“Notes from the Newbie”
by Dan Stark
Presented by GolfTEC
Over the past few months, I have been making progress in each of my lessons and have been really enjoying myself. Unfortunately, the last couple of weeks have not been my best. I went into my fourth lesson with Brett at GolfTEC looking to hit my 6 iron over 170 yards. I had been hitting consistently in the last lesson 150-165. I really thought that just a few more pointers and a little more practice would put me over my goal. As it turns out, things were not falling in to place for me. My two main focus areas from my last lesson: vertical bounce and locking my right leg were haunting me again. In addition to my swing problems, I still hadn’t found constant comfort with my shortened swing that we started in the last lesson. Brett assured me that some top Pros, including Tiger list shortening their swing as the most challenging changes of their career. It is great to have the encouragement of Brett to get me going during the lessons, I am constantly amazed by the expressions he has up his sleeve when you do something right. I don’t want to give away too many of his gems but during this lesson he kept saying “I’ll buy what your selling there!” which always puts a smile on my face.
Looking back at the lesson, I really felt like I was having a rough time juggling all the data that I’d taken in over the last few weeks. If I concentrated on fixing one part of my swing something else would go out the window. It took most of the lesson to get me straightened out and it was clear that hitting over 170 wasn’t going to happen that day. Once Brett had worked me back to a zone of relative comfort we started working on shifting my weight to the right foot on the backswing and starting the swing with the hips instead of the arms. I made some progress on the new stuff but I had not really digested everything by the time we had to wrap up. Brett surprised me at the end of the lesson by giving me a driver to start practicing with at the range. Now that I have two clubs I guess I will have to put my “Tin Cup” single club fantasies to bed.
For the next week my two clubs sat in my garage as I worked to wrap business up before the July 4th Holiday and subsequent business trip abroad. I brought my clubs along on vacation to the Hood Canal hoping that my father-in-law and I could break away for a game or the range. I enjoyed a week of some of great boating, lounging, and s’mores making and even fit in some training for an upcoming triathlon, including a swim across the canal. I had done the 0.9 mile swim before but this time a combination of wind and current made it an exhausting affair. The day after my big swim we decided to go hit the range at Gold Mountain golf club in Belfair. This was to be my first time on a range at a “real” golf course; finally I was attempting to expand beyond the comfort zones of GolfTEC or my local range.
I am not big on excuses but my performance on the “real” range was so bad I think I should put it into perspective. First, I was feeling more than a little stiff from the previous day’s swim. Second, the conditions were not what I am used to: it was extremely windy, there were a bunch of people there (including my father-in-law); I was hitting off the grass for the first time, etc. Lastly, I had left the previous lesson without my previous post-lesson confidence. In an entire bucket of balls I had only three or four salvageable shots. I was missing the ball completely several times per shot and when I did make contact the balls would either go two yards or hook violently to the right. My father-in-law was behind me and noticed that I was bouncing a lot, hitting the top of the ball, not turning my hips, and not following through with my swings. The worst part was that even with his observations and my own (weakly developed) feedback mechanism I felt powerless to fix anything. Focusing on one thing made something else fall out of whack. I was becoming more and more rattled and losing confidence including my address. I’m sure if Brett was there he would have got me back on track, but without him I decided to wrap up before I forgot everything I had learned. When I return to the States I’ll set up my fifth lesson and see if we can get back on track on the road to improvement. I can’t wait!
If you want help with your swing, please turn to page 18 to see this month’s specials from our friends at GolfTEC.
