TripleBogieTim
Long lost sheep
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2010
- Messages
- 22,240
- Reaction score
- 47
- Location
- Houston, Texas, United States
- Handicap
- my swing
As some of you may already know, to really work on my game prior to the 2013 Morgan Cup, I made the decision to invest in a series of lessons with GOLFTEC. I bought a 6 month plan that gives me 15 lessons and then I plan on scheduling a couple of on course "playing lessons" with my instructor in the weeks right before I leave for Myrtle Beach.
I plan to use this thread as a diary of sorts to talk about my lessons and track my progress as I move forward with this process.
I had done the GOLFTEC swing evaluation last April, so I was able to move right into the lessons. My instructor will be the assistant manager at this paticular location. His name is Jeremy and he seems very knowledgeable and I enjoyed our conversations over the phone prior to my first lesson.
Today was my first in the series of 15 lessons.
When I arrived Jeremy was working with another student, but he acknowledged my arrival and told me I could go into one of the back bays and hit a few shots to warm up. After about 5 minutes he came back to where I was and had me follow him back to the main hitting bay. We spent about 10-15 minutes talking about my golf game, what I liked and didn't like about my current game and what I hoped to gain with the lesson package and what kind of goals I had in mind.
After that he explained the 2 sensors that they use at GOLFTEC, one around your waist on a velcro strap to measure hip tilt and rotation and one worn in between your shoulder blades in a "backpack style" harness that measures shoulder tilt and turn. While he was explaining that he was strapping the sensors on me so we could get started.
We began with me hitting about 10 balls with my 7 iron with Jeremy watching and taking some notes on the computer, after a few shots he stopped me and had me come over and look at the video in the monitor and showed me the raw data from the Flightscope system. As we watched the video he pointed out areas that I would need work on over the course of the lesson package and he compared my swing side by side with a couple of different pros including Stuart Appleby and Nick Watney.
He then told me that what he likes to do with students is to pick a couple of basic items to start and try to get them corrected and then pick a couple of others and continue that way through the series of lessons. He explained to me that I needed to strengthen my grip, even though I thought I had worked on it, he pulled up the video from last April on me and sure enough it was the same grip. I guess over time I slowly worked back to my orginal grip.
Once he got me setup with a grip he was comfortable with he showed me on video how I was opening the club face during the takeaway and it stayed open through the entire swing which caused me to swing from an Outside to In path and flip my wrists in an effort to "square the clubface" in the hitting zone. This process not only results in inconsistent ballstriking but it causes big pulls, slices and robs me of all my power.
He then walked me through a takeaway keeping the clubface more square and then had me "bow" my left wrist at the top of the backswing similar to what Dustin Johnson does. It felt weird at first as I took several slow practice swings with it and gradually worked up to a full speed swing.
I then hit another 10 balls and then Jeremy showed me that video and data from the Flightscope system. It was like night and day, my average ballspeed went up, my clubhead speed jumped and my average carry increased almost 15 yards! All this in about 20 minutes! I am still swinging Out to In and hitting a slight pull, but he said as my body gets used to that swing that I won't feel like I need to save it and he thinks the swing path will get better.
I am looking forward to hitting the range and the course this weekend and see what happens.
Next Lesson is Tuesday January 15th.
As always feel free to ask any questions and I will try to answer them as best as I can.
I plan to use this thread as a diary of sorts to talk about my lessons and track my progress as I move forward with this process.
I had done the GOLFTEC swing evaluation last April, so I was able to move right into the lessons. My instructor will be the assistant manager at this paticular location. His name is Jeremy and he seems very knowledgeable and I enjoyed our conversations over the phone prior to my first lesson.
Today was my first in the series of 15 lessons.
When I arrived Jeremy was working with another student, but he acknowledged my arrival and told me I could go into one of the back bays and hit a few shots to warm up. After about 5 minutes he came back to where I was and had me follow him back to the main hitting bay. We spent about 10-15 minutes talking about my golf game, what I liked and didn't like about my current game and what I hoped to gain with the lesson package and what kind of goals I had in mind.
After that he explained the 2 sensors that they use at GOLFTEC, one around your waist on a velcro strap to measure hip tilt and rotation and one worn in between your shoulder blades in a "backpack style" harness that measures shoulder tilt and turn. While he was explaining that he was strapping the sensors on me so we could get started.
We began with me hitting about 10 balls with my 7 iron with Jeremy watching and taking some notes on the computer, after a few shots he stopped me and had me come over and look at the video in the monitor and showed me the raw data from the Flightscope system. As we watched the video he pointed out areas that I would need work on over the course of the lesson package and he compared my swing side by side with a couple of different pros including Stuart Appleby and Nick Watney.
He then told me that what he likes to do with students is to pick a couple of basic items to start and try to get them corrected and then pick a couple of others and continue that way through the series of lessons. He explained to me that I needed to strengthen my grip, even though I thought I had worked on it, he pulled up the video from last April on me and sure enough it was the same grip. I guess over time I slowly worked back to my orginal grip.
Once he got me setup with a grip he was comfortable with he showed me on video how I was opening the club face during the takeaway and it stayed open through the entire swing which caused me to swing from an Outside to In path and flip my wrists in an effort to "square the clubface" in the hitting zone. This process not only results in inconsistent ballstriking but it causes big pulls, slices and robs me of all my power.
He then walked me through a takeaway keeping the clubface more square and then had me "bow" my left wrist at the top of the backswing similar to what Dustin Johnson does. It felt weird at first as I took several slow practice swings with it and gradually worked up to a full speed swing.
I then hit another 10 balls and then Jeremy showed me that video and data from the Flightscope system. It was like night and day, my average ballspeed went up, my clubhead speed jumped and my average carry increased almost 15 yards! All this in about 20 minutes! I am still swinging Out to In and hitting a slight pull, but he said as my body gets used to that swing that I won't feel like I need to save it and he thinks the swing path will get better.
I am looking forward to hitting the range and the course this weekend and see what happens.
Next Lesson is Tuesday January 15th.
As always feel free to ask any questions and I will try to answer them as best as I can.
