[budumol]

Yesterday I had the opportunity to take advantage of the Johnnie Walker promotion at Golftec and I wanted to share my thoughts on the experience. I went in for my free 30 min swing evaluation, showed up about 20 min early and was greeted by Ben, who was also scheduled to be my instructor. His lesson before me hadn't shown yet so he asked if I wanted to get started early and I was happy to oblige.

He gave me a tour of the facility and tried to communicate their philosophy on teaching, then we entered one of the hitting bays and he hooked me up to the video and had me start hitting my six iron. After about 20 balls he pulled up a video of Stuart Appleby and played the two side by side. For the lesson that day he wanted to work on my setup position and my position at the top of my swing as there were real issues with both. I hit my 6 iron about 185 and he felt like because I was flipping the club at impact I was probably sacrificing 10-15 yards on top of that, but before we get to the impact position we had to first solve the problems at address.

One glaring problem was my left ear was in front of the ball at address and my hands were not far enough forward. He taught me something called the referee drill and pretty quickly I could feel that I was making more solid contact. Making the small adjustments at address actually made my position at the top of the swing a lot better.

All in all he spent about 90 minutes with me, which was really cool. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews of golftec and I imagine that your experience depends on the quality of your instructor. I was really lucky to get Ben, he's a talented instructor and there was no hard sell for the program which is something I've heard of in the past. I'm not sure I can afford to do the 6 month program with Golftec but based on my initial experience there I really think it would help me overcome some of the swing faults that I've dealt with for years. I appreciate Golftec doing the free promotion, as far as lessons go they are now on my short list.

If you get the chance, do take advantage of the Johnnie Walker promotion, if your instructor is good you'll definitely learn something, even if they keep it to 30 min.