Ok, so I had my 10 minute lesson today with Barbara Blanchar at Crystal Springs Quarry. I had a recommendation to see her anyway, and she’s the one that happened to be doing the playgolfamerica 10 minute lessons at CSQ. I gotta say, I think I learned a lot in that 10 minutes, believe it or not.
First of all, this was the first time I ever saw my own swing. That, in and of itself, was worth a ton to me. I ACTUALLY have a pretty decent looking swing :-) I follow the proper swing plane throughout my swing, fairly well. It was also nice to see the flaws that I do have, and actually see where I start them, and how obvious they actually are.
Turns out, just by hearing my golf life condensed into 2 minutes, and seeing my swing in slow motion, she had a very good idea what my problem might be, and showed me how I might be able to fix it. Keep in mind, the intent of this session was to try and resolve my “distance problem” and nothing else. However, I do have issues with slicing the ball too, but I was only trying ti figure out why I have lost about 2 club-lengths on each of my clubs.
She noticed that I opened my club up at about 3/4 swing, and at the apex, I was wide-open. Because of the way I was gripping my clubs (a fix for my slice, btw), my hands never came back to close the clubface all the way. I guess because my swing plane was pretty good, I still hit the ball sraight, but since the face was open, I was getting way too much loft on the ball. Her conclusion matches what my symptoms were. I have been popping the ball up so dang high and short, it’s ridiculous. Also, I do tend to start the ball right at impact too, so that also makes sense with an open face.
I’m recovering from 36 holes of golf and some pretty brutal hockey pains, so it will probably be mid-week before I really get to try hitting some balls again. I am extremely anxious to see what happens.
**this could be huge for me to get that distance back, but I suppose I shouldn’t hold my breath.
Follow up: New Grip, New Attitude
