Two Practices at GBGC
Last Saturday, my usual golf buddy was unable to play, so I headed to the range to hit some balls. I concentrated on irons, hitting only a couple of drives, badly.
The weather: cool, sunny, soft breeze. I hit many, many, iron shots with the 7-iron, working on backswing and shot shaping. While I hit a few draws, I could never get the draw to be repeatable. At least the bad shots were fades and not slices. I also hit the 5-iron and 3-iron, but mostly hit fades.
Today, the weather was again sunny and cool, but there was a two club breeze into my face at a 45 degree angle to my target line. It turned draws into straight shots and fades into slices, but I persevered.
I worked on fundamentals again today. First, I made sure my grip was correct, especially having the club in the correct “strong” position with the club in the fingers and not in the palm of my left hand. I still have to check continually to make sure that the club is gripped correctly. Next, on the backswing, I made sure that the end of the club pointed at the target line. I also moved the ball position back a little to just forward of center, hoping to hit the ball a little more reliably. Lastly, instead of grounding the club, I hovered it at the equator of the ball in hopes of curing my problem hitting too many fat shots.
For the most part, the checking the fundamentals worked well. I began to hit a higher proportion of draws and straight shots to fades. My bad shots are always fades or slices; rarely, with the driver or 3-iron, I will hook, but that is uncommon. Today, I hit only 7-, 5- and 3-irons, with a brief break to hit a few drives. Near the end of practice, I had the draw working, even with the 3-iron.
The advantage for me is my draw carries 10-15 yds farther than my fade, so I prefer it. Unfortunately, I can’t hit it reliably; I can always hit a fade, and as long as my timing is good, the slice is avoided. Thus, I want to make the draw my normal shot and only use a fade when I need the ball to land softly.
Today, when I was down to my last 5 balls, I got out the 10-iron and hit nearly every shot fat, due, it seems, to the ball being played too far forward. On my next practice, I’m going to start from the center and see if I can determine the optimal position for the ball.
When I got home, I had a little epiphany. I’ve been practicing mostly using tees, since it helps me learn to shape the shots. I seem to have created a problem, however, in that the club face isn’t square until the club is on the way back up. Hitting on a tee hid this effect from me. The main reason I’ve been playing the ball forward is it gives me more time to release the clubface, but it looks like the release is happening too late, and on the way back up. Now that I see the problem, I can now work on fixing it. No more tees for a while…