Things I'm Thinking About

I have this bad habit of not using a lot of my lower body.  And not moving it first in the sequence of the down swing.

To move the lower body is one thing, but then the next question is, how fast to do this?

To generate a lot of speed and who doesn't want to hit the ball further, it would "make sense" to spin the hips as fast as one could.  But it seemed to me worthwhile to try just turning them with no undo effort. 

Reasons for this might be to just start the unwind of the upper body and secondly, to get the left side braced to allow more effort from the upper body without disturbing the posture.  We want to be in the proper position to give the ball a whack.  If not, direction will be more "challenging."

So armed with this thought and several others -- why not keep the game as complex as possible?   I played 18 on the short course today.  The big course was full and slow, and I was not in the mood for slow golf.  The short course was empty and I went around twice and practiced a bit with chipping with a pitching wedge.  I usually use a 60 degree lob wedge, but thought it might be useful to have another weapon for longer shots that don't require elevation complexities.

I found using the hips gently, slowly as the initiation of the swing, worked pretty well.  I found I was pushing a bit, but my distance control was pretty good.  My back didn't complain, which is a good thing.

Post lunch I wandered to the driving range and after my stomach emptied a bit of Polish Sausage and soda pops, I tried some full shots.

I was trying to initiate the down swing with early hip movement, and to be in a neutral position at impact.  I think I get the upper body racing ahead, then try to catch up the with hands -- it's not good from there.

Well, as I mentioned, it all works at the range.

I played at Wente on Tuesday (thanks Phil!), which is a course that requires the driver on all par 4s.  I was pretty good off the tee.  Not real long, but they were all in play.

So all this is feeling pretty good to me.  I just have to make sure I can do it under pressure.  There is reason to suggest this is possible, because the motions involved are not fast and the sequence  makes sense.

Will I remember this all tomorrow?