[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...