[famosetroie]

I have been playing golf for three+ years now, but never got better than the 95-105 range, and if it is a course I am unfamiliar with, it is 110+. My initial lessons came from a community college course, and while it was good enough to get me on the course, that was about it.

So, when my company said that an instructor will be conducting classes on campus, I signed up. The lessons cost $225 and is by Kim Stevens of Silicon Valley Golf Performance Center. http://www.svgolfpc.com/ The price includes five classes, five on course management sessions (discounted green fee extra), discounts for range balls and another five discounted green fees, so I decided it was worth it. Besides, I have been thinking of buying new clubs, and eventually decided the money is better spent on lessons.

I will use this thread to journal the progress of my lessons. I told Kim that my goal is to break 90, but even if I only get to the 90-100 range consistently, I would consider it to have been worth it.

[socialkiiii]

Lessons are once a week. First lesson was last Thursday. Kim teaches both a beginner class and an intermediate class. This was the intermediate class and had five students. When I showed up the beginner class was finishing up, and I saw the guys struggling to connect the clubhead and the ball, reminding me of when I started.

Since this was in a rec field next to the office, Kim used Almost Golf balls (we will move to a driving range later with real balls). Most of the students were in my range, with one wanting to break 85 and another taking up golf after a three year break. One was a repeat customer. Kim asked us what our current trouble spots are. I said long irons and driver, plus distance control with the wedges. Most of the others also mentioned some wedge issue. So Kim started us with wedge shots.

First was setup check. She said my grip was perfect (yay), but she found I had the same spine alignment issue as most of the other students.

Now, I had been told previously to "push my bottom out" while taking the stance. Kim says the spine needs to be straight at the bottom and we all had our hip too back out and waist too in. So she told us to "tuck in our tall bone" and push out our waist. This was a strange maneuver. She showed us a on-all-fours exercise of pushing our waist up and down which can be used to facilitate this movement, and also told us to check alignment with a mirror everyday. She wants us not to leave any gap between a clubshaft placed on the back and the bottom half of the spin anywhere. She told us this will engage the glutes and keep us from mis-hits later on in the round when we are tired. I have been doing this since then, but it still feels a little strange and leaves me feeling a little tension in the hamstrings. I will check this with her next time.

The other thing she found wrong was my feet width. She told me to bring them closer together so they will be shoulder width. Also, for wedges, I had been setting up with an open waist, but for this class she wanted parallel to the target line, so I did that.

contd...

[anfuckinggs]

Great start Gamma, sounds like you are on your way to lower scores, keep the updates coming.

[avarberickibe]

I have been playing golf for three+ years now, but never got better than the 95-105 range, and if it is a course I am unfamiliar with, it is 110+. My initial lessons came from a community college course, and while it was good enough to get me on the course, that was about it.

So, when my company said that an instructor will be conducting classes on campus, I signed up. The lessons cost $225 and is by Kim Stevens of Silicon Valley Golf Performance Center. http://www.svgolfpc.com/ The price includes five classes, five on course management sessions (discounted green fee extra), discounts for range balls and another five discounted green fees, so I decided it was worth it. Besides, I have been thinking of buying new clubs, and eventually decided the money is better spent on lessons.

I will use this thread to journal the progress of my lessons. I told Kim that my goal is to break 90, but even if I only get to the 90-100 range consistently, I would consider it to have been worth it.

Good Luck Gamma -- your story sounds identical to mine, including the scores at "home" and "away" courses. I was not enjoying playing so inconsistently, so I started taking lessons three weeks ago. As usual, I'm getting worse before I get better -- but I can tell I WILL BE better. Hang in there and good luck!

P.S. -- my driving has gotten worse, but my irons actually improved immediately. We haven't worked with the driver at all -- when we get there I'm sure it will help.

[uchetrip]

Good luck with the lessons. We look forward to your updates.

[Xutrsavf]

Ha, it is taking me more time to write this journal than the class itself. Moving on...

Kim wanted us to practice three shots with our wedges. 5-7 which is a swing just a little wider than a put. 3-9 where the clubshaft goes horizontal on the backswing and the finish, and 1-11 where the clubshaft is nearly vertical and the forearms are horizontal. I didn't like the idea of backswing and forward being same distance because I like to accelerate through and go forward more than back, but she wanted it to check for correctness. She told us to use this drill for developing a feel for where the club is in the swing. She also wanted the ball to go straight and for each shot to have a precise and consistent landing distance.

5-7 was easy. No issues. Just like a nice chip.

