10 April 2023|Golfing with gratitude
My last golf lesson really scrambled my brain. Before the lesson, I had been playing reasonably well, submitted some decent scores and was generally happy with both my general play and how things had been going with my lessons. My ball striking had been improving and I was starting to see better distance and consistency. Why, oh why, did I ask Sandy to check over my setup and aim? What a can of worms it opened.
Since that lesson, I've found it extremely difficult to get comfortable as there has been so much swimming through my brain. I've been questioning my ball position, weight distribution and especially, aim. It's really messed me up, has seen me play some very erratic golf and has generally been highly frustrating. Possibly the hardest thing has been implementing the recommendation not to use an intermediate point to aim with and to use a more distant point instead. I'm really not liking that, having done it my whole golfing life.
Perhaps part of the issue has been that while I've had quite a few rounds of golf since that lesson, I've not really had time to practice the recommendations away from playing. Or perhaps part of the issue is that I was doing something previously that was actually working ok and didn't really need fixing? It's strange too that they surfaced at the end of a block of five lessons and hadn't been spotted earlier - the curse of lessons in a studio? Anyway, while doing my domestic chores, I listened to one of "The Sweet Spot" podcasts called "How to Deal with Alignment", from back in July 2022. I found the discussion to be really helpful and it gave me a few things to check/try at the range this afternoon. The podcast made me feel that my last lesson gave me textbook instruction about aiming but disappointingly didn't take into consideration how I actually swing and deliver the club to the ball. I also think it confused aim with target and didn't take shot shape into account, but that could have been poor communication.
The pod was good and I would recommend a listen. There was a lot of discussion about well-known professional players where you would not consider their setup to be exactly textbook. In many cases, they are far removed from what would be recommended, but they get the job done. The comments about how Hogan changed his setup for woods, irons and wedges were really interesting. The whole pod very much reminded me of the old phrase that "perfection is the enemy of good". It also reminded me that I need to get on with reading "The Practice Manual" too!
I think from here I need to spend time on the range and just figure out what works best for me with the swing changes I've made. Some block practice and some random practice is the order of the day. I like Jon's suggested routine of picking random targets, going through your set-up routine, placing a club or alignment rod at your feet and then stepping back to check your alignment without hitting. Given I'm currently finding my setup to be visually uncomfortable, I think this could be a good routine to help convince myself that I am actually aiming correctly and not then double-cross myself when I swing. I'll also get out onto the practice area either at the Jubilee or Ladybank and try the same thing from different types of lie rather than nice flat range mats. It doesn't have to be textbook perfect, it just has to be good enough to get the job done!
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