I started out with two really good birdies today But from there on it was very variable. Each time I am close to doing the right thing the ball goes straighter than its done for years. It will require a lot of work before it becomes second nature, but it is only a matter of time.
Taking the club back to a turned shoulder plane really works for me. But I haven't found the address position where everything clicks in yeat. Not on a repeatable basis anyway.
I shot a few videos and sent them over for comments. He returned a thorough analysis on everything from the putter to the full motion. Then we had a good discussion on the phone. I can heartly recommend this. Taking lessons in person is probably far better, but doing remote lessons is far better than not doing it. Especially when the lesson is given by someone of YodasLuke's caliber.
He said he'd rather see me keep the hands away from the body at address as I've been trying for a while now. I said that that was the plan. Then he showed me a lot of wrongs. The most shocking thing to me was to see that the inclined plane was all over the place. Somehow during the years I've learned a trick or two squeeze the ball pretty hard even when the plane is off. A few years ago I would loose all power when the swing plane was gone. But not now it seems. Needless to say, when the swing plane is such that it takes a Nobel price candidate to describe it with mathematical precision, it is very difficult to control the club face and the club head through the ball....
I have been playing regularly and I have basically been feeding the fish generously with recycled pro-v1's. The irony of it all is that when I address the ball more properly than I've been doing, a whole series of errors creep in. Or at least they grow from minor flaws to gross errors. So a lot of the faults that YodasLuke identified were more or less brand new. It makes you think: Is it worth it? Is it really better? How smart is it to change something just because it's supposed to be better?
At times I have gone back to the low hands for the last holes of a round. The power returns. I can hit a few great drives (by my standard) and play a few good holes in a row. But eventually the ball finds OB or water. Not eventually. Quite often actually. There are about 23 opportunities to find water where I play. I haven't counted the OB opportunities, but there are a lot of house owners there that doesn't have to purchase golf balls so to speak. I, on the other hand, have become a regular "recycled pro-v1" purchaser at Sports Academy.
But the old method still has the old flaws. So I'm still taking the medicine even though it has a bad taste from time to time.
YodasLuke and I discussed laser devices to track the swing plane. I bought a cheap one that attaches to the club shaft and fires both ways. Goddammit how difficult it is to keep the club on plane when you're off. No matter how slow I was moving the club, no matter how I timed the stroke, no matter how much forearm versus pivot I used to start the back stroke - the plane got flatter the further the club was away from impact. For a while there I was convinced that I was doing a pure rope handling, that earth gravity did a trick or two.
But not long after I managed to keep the club on plane by adjusting the stance - and more important - adjusting the heel-toe-balance at address. The heel-toe balance makes a huge difference. Towards the toes and the plane flattens away from impact. Hello hook! All the way back on the heels and the plane steepens.
There is a biokinetic fundamental that says that our weight should be through our ancles (and pretty close to the heels). That seems to do a lot of good for me.
I am not able to keep the plane on will yet. I probably never have. It has come and gone at it's own discresion for 20 years. Everything about zone 1 seems to make a difference to me. Heel-toe balance, left-rignt balance, primary axis tilt, secondary axis tilt, how far out I put my ass. And of course the direction of the pressure points' pressure. And the intent - where I want to be at impact, including geometry and force vectors.
So in more ways than one, I am back on the topic of Zone #1.
Two steps forward:
39 strokes on nine holes on Sunday - while being true to the changes. I worked the ball both ways with driver and approach shots. Had a couple of great approaches with fade. Under 40 is decent on 9 holes for me. The ball striking didn't feel great, but it doesn't need to be perfect to score if the fundamentals are reasonably sound. After the 9 holes I hit 30 balls on the range. And then I immediately got the "got it" feeling. I could basically hammer the ball both ways. The divots pointed where they should and not far left as they have been doing. And the ball went where I was aiming, with the intended curve. I think I am back to where I was before I started to struggle as far as score is conserned. And this time I know where I want to take the ball striking. So this is gonna be exiting.
Handicap in the US.
I now have two handicaps. 5.7 in Norway and 9.7 here in the USA. Go figure. My new home course is difficult but not that difficult. And there is a couple of extra shots due to slope rating as well. Personally I don't like to excel in competition without playing well. But this could easily happen now. The irony of it all is that the slope system is the same in Europe as here, and the handicap system is close enough. If I had just delivered score card for the most recent friendly games over here - which is what they basically asked me to do, I might have ended with a handicap of 12-15. I'm sure that would have made me well regarded among peers in club competitions. The club manager said I was the first person he had encountered who was worrying about getting a handicap that was too high. I said: I want to play in competitions without becoming a sandbagger. At least I have an alibi: They insisted!
Maybe YodasLuke can come up with something to work on that holds me back a few strokes to prevent embarassing good results.
But from there on it was very variable. Each time I am close to doing the right thing the ball goes straighter than its done for years. It will require a lot of work before it becomes second nature, but it is only a matter of time.
Hybrid Mode