She identified three flaws with my 3-9. First I was taking the club too much inside, so the grip end of the club was about level with my waist when the club was parallel to the ground. I think I developed this over time trying to correct my slice (bad correction, I guess). The second was that my right elbow was not tucked in during the backswing. Again this is something I developed over the years trying to get more width in my driver swing. The third was I was not releasing enough in the downswing, with the club being open at the horizontal finish, instead of being toe-up. I am not sure how much of a "flaw" this last is since I like to keep my wedge shots open, but I corrected it anyway. After these changes, I was making consistent swings and getting good contact most of the time on the 9-3 swing.

Now came the 1-11 swing. First flaw found was that the club was too upright and not on plane at the top of the backswing. I think this might have been overcorrection on my part for the previous "taking the club too much to the inside" issue. Anyway it was easy enough to correct. A similar issue was there for the finish. Also corrected. I needed to tuck my left elbow in on the forward swing for proper release. Done. Finally, Kim found that I was getting ahead of the ball in the downswing. .i.e. my head was moving forward. Again, this is something I picked up over the years, trying both to hit down (i.e. bottom of swing in front of the ball) and to get more speed with a hip bump on the downswing. Following Kim's instruction and holding the head back did give better results, so that was a good tip.

One other issue was that I might have been swaying a little. Though I never lost balance, Kim wanted me to make the swing more compact. For the backswing, she told me to shift the weight only as far as the inside of the right foot and not further. This worked well, and eventually, to get a good feel, she had us hit a few balls with our eyes closed using the 1-11 swing. Surprisingly, I made good contact and got a decent ball flight.

contd...

[fapourfasiark]

Final post about first session.

Kim closed by telling us to keep practicing what was taught that day. She also told us that the learning curve will be inverted, i.e. we will get worse before we get better, so if we play a round in the meanwhile, just to stick to our old swing. She also told us to make a chart, for each wedge and for each of the 5-7, 3-9, and 1-11 swings, of the landing distance for that wedge and that swing. She told us to report any new pains or discomfort one feels from the practice sessions and swing change immediately to her, in case there is any physiological issue and she needs to correct the swing for it.

Finally, she told us Golf is for fun, and if we are not enjoying it a whole lot, maybe the next time we go out, we should take a beer with us. She gave us a little background on herself. She was introduced to golf by her dad, a scratch player, but she didn't enjoy it much as kid, but once she was out in college and was just playing for fun with her friends, it became more enjoyable. Later she got a tech job, and she helped a few of her colleagues get into golf. During the dotcom bust when people were being laid off left and right, she decided to try teaching golf fulltime, and went and got her certifications and have been doing it ever since. She conducts on site classes at many of the tech companies around here and also has summer camps for kids at Summit Pointe.

That is about it for the first session. It was scheduled for an hour, but she spent 1.5 hrs with us. I thought it was a very productive session.

[carlsberg21]

I really like the depth you are going into with this Gamma. I hope that these lessons will really help your game, and the instructor seems like a really good teacher and a good person

[weaddercaps]

So that lesson was last Thursday.

Friday, I happened to get home early and decided to practice in my backyard. After some trial and error, decided even my lob wedge cannot do the 1-11 shot safely inside my backyard, so limited myself to my 3-9 and 5-7 shots with my sand wedge and some 5-7 with the gap wedge. Had some mis-hits, and one particular sculled shot that narrowly missed the top of the fence. So I decided it is not safe to continue doing this in the backyard. I was afraid to hit a proper shot that would take even a shallow divot and ruin the lawn.

Saturday, too busy with back-to-school shopping. No practice.

Sunday afternoons, normally I play a round. This time, my buddy couldn't make it, so I decided to go the course and practice on the pitching green instead. It was a truly horrible session that shook my confidence a lot. I couldn't make proper contact with 3-9 or 1-11. Lots of shanks and sculls. Even the 5-7 shot, I was hitting fat a lot of the time. Eventually I decided to just use one club, my PW, and do a drill were I only 5-7 for three shots, then move up to 3-9 for three shots, then up to 1-11. If I mishit any, I have to restart from 3-9. Eventually, after struggling for two hours, and trying to find the right tempo, I was able to close out the session with a couple of good 1-11 shots. Still went home a little disappointed.

Monday, I only got a half hour to practice, but I was doing much better and had a better success rate at hitting all three shots. It was a different practice area, so maybe the lie made a difference. In any case, I am not feeling so bad about the practice any more.

Looking forward to today's practice session.

P.S. Thanks DawgDaddy, JohnEB, Canio and TexasHacker34 for the kind words!

[SasortFkire]

Keep at it. It'll get better in small increments. It'll slowly build muscle memory.

