The one piece of advice for golfers that I had heard before even starting these lessons is don’t overthink it.
Don’t overthink it. Don’t overthink it. Don’t overthink it.
I was overthinking it.
Last week I stopped thinking and things improved considerably. That plateau I’ve spent the last few lessons trying to get to – well, I sort of got there.
My connections with the ball were – for the most part – pretty solid. And in a way, kind of effortless. I guess that’s the not thinking part.
Barrie was impressed. Next week, he said, we could probably move on to some closer range stuff. And maybe – if I continue not thinking – we could be playing some actual rounds of golf pretty soon.
One of my ongoing problems has been balance. I shift my balance too far back on the back swing, then too far forwards on the follow through. To correct this, Barrie made me stand with my feet together while I hit some balls with only a half swing.
It did make it easier for me to see when I was off-balancing myself.
The other thing we worked on was accuracy.
Last week we talked about a rotation of the hands while the head of the club is coming down. The idea – if you can picture it – is that at the start of the swing, the top hand is more or less face up, and the bottom hand is more or less face down.
Over the course of the swing they switch. Ideally the midpoint of the switch is exactly when the club contacts the ball. This makes the ball go straight.
But, if you want the ball to go left, you can speed up the rotation just enough so that the midpoint is a little late and the club face is a tiny bit closed. Alternately you can slow down the switch to send the ball right.
Barrie referred to this as hooking (left) and fading (right).
I was marginally successful at this, but the important thing is that I’m not only hitting the balls straight, I’m also hitting them pretty far.
