Lesson 5

(April 2009)

The golf academy that I attended was quite new, very good facilities I was immediately impressed. Full driving range with decent balls, outside grass area. two video studios for teaching, a dedicated short game area with a chipping green, a bunker green, a putting green and a complete short hole of 100 yards for pitching, USGA standard greens it is mint.

Add to that a par three short course of 6 holes and a full 18 hole course and if it was not 1 hr away I would be a member like a shot.

As it was I had booked a lesson with a Pro called Andy, I was warmed up when Andy came a first looked at my swing, I got unaccountably nervous but managed to hit a few away. I then told him my tale of inconsistent woe and what I wanted to achieve, he immediately identified a couple of areas to work on and we headed up to the video suite to tape the swing.

After a few hits on camera he sat me down and told me what he wanted to work on. The first thing did was praise the swing for looking much better than a 28 handicappers swing, (probably says that to all the hackers, but it made me feel better) then he said was these first changes are going to make you hit the left side of the course instead of the right side, so be patient as there are a few thing to fix before you can hit it as you want to.

He then proceeded to show me an horrific over swing leading to a collapse of the left arm and no width in the back swing, and an equally horrific flip of the wrists through impact.

Now this was the first time I ever had my swing analysed by a pro and he then showed me an ideal release and an ideal wrist hinge.

Suddenly I got what Pete the old pro had been trying to get me to do, it was so obvious, equally as obvious was the fact that I am a visual learner, I need to see what to do, not just feel what to do.

It was a moment of revelation.

As Andy showed me how to hinge and release the club back down stairs on the range the difference was amazing, for the first ever time, solid strikes one after the other, with right to left spin (the first time I had seen spin like that since my first range session more than a year ago).

I was giddy as a kipper, in a stroke my steep over the top hack was transformed into a 3/4 swing that actually hit the ball consistently, not only that it hit it a lot, lot further than I ever did before.

I could not thank Andy enough and went away a happy punter.

Magically this change stayed with me after the lesson as well. A corner had been turned and no thoughts of quitting remained.