The final lesson that wasn’t

Fred McLeod, c.1912

Today was my final golf lesson. As I’d missed two of the four group lessons I’d signed up for, Willie said he’d happily make them up as a one hour private lesson for me. Impressed? You bet I am.

So this afternoon I arrived at Leaderboard a few minutes early and watched Willie finish a lesson off with a student before going with him to the office for a while. While waiting, I finally got to try out my shiny new Cobra S9.1 driver (I’d only been waiting a month). Oh man! Wonderful, meaty tink and a straight rocket ball. Happy days!

Willie had planned on doing lessons 2 (posture) and 4 (balance) with me in a one hour slot today, but had decided earlier that he’d stick to the original plan instead. So today was to be a 30 minute lesson on posture and then I’m to call him once I’ve had a chance to bed in the lessons learned, and he’d give me the final lesson. In a country world-renowned for its lack of customer service, I’m very pleased at his willingness to tailor things to suit me (even though I’m unaware of what suits me).

After watching me whack a 6-iron for a dozen balls and seeing the accuracy and distance I was achieving for the work done, complimented me that my backswing form and rotation was now spot on, and introduced the three-point back contact drill. (I think I’d seen on a David Leadbetter video once). You stand upright with knees locked and place the hosel of the club into your butt-crack, making sure the shaft and handle of the club contact your spine between your shoulder-blades and the back of your head — a ramrod-straight back and neck, but not tense. Then you bend forward at the hips but only just slightly unlock the knees, any adjustments at this point being in hip rotation.

It’s a natural fault in most players — particularly those of us who have done industrial health and safety training or previously damaged their back (guilty on both counts) — to bend the knees automatically when you’re bending forward. While good for the back, it screws up your swing mechanics. Doing this, I noticed that my swing required less effort to keep the ball straight and improved the distance. It also meant I could increase power without standing up into the backswing and squatting into the downswing with the club digging into the turf.

Next, he added the position of weight along my feet. I was naturally keeping my weight back on my heels, which drastically reduces the amount your legs and feet can move, so restricts your swing even further. To do this properly, I did the three-point back contact drill above, then rotated my ankles slightly forward (shifting weight forward). The idea is to aim for the weight to be just behind the balls of the feet, rather than in the heels or on the toes.

It may feel as though you’re going to have less control by doing this, but he assured me that it’s better to have your weight too far forward (even on the toes) than too far back. Again, it resulted in a better swing, accuracy and power. I also noticed that my legs and feet were actually doing what they’re supposed to do, rather than my feet remaining rooted to the ground.

That was the end of the lesson, and he left me with 100 balls to practice with. I didn’t use them all, as I noticed that my swing was getting less accurate as I tired (late night and 4 weeks off will do that), so I hit a dozen or so more iron and driver shots, then called it a day.

I definitely have something to keep me busy for a week or two, but the real test will be next week’s round with Mark and Neil…

A round and a cache

This evening was my (cautious) return to golf, after having time off due to an actual pain in the neck. This means I’ve had a brand new, shiny driver sitting and a pencil bag sitting around collecting dust for almost a month. Maddening.

Mark, Neil and I met up outside the pro shop around 17:30 and headed straight out. The place was surprisingly busy — plenty of cars in the carpark, the pro shop and clubhouse had people milling around, and approaching the first tee there were people ahead of us and some following us to the tee. I thought we’d stumbled into a competition or society day for a while… until the calls of Fore! rang out all around us (some by us). It was a happy hacker’s playground!

Aside from being quite rusty and slicing it far too often (the two-ball ahead of us kept thinking I was aiming at them), there wasn’t a jot of pain anywhere nor numbness. Clean bill of health as far as golf goes.

Relieved? You bet.

After the usual post-round visit to the 19th for a sherbet, I recalled there was a geocache alongside the golf course grounds. I had my geocaching kit in the car, so I could see it was less than 50 yards from where my car was parked, though required a lengthy walk to get around fences, bushes and trees onto a bridleway. It wasn’t until I was armpit deep in stinging nettles that I discovered my (magazine subscription freebie) torch had finally died, but in summer the sun never fully sets this far north so there was some light to see by.

A few minutes later I discovered the “travel bug hotel”, as this cache is called, containing just one TB and the log book. This TB’s mission is to get to Somerset and the caches near home are closer to that than Buckinghamshire, so I signed the log, took the TB and dropped in a trinket (so there would be something for the next visitor).

