Ye Ole Reverse Pivot
This morning, I went to the Swing Master clinic at the Golden Bear Golf Center. The weather was windy and cloudy, with the wind out of the west. There was one other student besides me. Today, Bill Beverly, the instructor who first taught me golf just over two years ago, was giving the clinic.
He watched both of us hit a few shots. I usually have an issue with hitting hooks, but wasn’t really able to demonstrate it; instead, most of my shots were pretty good, straight, or with a slight fade. Billy then took us into the video area and video-taped our swing. Both of us had reverse pivot, mine just slight but the other student’s reverse pivot was quite pronounced. He then gave us a drill created by Jim Flick (many of the instructors at Golden Bear were trained by Jim Flick). The drill is designed to put us in the proper position in so that we can hit a correct inside-to-square swing. We did the drill while he video-taped it and showed us how it put us into the correct position for the downswing.
We went back out to the range and worked on getting into the proper downswing position and then hitting balls teed high. First he checked our setup and grip, then ran the drill step-by-step, and then we started hitting the ball very softly off the tee. I was hitting soft draws with the drill and soon straightened them out. We worked on the drill for about 30 minutes and finished out the class. I was quite pleased with the class.
After the class, I hit a few balls with the driver, 5-wood, 6-iron and pitching wedge. My drives were quite good, nice, high and long. I had some difficulty with the 5-wood, tending to hit low pushes. Most of my 6-iron shots were quite good, either a soft draw or a soft fade. My pitching wedges were perfectly straight, but short.
After the class, I went to the putting green and practice. I started out hitting a few short putts, concentrating on getting my routine fixed and making sure to accelerate through the ball in order to not leave the ball short. Next, I practiced 18, 30 and 45 ft putts. My speed was not as good as yesterday, but I left few putts short today, tending to go a bit long.
A very fine class today, and I feel like I made a lot of progress getting my swing back in order.