Martin Hall's my Temporary Hero (On Pushes)

[Travtex]

So, I finally took back control of the DVR from the kids (Little dudes had like 20 hours of cartoons recorded.  Whoah.).  Working nights on random days of the week/weekends makes it pretty much impossible for me to regularly follow any show worth following, so I started recording the Fix and the newish Martin Hall show.

The -first- Martin Hall show I came across, he spent a significant portion of his show discussing a handful of things that cause a push.  As a habitual pusher, I was intrigued.  As he went along and covered three or four completely different things that could cause a block, I was rather horrified to behold that I've been demonstrating a Perfect Storm of Blocked Shots with my body motion.  To the extent that I'm a bit disturbed to think of how many compensations I've had to sneak into the swing to still be hitting it straight.

* Hips outpacing upper body -- Had a lesson a while back and already knew about that one.

* Leaning back (target line) at address -- Oops.

* Bending over too much -- Oops.

The one that -really- seemed to help... so much that it completely ruined my practice routine (More later)... Hall mentioned a tip from Nick Faldo about turning your rear shoulder over your front foot as quickly as possible.  I felt so hunched over when I started trying it, I really must have been screwing up my spine angle while swinging through.

Anyway -- I'd developed a practice routine at home that has improved my iron play from a best 9-hole score of +14 to a +9 in just a couple of weeks.  Little 9-3 swings with the little foam ball at my house, concentrating on properly getting the club through impact.  I'd really grooved it.  From my front yard, the foam ball would hit about halfway up the roof of my house, then roll on back to where I was hitting.  My own automatic ball return.  Consistent enough that I could aim at particular tiles on the roof with reasonable expectations.

So, I try to start incorporating that rear shoulder rotation... And immediately blast the next batch of shots over my house.  Into the back yard, occasionally over my BACK fence into the forever-lost wilderness.

THAT started creating some problems as I started catching myself decelerating through impact to keep from having to go shag the stupid ball.

So, I clubbed down and started whacking away with my wedges.  The target distance is much better, but I have to be on my toes -- Seems a good deal of backspin has been added, as well.  The ball hits the roof, bounces once, then sucks right back at me off the roof.  (Just past where I'm hitting, my yard turns quickly downhill... so at this point I'm either having to track down balls in the back yard with my PW or having to chase them bouncing down the street with my SW/LW.)

In summary, excellent results so far... but I need to make up a new home practice game.