On Par - All about golf in Australia

Back to the Growling Frog Golf Course yesterday for a late afternoon lesson with Wayne. Previous lessons have worked on improving my swing plane which has begun to improve my shotmaking, especially with the irons. However my game is still very inconsistent, so worked with Wayne on further refinements and setup tweaks to reduce that inconsistency and create a cleaner, smoother connection with the ball.

Some of the swing thoughts from the lesson include:

• Keeping shoulders aligned at setup, and left shoulder higher. Tend to align slightly open at address
• Turning through the follow through, instead of steering the club too far to the right
• Drill: Setup with weight on left foot, 3/4 swing and turn through shot
• Slightly shorter stance on irons
• Not rushing the backswing, think timing, rhythm, swing plane and slow

Wayne is surprised that my handicap is not lower, so I showed him my short game. He wasnt so surprised. My backswing on my chips is rediculously long, which means Im adjusting the length by speeding/slowing the downswing, that can only lead to pain with thin/chunked shots missing the target by miles.

Some of the chipping swing thoughts from the lesson include:

• Dial in the backswing to match the distance, work on determining the length of backswing to match key distances
• Chipping swing should be same speed for all chips, accelerating through ball, and extending follow through
• Open stance, narrower for shorter chips
• Backswing should be out not in, especially as stance is open

So, its back to the driving range to work on the swing. Growling Frog has a superb range, grass tees plus a nice chipping green. I dont think I will make it to the PGA Tour this year, but working on it