Are There Some of Us Who Just Aren't Meant for Golf?
 

I've worked very hard over the past four years on this game, e.g., practice, lessons, more practice, more lessons, books, videos, clinics, etc., and I still struggle mightily. I can barely drive a golf ball 200 yards, assuming I hit it straight (over the weekend I played with two 12 year old's who consistently out drove me). I played today and shot a 92. Luckily I had 24 putts or I wouldn't have broken 100. I'm also tired of losing golf balls (I average about six to eight penalty strokes a round).

Simply put, I don't know how to swing a golf club. I don't know how to make the transition. I don't know how to sustain lag. I don't know how to compress a golf ball. I understand Joe Dante's concept of coefficient of angular momentum. I understand Bobby Clampett when he discusses where a divot should be in relationship to the ball. I understand how the lower body is supposed to work in the golf swing. However, I slap at the ball, I don't hit it. A good 7-iron for me is 135 yards.

I have a lesson with Drew on Thursday and am looking forward to it. However, what if I'm just to dumb to figure it out? Are there people like us out there...we just aren't meant to play this wonderful game?

Absolutely not!

Drew will get you going, no doubt in my mind!

You've been to instructors, but you've not been to an TGM / LBG oriented instructor.

Keep the faith my friend, Thursday will open a whole new world for you!

Kevin

You keep rocking 24 putts . . . and you work with Drew . . . YOU ARE GOLDEN!!!! Your life is fixin' to change . . . in a very good way.

We'll expect a full report on your lesson and how you've picked up 15 or so yards on that 7 iron . . . you gotta be cutting across the ball I'd suspect. If you have a chance to hit balls between now and your Drew time . . . try the shut face drill. Close the face WAY WAY down at address and try to hit balls that don't start way left . . . will teach you to lean the handle . . . if you don't get the handle forward the face will look too far left to get your startline right. Try it "static" first . . . set up with the face well closed like you could hit the ball 50 yards left of your target . . . now start pushing the handle forward so the face starts looking square. That will get you leaning the shaft . . . like Trevino said "gimme a club with loft and I take it off of it." To hit the short irons far you need to take loft away by shaft lean.

Can you hit the ground in front of the ball? If not get in a bunker put a line in the sand vertical to your stance line where the ball would be and practice taking sand on the left side of that line.

It doesn't have anything to do with being dumb really . . . there are PLENTY of mouth breathing slobbering morons on tour just driving nails. You just need to get a few concepts right. You don't have to be good at EVERYTHING. Mr. Hogan said (paraphrasing) . . . I didn't have to be good at everything just a few important things. Gotta figure out what your important things are. If you want more pop in your 7 iron . . . gotta learn to nick the loft . . . and have the clubhead coming from IN . . . and hit the ground infront of the ball not behind it. Feed your swing hard punch shots monitor your alignments (did your left wrist breakdown or stay flat . . . is your right wrist bent) and do that closed face drill . . . you can't back the shaft up and do that drill right.

Ben Hogan believed that the average guy could play in the 70's . . . time for you to believe . . . go get 'em catdaddy. Dry your eyes and stick your chest out . . . you can do it. Especially if you can putt that good. You got the hardest part licked.

Gone G.O.L.F.ing
 

I am looking forward to Thursday :) .

Thanks, Kevin. I hope so!

Thanks! I'll try the drills you mentioned. The shut face drill sounds very intriguing. I hope Hogan is right. :-)

Be careful what you wish for. LOL!

In another week you will be looking at blade irons and laughing about this post.

I hope so!

A Masterful Thursday
 

The first round of the Master's starts on Thursday and the golf season begins a new. While Yoda is checking on Brian Gay's Alignments at Augusta National's practice facility, I will be checking the same exact Alignments many miles away up north with you :) .

You don't understand what a treat you are in for . . . Drew is extremely HIGH QUALITY . . . as a teacher and even more so a person . . . CLASS all the way.

Sean, I could teach you to compress the ball in about 20 minutes!
 

I know because I taught a college kid, today, using range clubs.

1) Identify the natural design of the club's sweet spot by letting it hang straight down.
2) Support the sweet spot with your extended right index finger. Right hand grip with club in middle of rt forearm with enough space for left hand to "fit in."
3) Put your hands in impact position.
4) Turn up-plane maintaining impact hands extended index finger.
5) Turn down-plane/thrust down-plane pointing the index finger at the ball.
6) The low point of the club must always point at the infinite plane line, or be parallel to it, and I laid two clubs down.
7) Don't drive with your legs, rotate with your chest like a tennis shot.

"Why does the ball feel so soft like we hardly hit it?" "Why is it flying so high?" "Ball Compression, do it again. Read this website at lynnblakegolf.com. and watch all the free videos."

50 balls later, the young man was compressing his shots and some of them were straight and on plane! I emphasized the club plane and no leg drive. They sat for 20 minutes watching me after they were done. I explained I had a bad hip, short-leg, the heartbreak of psorriasis and dandruff. And I was a registered independent and proud of it. "Why do you always hit it further and straighter than we do? " "Go to the website!"

Sean, I have no clue as to what Yoda, Bucket, Kevin, OB, and the other talented pros know. But if I can compress 90% of my shots and have talc/dust on the sweetspot of all my irons, you will be so happy after your lesson you will be elated!

Imagine how well you'll do with a real pro! :laughing9

Patrick

[quote=Sean1;71791]I understand how the lower body is supposed to work in the golf swing. However, I slap at the ball, I don't hit it. A good 7-iron for me is 135 yards.
QUOTE]

So have you trained your pivot to do the right things with the right sequencing or are you just focusing on the shoulders, arms, hands, club and the ball? It takes good footwork & hipwork to compress the ball properly.

I look forward to learning about alignments and how to swing a golf club properly!

He seems like a very nice fellow. :-)

I was an inner city teacher too. :-) I was a counselor for teens who had severe emotional and behavioral problems in an alternative high school. That job was much easier than learning how to swing a golf club!

I'm happy to hear you can swing the club so well. Perhaps I am just a slow learner or just don't get it. I'll find out tomorrow!

[quote=BerntR;71806]I'm trying to sustain lag, but right now I'm so confused I can barely swing a club. :confused1

No, you are obviously a great person who will rock the delivery path!
 

You are also correct about how hard the golf swing is compared to our daily stuff! You would laugh out loud if you saw my collection of stuff I tried before TGM. I literally tried everything else first! :BangHead:

But you know the saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher shall arrive." :study:

Check out another post for laughs, "Delivery Path California," using the search engine. I was thinking of your challenges and several of the responses when I wrote it as a way to reflect and summarize (teacher lingo).:golfer2:


Patrick

Thanks Patrick...I will check it out!

I also hope I am ready. :-)

I just read "Delivery Path California". Great job...very, very clever! I heard Don Henley's voice as I read it. On my way to Attleboro tomorrow I'll keep an eye out for a "Dead head sticker on a cadillac". :laughing9

Ah yes! "Boys of Summer"
 

Perhaps tomorrow, Sean, you will compose "My love for plane line will be growing strong, after practicing Drew's insights from Spring's first lesson are built upon..."


Sorry! :laughing9

What coast are you on, Sean?

Patrick

You are quite poetic, Patrick. Perhaps you should become a lyricist. As to music, my golf swing reminds me of Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction". :confused1

I'm just outside of Boston.

Let me call that up on Rhapsody.com
 

And, you had better have a groovy tune for after tomorrow's lesson! "ABC's" of love???

Good night!

We will want to hear all about it! :laughing9

Patrick