a revelation
I had a lesson with Christopher Smith (CS) yesterday out at Pumpkin Ridge and it was an overwhelming, in the sense of what we covered, one. I don’t mean to say that it was bad or I came off feeling negative in any way, we just went over a ton of new things and added a crucial element to my putting. What we decided to do with my putting was to lower my hands both on the grip and spatially related to my body. This solved a riddle that I had been working on for the past couple months, namely to have the putter move in a consistent and repeatable arc while swinging. For the life of me, I could not get it to arc, every swing it would want to pop out forward and make a “figure eight” pattern instead of a comfortable and neat arc. Now, without having to think about it or correct for little flaws, the putter is as smooth as butter in the backswing and followthrough. Once I started hitting this way, I was immediately making better shots and can now just concentrate on the line and distance. I can’t tell you how exciting this is and am myself surprised by my own giddiness to go practice today to see how it measures up in a full day on the greens.
The work we did with the pitching wedge was not so groundbreaking, but nonetheless was equally as important towards my ultimate goal of making the PGA Tour. I’ll try to be brief on this one because there was a lot of technical aspects that CS went over with me that might be a bit boring.. Basically, my goals this next few weeks are to keep my hips and legs quiet on the backswing (I’m not doing a full swing yet, more of half-swings and you really don’t need to move anything below your waste for those), stand tall, and end as if I’m going to shake someone’s hand with my left hand (I’m left handed, so it would be opposite for you righties). The entire motion is a bit different and will take plenty of practice hours to master, but I feel comfortable saying that I will be making solid contact soon.
We also went over my grip again and adjusted my right hand to be in a “stronger” position. All of these things are great to know and will be good to work on.
Today, I am meeting CS over at the Kor for a conference call with Dr. Mark Guadagnoli. Dr. Guadagnoli is a professor down at UNLV and has worked with a number of great golfers over the years concerning motor behavior and practice techniques. Most recently (to me at least, I’m not that familiar with his work as of yet) he has written a great book about how to practice called: Practice to Learn. Play to Win. The book has given me a number of pointers for my training and I think it could help anyone who is trying to get better at anything. Dr. Guadagnoli has posted the book online and it is free to download, so it is truly a win-win situation. If you are interested, you can download it here:
Practice to Learn. Play to Win.
Over and out for now, I’m off to work on all of my new swing thoughts and then hit the gym before our conference call this afternoon.