a golf lesson

Today I had a golf lesson with a good friend and I had close to an hour driving from Blowing Rock to Banner Elk to talk with John about my golf swing, the golf swing and clear up some of the things which puzzle me about both. The last two times I have seen John he begins with telling my my shoulders are way closed to my target line. This is very exasperating to me because I know that you simply can not aim your shoulder to the right. Anyway I immediately started to be able to play shots which had a similarity. He had told me on the drive that my down swing tends to be body down and sliding forward and I should try and visualize my front swing as up and around. John has been a friend and has seen me swing since 1977 and his stylized visuals of my flaws are priceless. Anyway he showed me my move which is to an actual golf swing what a cartoon caricature is to a portrait, but it helped me "get" what he wanted me to try.

After about 30 minute of slight adjustments here and there I was playing some of the finest iron shots of my life. John was giving a lesson to a PGA touring professional and watched me out of his other eye so to speak, and gave me just the right amount of help to allow me to understand what he was trying to teach me.

It all starts by setting up correctly and my posture and grip felt particularly athletic and correct. If you are attempting to finish up and around you tend not to slouch over at address. One of the motions John made, which mimics my move, is to have the right arm go away from the body with the head diving down. The opposite of this is to keep the head high and in my case slightly turned toward the target as the club swing away. This limits the back swing and does not allow the clubface to close as much as it travels away from the ball. I also had a less wide stance and my right arm was on my chest and I did not allow it to separate from my body. The only way to achieve this is to make my back swing as a turn away with my shoulders. This produced a more matched up back and front swing. The most encouraging aspect was how solidly I was contacting the ball and how similar the trajectory was.....and the ball was flying far without much effort.

I was having the hardest time with the 50 yard shots and making my turn back and through with my arms on my chest and my hands quite neutral produced some fine short shots. They say golfers need the illusion of hope to survive and this lesson today sure gave me a needed dose of hope. It was so gratifying to realize I could still play shots of high quality and stay balanced!