balls 172 yards. It felt great to finally meet my goal of 170 yards, especially since I wasn’t expecting it to happen after my last lesson and my bad day at the range.
During the last few minutes of the lesson Brett showed a comparison of the end of my swing to Appleby’s. He noted that Appleby’s right heal was leaving the ground as he drove his lower body to the target. The last few swings I worked to emulate Appleby’s lower body drive, including getting my right heel off the ground. The lesson ended on a high note with Brett pronouncing “we have liftoff” after a particularly excellent feeling shot with an airborne heel. Positive outcome and on to the next lesson next month…
If you want help with your swing, please turn to page 18 of our print edition to see this month’s specials from our friends at GolfTEC.
