Some of the swing thoughts from the lesson include: * Relax! * Relax the leading forearm through impact. My swing has a tendancy to tense up the forearms leading to inconsistent shot making and turning the club over instead of swing through the shot * At one stage I was hitting with a club with some medievel torture device attached, it was in reality a swing guide, aimed at ensuring the arm was in the correct spot in backswing and follow through. It clearly showed that I was turning the club too far in the follow through. Relaxing helped! * Keep down through the shot, have a tendancy to lift up on some shots

This explains the tendancy for me to hook the crap out of my hybrid! The Taylor Made Hybrid I have is built for the common garden variety slicer, so has draw bias. So hitting it with hook just enhances the draw and creates the huge hooks. Relaxing the forearm and hitting through the ball lost the hook and straightened up the hybrid. (So maybe I dont need a new one!)

Last night went to the ‘G’ to see the Hawks play the Dogs in first week of finals. Buddy kicked 8 supreme goals, supported by a strong, hard and tough team, hawks won by 51 points.

Today had another lesson with Wayne Rogers at Growling Frog. My swing over winter has collapsed, due to lack of game time and crapness. Wayne looked at my swing and quickly noted that I was too tense and needed to relax the arms and shoulders.

Swing thoughts:

- relax arms
- focus on clipping ball off the grass
- focus on left wrist just leading club through ball
- drill – swing with ball basket bw arms
- thought – left arm in top of backswing does not need to be tight. Empty jumper arm analogy

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!!!

As mentioned previously my swing plane closely resembles Jim Furyk, ie: all over the place. I spent most of the lesson working on a consistent backswing that is more like the great Ben Hogan!

Some of the swing thoughts from the lesson include:

• Restricting the hip turn to the first part of the backswing and letting the upper body complete the backswing
• Not rushing the backswing, think timing, rhythm, swing plane and slow
• Maintaining the swing plane arc

One of the drills to work on involve lifting the left foot off the ground on the backswing and then lifting the right foot off the ground in the follow through. Playing for the first time in a LONG time on Wednesday, will see if the lessons have any effect on my game!

Here’s a summary of swing thoughts:

Alignment

• I was aligning to ball too far forward, ideally should be set about 6 inches back from my left heel
• Club face alignment was open (though to me it looked straight), had me aligning the club face with a club laying in line with the ball position to ensure it was aligned at the target
• Need to relax the forearms

Swing plane

• My swing resembles Jim Furyk, with the backswing cutting inside the swing plane, this then requires a hell of a lot of work to return it to the correct postion on impact. This would be OK if I played as much golf as Furyk, and had the skills of a PGA Tour Pro. But it doesnt help as a 17 handicapper and creates a lot of inconsistency. Thankfully, Wayne noted that I do a fair job of making up for this, and have good overall timing.
My swing should be less like this…..

• So I need to concentrate on a more consistent swing plane, much like Tiger or Adam Scott keeping the club on plane in the backswing and creating less work for the downswing…..easy!!!! hahaha.

And more like this….

Here’s a summary of swing thoughts for my short game:

• More weight on front foot
• Better control on backswing
• More centred ball position
• Less upper body movement

By the end of the lesson I was definitely hitting cleaner, crisper chips. Wayne also noted that my wedges are currently:

• Pitching 46 degrees
• Sand 56 degress
• Lob 60 degrees

That leaves a big gap between pitching and sand, and does explain another reason for my problems with ‘in-between’ approaches of about 50 to 90 metres requiring a half/three qtr pitching, or overhit sand. So, I am now on the lookout for a gap wedge of about 52 degrees, and work on my lob as the bunker club of choice. Fellow golf blogger, the Wedge Guy, has an interesting article on lofts which is well worth a read.

Golf Medic – www.golfmedic.net A key to any good round of golf is sinking the short putts. Ive ruined many a good hole with a poorly hit short putt, and unfortunately a putt counts the same as a booming drive down the middle of the fairway! Golf Medic is a great site providing a daily golf tip for the long suffering golf tragics out there.

One of the medics recent tips involved a short putting drill that could help a lot. As the Medic says, short putts are often missed by taking an overly long backswing and then decelerating on the putt causing a lame, shaky and ugly missed putt. This drill works on reducing the backswing and hitting through the putt.

The Wedge Guy – www.thewedgeguy.com Terry Koehler is passionate about the short game, has designed putters and wedges, and has recently setup a blog – The Wedge Guy, offering tips and techniques to help lower the score by getting the ball in the hole quicker!

One of Terry’s tips recommends using ‘Gravity‘ as a key swing thought when playing a pitch or chip, this ideally avoids the over-acceleration or deceleration associated with the fat chunked duff into the bunker or the thin skinnied rifle across the green

The pain of a missed putt, and of shoving the putter into your groin!

When addressing the ball, the ‘waggle’ is important for relaxing the stance. I was using too much wrist and waggling too fast. Henry recommended slowing the movement down and using more of the arms than wrist.