Finally took a lesson

So I had my very first lesson today. It was a complete eye-opener. I was really excited about the timing because I've been playing a particularly bad stretch of golf in the last two weeks and I thought it might shed some light on why I have the ups and downs in my ballsriking so bad. We went through my entire game: ballstriking, chipping/pitching, putting, and physical performance including flexibility and mobility. It turns out that I have a slight case of S-posture which probably results from a previous and recurring lower back injury (fell...read "slammed" backwards pretty bad in martial arts a few years ago comes to mind). When it is ok, my hips are loose, my lower body initiates nicely and continues to drive keeping the club on plane. When it gets tight, everything just stops and my arms swing out over the plane leading to shots on the toe. The instructor (TPI certified) prescribed 3 exercises and stretches and I added in a trip to the spine clinic to have them do an X-ray to make sure the muscles aren't tight for a disk-ular reason. We also found that my attack angle is way too steep and my launch angle is incredibly low. It creates these low, ballooning shots that make me lose control and distance: 6-iron launch 15*, average carry 181.

He also checked my equipment on the LM and liked what he saw. He didn't change anything with the exception of my putter, which is impressive because he's a club salesman too, so the temptation is definitely there. He said he would have put me in both my driver and iron shafts, so I did a pretty good job with them. With my putter, he wants me to address it at it's full length, which is now 36" to get me a bit farther from the ball because I'm cutting across it some. He also brought the loft up to 6 degrees to eliminate the bounce about 6 inches from the strike. Curiously, I'm the one who added 3" to my putter a week ago because I thought I needed it.

He said my chipping game was great. Just try to play a little fade instead of letting my hands turn over so much after the shot. I'm actually going to just consider that a recommendation to incorporate a little higher, softer chip shot with the club into my short-game repertoire by letting the left elbow work away from the body a bit in my follow through. I actually like the way my chips draw and run out because they seem to hug the ground better and the closing face on the follow-through feels really natural.

The thing I was most impressed with was how changing my lower back posture from roughly 38 degrees from horizontal down the line to about 22 degrees flattened the shaft plane on the downswing and let my lower body rotate more through the shot. I was swinging very slightly (2 degrees) over the top and the new lumbar orientation brought it perfectly on plane as well as making it feel tons better.

wow.. you took ONE lesson and you got through ball striking, chipping, putting, club fitting, and spine adjustments.. that's an incredible value!!

congrats.. a few more lessons coming up i'm sure?

Sounds like a thorough lesson from a knowledgeable instructor. Impressive that he looked at all aspects of your game, including fitness and equipment. Hope it translates into better scores and more enjoyment on the course!

that sounds good. Im about to take some lessons. From this one golf pro it is 100 for 4 lessons. What technology should I look for an instructor to have?

I think video is important. People always told me I was overswinging (past parallel) but I just didn't buy it until I saw myself on video. I was attempting to make

half swings and I looked like a hack version of John Daly!

You're all way ahead of me, but I am taking my first lesson on Wednesday. I went in to get my clubs fit and he actually showed me how to swing a club correctly. I was able to take that to the range today with my new clubs and make good improvement.

What should I expect to get out of beginner lessons and how many should I take before it will take playing a while to get to a point where more instruction can help? I'm sure this is a relative, but a general idea would be helpful.

I hope the first thing you get is instruction on grip, stance, alignment, and posture. It is absolutely essential to get these things right before you even try swinging the club.

Actually, if you have signed up for a series of lessons, I hope you get putting, chipping, pitching, and the swing, in that order.

I didn't really sign up for a set we're just doing as many lessons as it takes. I want to start from the ground up though.

i'm more impressed you're an 8.5 without a lesson ever

I've done a lot of video analysis, read a bunch of books, talked with some guys over the phone, and fixed as many basic things as I could. It took several years to get this low and it's only really been single-digits in the last 6 months or so. When you've got the internet and a lot of knowledgeable forums, great books, as well as a good high speed camera (EXILIM or comparable) and V1 home ($100) to do your own side-by-side analysis, you can piece it together, but it takes a lot of pain and struggling. You really apprieciate it when it starts coming together for real, though. I've made the biggest breakthroughs just swinging a club freely in my yard and thinking about how the body wants to move and why. So it definitely isn't like I just picked up a club, got to 8.5 and decided to take a lesson. Thanks, though. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have broken 100 at Pebble this past weekend, but quite a bit more work to get to the low singles and I might have a shot.

What I would recommend before taking a lesson is to know your game very well. I held off on taking lessons for that reason. I wanted to figure a lot of it out myself without having to wade through golf instruction BS. The tough part is it becomes tougher and tougher to find a decent instructor. But they're definitely out there, so the look is worth it. The guy I'm seeing is a mini-tour player, so he's at least got some idea of what it takes to play at a high level. Though I'm still a bit flummoxed by the chipping instruction. It feels like it takes more manipulation to hit fade chips than the natural drawing ones with a bit of clubface release... Here's a video recap of some stuff this guy had me work on. In the full swing work he's having me suck in my abs and keep a flat lower back throughout some easy 3/4 swings. http://www.facebook.com/video/video....6054134&ref;=mf

Wow awesome lesson, I would love to get something like that with a take home video to watch over and over.

Nice, that's one thing i need to do , keep logs of my swing on video so i can fix it if something goes wrong

But i have some CPGA friends who just fix me up when i really need it.
I do need a chipping/putting lesson more than anything right now
More chipping than anything blah