Joey's Golf Bag

This afternoon, after work, I had another lesson with Mike Murray at Golf Galaxy. The snow was coming down heavily (the kids were granted a day off) as I drove to the lesson. I took my sand wedge, 7-iron and driver with me this time. I usually take the pitching wedge, but decided to take the sand wedge, because it misbehaved so badly on Saturday. The store was pretty much deserted when I got there, as Big D shuts down on the rare occasion when snow falls.

I told him about my difficulty with the wedges, so we worked on that first. He had me hit some pitches, and though I hit them pretty well, he wanted to show me a different technique. He wanted me to set up with a very open stance and the ball back from where I usually play it. I thought I had it in the center of my stance, but he proved to me that it was forward of center. He wanted me to keep my hands very close to my body at impact, and wanted me to use much less arm motion and more wrist motion. From a very open stance, this method keeps my backswing from being too long and thus prevents deceleration. I hit some balls with this method and on the video it showed I was indeed hitting the ball very solidly with my hands well ahead of the ball at impact. When we did this same swing with a 7-iron, it was still impressively solid.

Next, we worked on the driver. I told him that I’d been having to aim left, as my drives were tending to go right. I hit several balls and indeed the video showed I was hitting a little too much from the inside, thus causing the ball to go right. I guess I have made progress in getting rid of the over-the-top swing. He was wondering what was causing the ball to go right, as the swing appeared pretty solid on the video. He thought my driver shaft might have a little too much flex for my now improved swing. We went to the launch monitor to hit a few drives, and I hit them right as well. The clubfitter came over to help with some clubs with stiffer shafts. After a few swings, we’d pretty much agreed with the conclusion that my driver shaft needed to be stiffer, and possibly less loft. We decided to reshaft my driver with a UST V2 stiff. I’ll give it a try tomorrow.

By now, we’d run way over on time, but he had me hit a few irons to see how I was progressing there. I still needed to get my hips turned a little more at impact, and after a few swings, showed some improvement on the video with my hands clearly in front of the ball at impact. Things are looking up!

A really good lesson. I’m looking forward to see how the stiffer shaft works with my improved swing.