THP Lesson Thread

Fantastic write-up 441 - the journey to five is going to be a fun follow
 
441 putting in that work!!
 
Way to go Mike. If I can get it to work with our budget, I might have to get some lessons with Scott. He is good people.
 
Fantastic writeup mikedean441. Glad to see you are getting early results and more importantly are enjoying it.
 
I'm seeing continuous improvements on the range from my lessons thus far. I have my third scheduled for this Friday and will be playing my first round since starting them a couple weeks ago. I had one of my best range days on Saturday which really gave me confidence that these adjustments are working, and more importantly, they are making sense to the point where they are sticking with me. Still far from perfect, but the needle is moving forward and that's a great thing.
 
That's awesome cornerjunkie.
 
Had another lesson this evening and I'm really happy I took the leap and started. I started out just hitting a few warm up shot and was hitting a lot of good shots, so I thought I was doing pretty good. To go back a little bit, from where I started, I was always missing to the right with an open club face so it was a push or push/fade. My instructor had me working on some things to where I was hitting a draw and then my miss would be left. He said once I get working the ball left, it would be a lot easier to get back to neutral. So I've practiced what we worked on the last 2 weeks and I had gotten to where he wanted me to be. So after I hit a bunch of good warmup shots is when he broke my swing down a little bit, not a major overhaul, just some teaks to free me up.

1. We started out working on the bringing the club up to the top on plane, I was coming still coming inside. More pool noodle set up on plane work.

2. Then he had me weaken my grip and get my hand position closer to the middle of my body. I had too much forward shaft lean and was delofting the clubs. He wanted me to work on getting neutral which I was nervous about, I just knew I was going to be spraying them out to the right again and I did at first. Which takes me to the next adjustment.

3. We worked on my release, I was so tense and had my wrists set and hands locked up. This was a major contributor to the takeaway problem also, not releasing, and the forward shaft lean. It took a lot of the lesson to get comfortable with the idea of loosening my grip and arms up and I sprayed some balls around, but when it clicked, it was such an effortless swing. I still got the distance because I wasn't tensed up and was swinging more free and neutral and I was getting a lot higher ball flight with more consistent dispersion when I was able to execute.

It's going to take some work and a lot of time, but it's something I think I can pull off more consistently and not feel like I need to aim for a miss as often. We were both pretty happy with the progress today and he told me my next lesson we would work on incorporating more clubs, the last 2 lessons have been done with 6i alone. My lesson ran over a little and he finally said he had to leave, but he left me with a bucket of balls and let me use his teaching bay to keep practicing until it got too dark. It'll be a little while before I have another 1-on-1 lesson because he has a swing clinic next week during my lesson time, but I'll be doing that so I'll still be getting some instruction. I'm a little nervous though because I have the unofficial St. Louis area THP event this weekend and I hope I can get these changes engrained a little more before Saturday, I'll be hitting up the driving range every evening between now and then and hopefully I can get a round in Friday, wish me luck, I'm gonna need it!
 
Not a true lesson, but at was at the shop on Tuesday trying hybrids and the pro - who is my typical pro I take full swing lessons from - sees me struggling a little bit with the lefts. He first compliments me on my increased swing speed and distance (he goes "Geez, you must have been taken lessons from someone else!" LMAO!), but then gives me a quick free tip that I'm snapping the club across my body too quickly and that I need to think about "swinging right." That is, think about pushing the club right of the target. Essentially, it's another extension drill. It was really helpful and I started hitting them much straighter!
 
Little bump.
So this weekend was my first tine out (in normal conditions) since i started on the lessons.
All in all not too bad at all. As the weekend progressed the driver got longer and straighter which is good for me since my miss has been crazy right.
While my iron play was definitely better it kind of came in spurts which was frustrating but in those situations you have to look past it and think more long term.
Short game was awful but that was to be expected as the weather had prevented me from working on it. Lots of flat terrain and low cut grass to chutt all weekend long.
Putting was solid-ish and continues to be my strong suit.
All in all i think progress is certainly being made and ill be at the range a few times this week
 
Mike sounds like you are on the right path man, journey to single disgust sounds good.


