I had the opportunity to spend a ½ day lesson with Yoda earlier this week. It was definitely an eye opening experience and has given me a lot of things to work on going forward. It was a LOT of information and Lynn was very patient in explaining each step along the way.
Just a bit of background about my game. I’m a lifelong resident of Hackerville. I’ve played for ten years and got serious over the last 3 or 4. I have taken a lesson here and there, before finally getting with a couple of good instructors over the past year. The main instructor I worked with wasn’t an AI, but mentioned Homer Kelley a lot and used a lot of TGM principles (and as I found some that weren’t). This instructor took me from downtown Hackerville to a nice place in the Hackerville suburbs.
My handicap got down to 16 this year, normally shooting in the low 90’s with occasional visits to the 80’s. I’m a very good putter and have a pretty good short game. My main shots were fairly straight. I fought a push with the irons and occasional push. I tend to miss my shots thin more than fat. I have pretty good distance (at least compared to my fellow residents of Hackerville). My scoring problems invariably come back to inconsistent ballstriking and the blowup holes they lead to.
I have lurked on the site for quite awhile and many of the concepts are similar to what I’ve worked on with my instructor. While I don’t own the book, I felt like I had a good idea of the concepts after reading everything I could and watching almost every video.
I had a meeting in Atlanta that ran through noon on Thursday and had made flight plans to leave Friday evening – affording me a full morning session with Yoda. Unfortunately, the weather in Atlanta that was beautiful all week was forecast to rain (100% chance) all day on Friday. Lynn was very accommodating in changing his schedule to let me meet with him Thursday afternoon.
I had figured my days in Hackerville were numbered and I was ready to load my truck to move to the land of Good Golfers. In the words of ESPN’s Lee Corso ‘Not so fast my friend! ’
After a incredibly informative session starting with Basic Motion and working our way up, we found some pretty major elements I needed to fix in my machine . IMHO, there were 4 ‘a-ha’ moments that are going to be key to building my golfing machine.
1. My grip. I broke my right index finger many years ago and have very limited motion in it. I can only bend it from the first joint about 30* and barely at all from the 2nd joint. It doesn’t hurt, but it only feels ‘comfortable’ when , I have a very strong grip with both hands. This is something I’ve tried to get rid of for a long time. Lynn suggested I go with a 10-2-D grip that moved my right hand to vertical but lets my left hand stay a bit strong. I agree that has a lot better chance of sticking in the long term that going to a neutral grip on both sides.
2. Getting back on plane. I’d been fighting this one forever. I had always came back outside, then looped back to an inside takeaway. Lynn taught me a lot about the how the right forearm worked, the importance of letting my right hip clear on the backswing (which was causing me to swing outside and around) and not letting my left arm control my swing. After these changes, I felt a huge difference (especially at the range today).
3. Dragging the wet mop. The true ‘a-ha’ actually came at the very end of the lesson when we worked on the ‘speed chain’. This was an invaluable drill for helping me understand the feel of a heavy lagging club.
4. My left wrist wasn’t flat. I thought it was, but it was actually slightly bent – Lynn felt this slight bend often caused my ‘thin’ shots.
This list was by no means everything we covered. We discussed everything from hinging to flying wedges to a controlled finish (oh and lots of pictures at the end of Lee Trevino!)
I hit about 50 balls afterward with mixed results, but had a very encouraging 2 hour session at the range this evening. My ballstriking was very solid. My ballflight was mostly straight and long with a few pushes thrown in.
I think the hardest part is my golf machine is going to be based on the limitations that the 10-2-D grip gives me. My key fixes are trying to get back on plane and really sustain the lag. The fixes we made to stay on plane (right forearm/bent right elbow) made my swing feel a lot simpler – I felt loaded and aligned at the top which has to be a lot more consistent looping back down to the inside. When I let the pivot provide the power my ballstriking was very crisp. I still pushed a few too many shots. The one thing I neglected to really focus on was keeping the wrist completely flat – which may help that issue.
Where I am going to need all of the knowledgeable folks out there to help me is understanding what I can and can’t do with the 10-2-D grip. From what I’ve read (and my admitted weak understanding of many concepts), it appears my swing is going to rely on primarily angled hinging and a pretty neutral motion through impact since I really don’t need any more ‘left’ to my swing. If fact, I really don’t didn’t even try to bring in the finish swivel today because it didn’t’ seem like I needed it. The only thing I noticed is may short game shots tended to bounce to the right when they landed.
Sorry for the long post, it’s just like I feel like I have a real plan to escape ‘Hackerville’ but will be counting on all of you to help me out as I get lost along the way……
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. IMHO, there were 4 ‘a-ha’ moments that are going to be key to building my golfing machine.
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