Learning to Golf

Okay, I've been golfing for 20 years.  I was even on a league one year and won first place.  Admittedly, it was primarily due to my handicap, but hey!  I got a trophy!

I don't get out much to golf these days, mostly because it's expensive and time-consuming.  And my Best Disease makes watching and finding my ball somewhat difficult.  But I still enjoy the game.

Recently, I decided to give up on my 17 year old set of Palm Springs Gravity Balance drivers that my grandma built for me in 1988.  They had steel shafts, were quite a bit heavier than current clubs, had much smaller club heads, and were built for my 15 year old height.

I picked up a nice set of Purespin titanium drivers - 1, 3, and 5 - on eBay for a total of $50, inclusive of shipping.  They've got graphite shafts, they're quite a bit lighter than my old clubs, and the club heads are bigger.  They're also about 2 inches longer.  Longer shaft, bigger head...  yes, I *AM* talking about golf clubs.

I joked that these clubs would allow me to drive the ball even further into the woods.  That's exactly what they do.  Although I do seem to be hitting the ball better, I still shank a lot of them off to the right, or slice them off to the right, and I decided that I really need to work on that.

So I headed over to the Hillandale Golf Club for a lesson from a fellow named "Jeff".  Jeff noticed that I was doing the exact same thing with my driver that I was doing with my 7 iron, so we figured it'd be pretty easy to work on.

Basically, he pointed out that my shots were going right because my club face was open when I swung through the ball.  This was caused by my not rotating the club properly through the swing, and trying to PUSH the club through the ball.  So I learned to rotate my wrists through the swing and loosen my hold on the club.  With my right forearm rotating over my left forearm as I swing the club head through the ball, this gives me two results - more club speed with less effort, and a club face that is more square to the ball.  The end result - straighter drives that go further.

He also told me I needed to turn my body towards the direction I wanted the ball to go a little bit more.

The lightning alarm went off right as my lesson was ending, so I didn't get much chance to practice, but I'm pretty confident that the lesson helped, and I'm looking forward to hitting the range again.