Lesson 4

July 2008

I had a objective for lesson 4, get rid of my slice. Now before we begin I should say mine was not a classic slice that started left and swerved away right. Mine was a push slice. It started either straight or slightly right and swerved further right. It was noticeable in my 6 iron and up, and I still could not hit any iron further than my 6 iron and so seldom tried longer irons. By this time I had a second hand hybrid, and this was particularly bad for slicing.

Anyway, Pete the pro got me working on releasing the club.

This was undoubtedly the correct thing to teach me, unfortunately for me, not for the first time I miss understood the lesson. We were working on rolling the arms, specifically rolling the right wrist across the left wrist.

Now a lot of golfers will tell you that's wrong, they say you should never manipulate the hands and wrists in the release. These golfers are usually more experienced golfers who naturally release the club correctly as a part of their good swings they don't have a slice and for them it's true manipulating the hands sends the ball out with hook spin and is bad.

but..

For a guy who does not close the club face, releasing the club is a key area to learn, even if it has to be unlearned later.

Unfortunately I interpreted this lesson as that I needed to flip the club through the ball while rolling my wrists. This mistake on my part was to cost me 6 months of painful crapness.

As always when a pro watches over you you hit great shots, something to do with the attention you slow down and get it right, after he leaves you speed up and it goes to s**t again.

That was me.

A week after the lesson nothing had changed and I was beginning to doubt the pro, which in hindsight was wrong, it was not him, the problem was all me and my internet self help.

I had one more lesson with Pete before the year was out, and again he had me swinging with feet together trying to give me more time to get a good strike, and as with the last time I hit it great till he went home. Nothing changed it was a waste of both our time.

On the plus side the sheer amount of balls I struck that summer did eventually make a difference, when I look back now I can see that for an over the top flipper I had some pretty good results :D