Joey's Golf Bag

This afternoon after work, I had a lesson with Mike Murray at Golf Galaxy. I told him about my good driving the last time I played last Friday, and also how bad my irons had been. My main issue on the course was inconsistent contact with the ball. Sometimes I hit the ball fat, sometimes thin. I just could never make solid contact on the ball. He had me hit a few balls with the pitching wedge so he could see what was happening. The first thing he noticed was I didn’t have enough shoulder tilt. We fixed that easily, I just setup the same way I do when I hit the driver, plus a little more forward lean of the club. This change helped immediately with making better contact on the ball.

Next, we noticed on the video that my hips were nearly square to the line at impact. That looks like my main issue right now. We worked on getting my left hip to turn properly so that my hips are turned toward the target at impact. This change was a little hard to get used to, but certainly necessary. He wants me to initiate the downswing by turning my hips to the left. I thought I was doing that, but it was clear on the video that I wasn’t. He gave me a drill to help with that. I hit a few balls trying to get the hip turned properly, and on the occasion when the club hit the ball, I made powerful contact on the ball.

Next week, we’re going to work on my position at the top. The clubhead is quite a bit open at the top, so that’s what we’ll work on next week, and also check that my hips are turning properly.

I’m making progress, more slowly than I’d like, but I’ve had little time to practice due to work schedule and bad weather.

Yesterday, I took the afternoon off to go play at Grapevine Golf Club with John. The day was sunny, warm and blustery. We went off at 12:30PM on Bluebonnet and finished up on Mockingbird about 4 hours later. I didn’t keep the scorecard, but it wasn’t pretty, other than my driver was good all day. It felt so good, in fact, I used it on every par-4 and par-5 hole, even on my nemesis holes like #6 on Mockingbird and #2 on Bluebonnet. I hit 10 fairways, and all the ones I missed I still had playable lies. And, for only the third time ever, I had no penalties.

No penalties didn’t help, because the rest of my game this day was just awful. I did have a couple of good second shots on par-5 holes, but my iron play was just atrocious. I had only one green-in-regulation (a par-3 hole), my sand play was a complete and total disaster, and I had three 3-putts and only got up-and-down 3 times. I did make a couple of long putts, but I also missed two putts within 3 ft.

But at least I can hit the driver! My confidence with the driver was very high, and I found myself with shorter irons into the green than ever before. Not that having short irons helped, as I didn’t hit a good iron shot from the fairway all day, typically coming up well short, either hitting it very thin or very fat.

On the other hand, my lessons are going well. I had my third lesson with Mike Murray on Thursday, and although I’m making progress (evidence: my stellar driving yesterday), I still have much work to do to get rid of 5 years of bad swings. We’re working mostly on getting into proper position at the top of the backswing, and then making sure the clubhead is on the right path. This is mostly working with the driver / fairway woods / hybrid, and mostly not with the irons. I also need to be more aggressive with my hip turn on the downswing. I’ve definitely found the right instructor.

This week, I’m concentrating on short game and putting for the tournament next weekend at Grapevine Golf Club.

On Monday afternoon this week, the weather finally got out of the freeze zone and I was able to hit a bucket of balls before the sun went down at Golden Bear. I didn’t hit the ball very well, too many swing thoughts from my lesson the previous week. Most of the balls that were well struck were going dead right 15 to 30 degrees right of the target. I had problems with tempo as well, due mostly to lack of practice because of the very cold weather.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to Hank Haney Golf Ranch to hit some balls. The weather was pleasantly warm and sunny, but there was still ice on the pond, see photo.

Well, I managed to make the short irons go straight, more or less, but the long clubs were all going right. The driver, well, let’s not talk about the driver, other than to say, if players were on the 2nd green, they’d be in danger.

Today, I went to a golf lesson with Mike Murray at Golf Galaxy, and what an outstanding lesson it was. While my swing had marginally improved from the last lesson (grip was good, posture better, much less sway on the downswing), my swing path still needed work. My main issue was that I wasn’t in a good position at the top of the backswing, and that’s where we spent the bulk of the time. First, he put a Swingyde on my 7-iron and that device, once I made a few swings, improved both my swing path and my release. Next, he focused on getting me into a good position at the top of my backswing. Once he got me to move into the right position, the ball started going straight and my clubhead speed was really improved.

Wow, just wow.

OK, I know it will take weeks or months to get this improved swing (a pretty classic Jim Hardy one-plane swing) grooved, but the improvement on the video was amazing.

Much work to do, but I’m feeling more optimistic than I’ve felt in the two years since I first broke 90.

On Thursday after work, I had my first golf lesson with Mike Murray at Golf Galaxy in Lewisville. In addition to the change we made in my introductory lesson (getting my left hand grip more in my fingers), we worked on these things.

• Posture. He wanted better posture, as I had a little too much knee bend and not enough bend at the hips (in other words, stick my butt out more).
• Swaying. While I was not swaying on the backswing, there was significant swaying toward the left during the downswing, that would cause inconsistent contact on the ball, because the center of the swing was not always in the same spot. He had me work on turning my left side around and posting hard on my left leg.
• Swing path. As I suspected, my swing path was over the top. He had me change my swing path so that it was too much inside, knowing that I would naturally tend to move it to inside-to-square-to-inside. I spent much of the lesson hitting the ball right of the target, but was able to make the ball more down the target line as the lesson progressed.
• Backswing angle. My backswing is a little flatter than he wants, but not excessively so. I’m working on getting it slightly higher on the backswing to get it more on plane. He says I have a classic Jim Hardy type one-plane swing.

A very good lesson. I was able, within a few swings, to significantly improve my release angle with much less flip of the wrists at impact. I have a lot of work to do, but it was amazing to see on the video the improvement from one lesson. I know I’ll get worse before I get better, but I’m fine with that.

I’ve really needed to get back in front of a golf instructor, and I’ve finally found one. I went over to Golf Galaxy in Lewisville today after work and met with Mike Murray, who is the PGA Professional for that store. He gave me a mini-lesson while I was there. He had me hit a couple of balls on video. He corrected my posture and tweaked my grip slightly for my left hand. He also gave a drill to reduce my tendency to flip my wrists. I had some immediate improvement in striking the ball.

I’ve signed up for 5 lessons, and I’ll do them weekly starting this week. I’m really looking forward to the lessons.