Finally, I feel lag!
I’ve been remiss in not updating my blog lately, as I’ve been extremely busy at work.
I started taking golf lessons with Alan Niederlitz at Golden Bear Golf Center about two months ago and just finished up this week. Along the way, we did some video analysis and it showed that my main fault was a backswing that is a bit too flat, and a downswing that is a bit over the top. So, those two things are what I’ve been working on. I also bought a book by Bobby Clampett called The Impact Zone that has been extremely helpful with my understanding of the golf swing. I’ve been doing the sand drill for a few weeks along with some of the other drills he describes in the book.
Finally, this afternoon, things came together. I’d been in the bunker running the sand drill and also practicing sand shots. I then went to the range, warmed up in my usual manner, and again was disappointed with my inconsistency. I’d hit some balls beautifully, and other balls like I’d never seen a golf club before. It was very frustrating. I decided to work on impact, so I pulled out the pitching wedge, set up for chipping and concentrated on getting my hands in front of the ball before impact. I started striking the ball well, so I continued the drill with longer clubs until I got down to the 6-iron. I then decided to hit some longer swings, but the results weren’t good — my hands weren’t leading the clubhead at the ball. I went back to the pitching wedge and concentrated on getting my hands in front of the ball at impact. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I started feeling lag in my swing and a nice, crisp strike on the ball with a divot that points directly at the target. I hit a few more with the pitching wedge, and then went down through the clubs to the 6-iron, and found I could keep the lag as long as I made a nice, smooth swing. I then ran out of balls…
This isn’t the first time I’ve felt lag, but the last time I didn’t realize what I had and I wasn’t able to reproduce that feeling until today.
It’ll be interesting to see if I can feel the lag again tomorrow…