[WordofViagra]

Today was better. Still some shanks, but other than that, consistent distances with the lob (60*) and sand (56*) wedges, 1-11 shot. I didn't try longer clubs because the practice green was a little crowded and there wasn't enough space.

After each shank, I would do a eyes-closed shot, and it would go straight. lol.

One thing I noticed is that my distances are lower than what I had before the lessons. For example a waist level swing (3-9) with the sand wedge is normally 35 yards for me, but today I was getting 30 yards swinging it more (1-11). I think I slowed it down to get the tempo right. So tomorrow I am going to try and see if I can still hit well with a faster swing.

[Plulpangepler]

Yesterday evening. Quarter shots (3-9, Dave Pelz would call them 7:30 shots) with PW and GW. No shanks, but still a few thin and fat ones, so distance consistency is missing. More consistent on direction, but with a tendency to miss left.

One thing I forgot. Kim wanted us to do full turn exercises daily without hitting a ball, i.e with club accross the shoulder. I've not been doing it.

Next lesson is today at noon. Will see how it goes.

[Caunnysup]

I've been so busy I didn't get time to update the journal, but the lessons and practice haven't stopped!


OK, so last Thursday was the second lesson. We had couple more people join the class this time. While going over the basics with them, Kim had all of us take our stance and checked us for setup faults. She didn't find any with me, so at least that part of the lesson stuck.


Apparently, I misremembered the shot names. What I have been calling 5-7, 3-9, 1-11, is actually called, 8-4, 9-3, 10-2, by her. I will use her terminology from now on.


She had us do our 8-4 shots again. No issues there. On to 9-3 with a farther target. I had a little bit of tendency to go left and Kim told me to take the club out more along the target line instead of across in the follow through. She then told us we would no doubt have lost some distance with these new exercises (true) and to add some legwork to get the distance back, i.e. turn the body into the shot starting from the legs. This worked, and we were hitting the Almost Golf balls much farther. Now she told us to do the same with the 10-2 shot, and once that looks fine to do a full swing. With the full swing she didn't want us taking the club much farther back, but to make sure the we have a full follow through and finish with the club behind our neck.


Well I hit a couple of balls just fine with the 10-2 shot, and then suddenly, SHANK!! Uh-oh.


I hit a couple more. All shanks. Kim came over and took a look at my swing. Said I am chicken winging just before the downswing. So I took another shot making sure my elbow stayed tucked on the downswing. Still shank. She took another look, and said I am not turning my arms over. Told me to practice with the shorter 9-3 shot and make sure it is toe up for the club on both sides and to feel the right hand coming over the left during impact. I did this and then went back to the fuller shot. This seemed to ameliorate, but not fully get rid of the shanks. i.e. when I get good contact, the ball now goes left, and otherwise it is either a full shank or a wide slice. Very few straight shots.


Unfortunately, we were already running 15 minutes over schedule. Kim advised me to continue practicing turning my hands over, and had me just hit a few balls back to the mat with just my right hand, without any body movement, to get practice the motion. That was the end of the session, and I left worried about my shanks.

[casinobonbiner]

I am not going to write in lots of detail about the rest of the week, but will summarize. The short summary is, the shanks did not go away, but gradually got better, and I practiced every single day.

Friday, Just focused on half shots (9-3) and these were still going left.
Saturday, threw some more three-quarter shots (10-2) in there, and was shanking almost all of them, and the half shots were still going left.
Until now, I hadn't tried clubs longer than wedges with my new swing. Now, for the first time, I tried irons upto 5-iron. Same as the wedges though. Good looking, high shots go left, but others slice low and go right. No outright shanks with the short and mid irons though.

Sunday, getting a little better with the half shots, though still tending left, and fewer shanks with three-quarter shots. Dawns on me that tempo and how much the body sways might have something to do with it.
Monday. Good shots still tend left, but I am getting a few to go straight. Full shots still no good.
Tuesday. About same, but... the bad shots only came out later in the session. I spend about 45 minutes hitting really good shots before the bad ones started showing up.
Wednesday (today). Again, bad shots only later in the session. Also, I am getting straighter. Even had one "chip in" with a three quarter shot from 40yds with 60* wedge. Once the bad shots showed up, I did this drill: Take full backswing. Start the downswing, but stop when club is parallel to the ground, then proceed with the rest of the swing. This seems to help to some extend.

Tomorrow's class will be at the range/practice pitching green rather than at our rec field. Will see how it goes.

I haven't actually been out on the course since these lessons started three weeks ago, instead preferring to spend my golf time on practice. I think I will go out this weekend and see how I fare with the new swing.