Now to get this travel bug into a regularly visited geocache!

Group golf lesson 3 of 4

Flickr CC-BY-NC jared721

Tonight was the third of four group golf lessons I’ve been taking at Leaderboard Golf Centre, which are focussed on beginner golfers (or high-handicapper returnees to the game, like me) — they’re duplicating the group lessons I took back in 2002. This time around, the first lesson focussed on grip, the second on stance/positioning, and tonight’s was swing/swing-plane.

One of my major golfing shortcomings is torso flexibility and body rotation through the swing. It’s something I’ve always been aware of, but haven’t really known how to address, and it drastically affects both my consistency and distance. I stretch on the teeing area before playing a round, but that’s really only to prevent injury and get the arms ready. Willie showed us some exercises that managed to get me to the point where on a normal backswing I’m looking 0ver/behind my shoulder/deltoid onto the ball (see the image for how it’s supposed to look), which is exactly how it’s supposed to be. As with a driver, the way to think of it is that you’re trying to maintain the feeling of keeping the clubhead low to the ground for as long as possible. This keeps the distance from the grip end to my sternum the same throughout the whole swing, maintains a circular swing, and rotates the club around the spine rather than the left shoulder. It creates a bigger lever, uses more muscles, and is more easily repeatable.

The result: more distance with far less effort. At the start of the evening I was hitting a 6-iron ~120 yards carry without having warmed up. At the end I was hitting it ~150 yards carry with more consistency and the definite feeling that I was doing much less work.

Then he got us to try out a modern driver each (standard, not offset), as it is more dependent upon correct swing motion. As the only one in the group who’d used one before, applying the lessons learned so far saw me consistently getting 200 yards carry, with most of them landing within a fairway’s width. I’d be happy with that kind of result on a golf round, and it set the bar for the rest of the group.

Next week is the fourth and final lesson, so I expect he’ll cover short game concepts, but we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime I’m looking forward to consolidating the lessons so far.

The golf is progressing

Flickr CC-BY striatic

It’s been a little while since my last update, and I’ve been half wanting to provide little progress updates and half concerned that it would just be micro-blogging. You can go to Twitter for that.

Wycombe Heights’ par-3 course has become the regular Tuesday evening event among Mark, Neil and I. We’ve now played there 3 times, giving enough for a notional group handicap to keep it competitive. It also means I’ve fallen into the role of creating a notional Golf Society to make sure the handicaps we use are fair for everyone, and to allow others to be tracked should they join us (2-3 of my friends are about to take lessons, so it’s likely).

It may also mean we can obtain Society discounts and benefits when exploring local courses and abroad — particularly useful, as three of us are in the early stages of planning a golf holiday abroad for next year.

Mark and I played a full-length 18-hole course last Sunday, Greys Green‘s “Red” course, and it was an experience for both of us. For me because I’m so unfit that I was knee-wobblingly exhausted at the end, and it was my first such round in 5 or so years. For Mark because he’s only ever played par-3 courses, so hasn’t needed to use anything below his 6- or 7-iron. I felt for him, as he tried his longer clubs (hybrids) and spent the time playing army golf, though I didn’t fare much better at times with the driver I hadn’t swung in years (though was gobsmacked to discover I’d shot my second highest ever score on a full round). It’s all fun!

I’ve also been continuing with the exercise bike and am amazed at the rapid improvement both in the workout on the bike and everyday tasks such as walking up stairs. The change between the first and last days of May alone has been remarkable. I was 5 minutes into this morning’s exercise bike session before I began to break a sweat, and at the end of the 15 minute session I felt as if I could have kept going for 10 minutes or more. (I didn’t because I got up later than planned).

Tomorrow is the weekly weigh-in day, and I expect it to see the planned amount of weight loss, as I’ve been mostly a good boy with my food and the increased activity level always helps.

So… simple changes, mixing up activities and watching what I eat are actually working. I’ve not signed up for a 12 month gym plan that will sat unused for 11 months (like most do), I’m not forcing myself to run or swim or lift weights or otherwise do anything far outside my comfort zone. It’s mostly about walking (while doing something I enjoy), eating sensibly and responsibly, and gently spinning an exercise bike.

I wonder if it’s possible to just keep doing this kind of thing and get down to my goal weight? I doubt it (the body is too good at adapting), but it’d be a nice idea…