Answers!

This is a report on my hour long lesson with Glenn today.

As my faithful reader is well aware, the driver has been an issue in an otherwise fine game of golf.

Glenn uses Trackman to gather data.  For those who don't live and breath this stuff, this is a Doppler Radar unit that tracks club movement, ball flight, spin and then calculates distance carried, some of the roll out (which is a bit of guess -- depends on turf conditions, etc.).  Of course once you have all the numbers, a whole bunch of calculations are possible.  It's also doing movie grabs and such for replay and illustration.

I was under the impression that I was too far inside and needed to swing out at the ball to hit it properly.  Was it a lack of shallowing the club shaft that was causing my problems?

Adding to this was that this problem would only show up on the course.  At the range I could hit 50 drives in a row without my usual set of duck hooks and thin topped shots.

Frustrating?  Ah, yes it was.  It might have discouraged a lesser golfer.


What Glenn saw was that I was getting stuck by keeping the arms and hands too close my body.  That caused them to be trapped and if I was going to get close to the ball I was going to have to do hero moves with body and hands.  To improve the club needed to get outside of my top of backswing position.


The solution seemed strange:

1. Take normal backswing (nice that something was good!)
2. Spin the shoulders - nothing fancy required for my lower body.
3. This spinning feels like I am throwing the club well outside of the swing path and will cause me to come over the top.
4. Make no attempt to manipulate the club with arms or hands.
5. Mr. Trackman says that I am still presenting the club to the ball with an inside to outside line.
6. If things get worse, then spin the shoulders harder.  A solution that doesn't require gentleness and caution!
7. When the shoulders are spun, there must be the feeling that the club grip is being pulled into the body, left and eventually upwards.

As I was able to do this the ball flight was good.  TM (Trackman) showed about 3 degrees up on the swing.  The club is set to 8.5 degrees, so an effective loft of about 11.5 degrees.  

My club path was always in to out, but I was getting close to straight.  

Club path was deliciously straight; some times with a bit of draw, maybe due to gear effect of a toe hit.

Club head speed rose from about 90 to 97.  TM was suggesting carry distances above 240 yards, with total yardage in the 260 range.

I'll try to take this to the course tomorrow.  Since I am supposed to do this with all shots, there will be plenty of practice shots.  I wonder if it applies to putting?