The downside of lessons...

As my swing becomes more efficient, I have gotten a few distance gains that I did not anticipate, while this is good in the long term it did cause havok in my game last Sunday.

I have taken lessons this year about every 3 weeks since January. Swing is coming along quite nicely including some work on the short game. I had a lesson this past Saturday and I asked for focus on woods and hybrids due to a lot of contact off the toe, resulting in very low confidence overall. It turned out that I had gotten my set up too far away from the ball, I was not able to self diagnose because when I started I was way to close to the ball and needed to move back, too much of a good thing I guess!

Moving closer also forced me to relax my shoulders and hands a bit more to address the ball properly. After the lesson things were back in order for the woods and hybrids.

So during the Sunday round, the first 3 holes I hit my approach over the green with my irons, I thought my new distance was a fluke so I did not club down and flew a couple more approach shots.

Finally, I decided to club down 1 club from my normal distances and I was still over the greens. Still not convinced that my new distances were here to stay I kept at it. Finally at 14 I clubed down a second club for the last 4 holes and the new distance was spot on.

Now even for my rounds coming up this weekend, the first few holes I think I am going to play at 1 club down from normal but if I go long on the first couple approach shots, I will more quickly take less club.

The kicker of all this is, I have never felt like I have made a shorter swing with less effort and I am getting more height and distance than ever. I am curious to see what this game has in store for me this week.

Thanks for listening,

-E

It was completely out of the blue, especially since the focus of the lesson was on the longer clubs I did not expect it in the irons. It was hard to trust at first...

Of course you are.

I think because of the stack and tilt method the pro get me set up with for wedge shots they have not been affected much by this change. For some reason that set up caught the sweet spot and I was already close to the ball and pretty relaxed on those shots.

Well it looks like the new distances are here to stay. Knocked it around for 9-holes with the Pro I am taking lessons with, I was plesantly suprised to see the biggest differences in our games was quality of the short game.

Tee to green, I did not feel the leagues apart as some folks describe playing with a low capper (he plays to a 0.x-1.x). Obviously the quality of his misses was slightly better on full swings.

The biggest biggest biggest diference was shots from the fringe or rough around the green, he had a lot more tools to knock it close.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the short game going without giving up too much of the full swing.

-E