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Mike sounds like you are on the right path man, journey to single disgust sounds good.


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Hope so. Maybe not this year for aingle digits but id love to get back down to 11 and really push from there.
 
Hope so. Maybe not this year for aingle digits but id love to get back down to 11 and really push from there.
Swing looks 1000x time improved. Seems like you are on the right track. May want to spend the next lesson in the bunker though can't putt out of them all ;)

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I need to get out and play more, swing felt good just need to trust it and make a full(100%) swing, no more guiding the club through the swing.

Swing looks 1000x time improved. Seems like you are on the right track. May want to spend the next lesson in the bunker though can't putt out of them all ;)

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Oh he can and will !!! :vomit:
 
Swing looks 1000x time improved. Seems like you are on the right track. May want to spend the next lesson in the bunker though can't putt out of them all ;)

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Hahaha i told him we will need a few lessons on short game ans sand work for sure
 
First lesson of year. New guy. Swing feedback with video: setup, backswing, and path are all good. I did need to make one adjustment with left foot back a touch to line up with hips and shoulders. I wasn't, however, using my legs nearly enough. My right leg was almost straight on back swing. He said I was hitting the ball well because I have very good hand-eye coordination, but sustaining consistency that way is nearly impossible. We worked on using my legs more. Squat down and push forward from right hip to left. The right knee squat felt really odd at first. I hit with a GC2 calibrated to sea level. We worked with 7i. Ball speed was 116-118mph. He said I will get it closer to 120 with practice. Path was 1-3R. He told me not to look at backspin because of the balls (7 years old and almost no dimples - looked awful). Carry distance was 175-180. Hitting the ball began to feel effortless. The arms just catch up to the hips and legs. He also told me I will hit every club further and will need to recalibrate distances and gaps. It will take some time to practice and refine this change, but I love it. After he left I hit my 4i and PW. Sort of mind blowing. PW is easily my old 9i, about 150, and I just watched my 4i flight like it was someone else's ball. I took 2 driver swings trying this change and the results were terrible. Haha. More work.

I like this guy. We will get back at it next week. My legs and butt are worked, but my back feels so much better than usual after a range session.
 
Following up after a good range session working on changes from my lesson. I had a bit of an ah-ha moment. Previously my swing thought was all about controlling speed, strike and things like lag. I am starting to realize that if I am in a good position to start the downswing, all I need to do is initiate from legs and hips. Shoulders and arms follow, and the club moves where it needs to go as a consequence. Lag happens because it has to. And strike happens as an outcome. Using and pushing off the right leg is a bigger part of the swing than I realized -- it is more than shifting weight. I feel like I am squatting or sinking a bit as I bring the club back. And then push and shift/rotate forward. As I get the timing down, my strikes are becoming more consistent. Body and timing drive swing speed, not tempo. I like where this is going for my swing.

I am also feeling better about my chipping and putting. Practice there is paying off. Pitching is improving, but needs a lot more for distance control. Sand shots are another area where I need to spend more time. I think I have the right ideas but need many more reps to have better feel. We will move into short game in future lessons, but the next one will continue with swing. Then short game.
 
Had a good lesson today after a rough patch of practice and playing the last few weeks. I need to work on standing tall through my swing, but my weigh shift and turn on the downswing is getting better, starting to feel optimistic again.
 
After every lesson I've taken the last 2 years (about 4) I would record a 1 minute clip of the pro explaining what we covered, what I did wrong, the drills I should practice etc. I realized that I didn't practice those drills even a 10th of how much I should have..,and all the problems still persist. I will be doing the 5-6 drills in the videos every day for the next couple weeks.


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I started my swing clinic this week with a lot of beginners in the group, there is 3 instructors with groups and a lead instructor who is my regular teacher. We started out on the very basics with everyone and it was kind of nice as a refresher. Then we broke down into smaller groups based on skill level, I was placed in the more advanced group with the other instructor that works at the course. I actually really liked him and it was nice having another set of eyes look at my swing and different explanations for corrections.

After my first lesson I went out and had a few good rounds. After my second lesson and more changes I went out and had a blow up round, shot a 42 on the front 9 from 6600 yards and then blew up on the back 9. Hopefully after getting a refresher in basics and going over a few more thing I can go out and play decent this weekend.
 
I did get to go to the driving range this evening to see how my swing was shaping up after a few off days due to weather. Started out blocking some short irons while warming up, but once I got warmed up and in a groove it was pretty good. Only lost one really bad to the right, a handful thin, and one fat. The best part was I absolutely hammered my driver dead straight. I only hit like 7 or 8, but they were long and straight. The first one was a little high and toward the heel and one hopped to the 250 flag. One I hit on the screws hit the bottom of the fence, not even sure how much further back it is. There really is something to swinging the same swing for all your clubs and I think it's starting to set in. Hopefully I can keep it up in my round tomorrow.
 
Looks like Lesson #3 will be May 9th or 10th (possibly the 5th).

Will more than likely be partial lesson with the swing again, making sure Im still on track, the 2nd half will definitely be short game. Swing feels like it is coming around, while I havent been to the range as much as Id like, I have gotten some range time and lots of on course time. I hope to play at least 9 holes and have 2 range session before I go. If the ball striking can continue to improve then I REALLY want to put lots of time and energy into the short game because Im throwing away 5-7 strokes a round just slapping the ball back and forth across the green (or the occasional chunk). I know that will require lots of practice and luckily my schedule opens up the 2nd half of May to allow for that.
 
Lesson 3 tonight and a couple of new things were introduced to my swing and reinforced from previous lessons

Had a little bit of regression at the beginning of the lesson and was coming over the top slightly but was still able to control the flight and not lose it right like I would have done previously

A couple of drills for a few minutes and this was rectified and then he had me working on staying behind the ball as I was sliding my hips rather than turning them and this saw some excellent results with my driver shots averaging an angle of attack at +6° with one even reaching +7.6° so all I saw was nice high draws and losing nothing right at all

Looking forward to putting these changes into practice in a golf day on Monday
 
Managed to get a lesson in yesterday and all we concentrated on was my driver. My biggest problem is I am not releasing the club through impact, he gave me some drills and thoughts which I am going to work on. When it all comes together it feels fantastic with ball flight and distance to match, unfortunately when it doesn't its ugly.

He wants me to rotate my forearms more and feel my hands are going more left around my body through impact and letting the club head pull my arms, instead of me pulling my hands low round my waist or at least thats what I think he wants me to feel. Im not good with lessons, to much information overloads my brain and I concentrate to much on one thing and "forget" the rest of it.
 
Had a very good lesson today on my short game. He had me hit a variety of shots to a flag and range buckets walked out certain distances. My first several shots were all good. He wondered why I needed any help. I told him to give me a little more time. And there it was, my mode where bad things happen. Turns out my issue is related to taking the club too far back and then decelerating. The swing gets out of timing and sync. And then I get flustered and dig in the wrong way. My fix is all about sustaining tempo and using the right amount of backswing to control distance. We worked on that extensively. He would give me a club, have me set up, and then tell me which distance to hit it. We worked that over and over with helpful coaching along the way. We also worked on flop shots -- something I avoid at all costs. By the end, I was hitting nice flops with 60, 56, and 52 with 3/4 and 1/2 swings. If I can get these changes into my head and game, this will make more difference in my scoring than anything else I have done to date. I am very pleased.

I also had him check in with my driver. One, I was teeing the ball too far back in my stance. I wasn't giving the club head enough time to shut. My swing path is consistently in-to out in the 3-5R range. Those two combined to form some crazy spin. The other issue is that I was overpowering the shaft, leading to additional inconsistencies. He has me working on 75% swings with slower tempo, letting the shaft load and unload. Next week we will do a driver fitting. In the meantime, these changes will help me get a little more help from the current driver.

Finally we did a checkin on swing changes to better use the lower body. Unsurprisingly I backed off a bit from those changes in the time since the last lesson. Some more work there and more homework.
 
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