Driver

Been working a lot on the driver lately because I've been playing longer courses finally. Played Lesigny and Clement Ader. Now Champigny seems like a pitch and putt.

Everytime it seems like I get the driver down and not slicing it slowly comes back. So I have to try different "magic" things each time to help. The last one was doing a one piece takeaway. That cured the slice for about 2 weeks. Then on the range it came back. So it was either slicing or pulling but never straight. Then just this past weekend it was trying to really flatten out the swing like a baseball swing and go inside out. Well just for fun I was swinging all out and sailed a couple all the way to the other side. I'm sure of this because a guy picked up one of my balls that rolled by him and hit it back. So that's about a 300 yard drive. But the wind was at my back. But it was with practice balls. But it was fun to do that. And it was going straight. Not in the same direction each time be straight.

So still working on the driver which is fickle but irons and hybrid are pretty solid now even off grass.

Shorter backswing

Have to memorize this!!!

Watched Julian the local golf pro swing during practice. Well it must have inspired me somehow to shorten my backswing so I'll have more control. I've gotten more power thanks to my lag now but it's going all over the place. I also forgot to do some of the basic things that I just learned two lessons ago!!!

1. Grip. The club somehow got back in the palm of my left hand over the last month or so instead of in my fingers. I don't know how but I remembered this and put the club back in my fingers and all of a sudden I got the whip back and gained in distance with less effort. Need a drill to remember this!

2. Shorter backswing. In order to try and get rid of my reverse pivot I tried shortening my backswing and then letting the club whip. Usually this resulted in a slice since my hand were usually late. I don't know why but this wasn't happening today. Maybe because...

3. Keep head down. I've been forgetting to watch the club contact the ball and have been either fat or thin. So I really tried to watch the club contact the ball. Then look up to see where the ball went. This really helped as well.

I felt like I wasn't swinging that hard and the ball would just fly with just a slight fade and straight almost every time. I hit my 6 iron about 10 balls in a row that all went nice and far with a great sound at impact. Haven't done that in ages. Tried it out with the hybrid and driver and it worked as well. At least it seemed like I was more like the pros that can just send the ball flying. Once again another feeling like "this is finally it!". This is how it should feel like. Will try to test again tomorrow. I hate how the swing just keeps moving and it's just trying to fight bad habits instead of improving!!

As usual got home and had my son film for reference.

Ryo's video swing analysis

1. Setup. Make sure ball is in middle of clubface. Club in middle of stance. Feet pointing slightly outward like Tiger Woods to have a better finish.

2. Backswing. Need to turn body with arms and keep weight on the left foot.

3. Feeling. Relax arms.

Played a course the other day and he hit his driver 175 yards. 10 years old hitting 175 is pretty cool!

Swing 1.11: Another lesson

Went with Ryo to get a lesson at Rina's. Worked on new things:

1. Stance. Need to relax arms. Narrower stance to let body rotate properly. Bend arms around neck. Backswing starts with left shoulder pushing backwards

2. Visualisation drill. Need to develop more feels because I'm too analytical and perfectionist. So practice swings visualizing where I want the ball to go until I feel like I can do it. Then hit the ball.

3. Clubface position. Have got a slight fade so need to speed up my hands. The drill for this was with hands apart try to have the toe of the club facing straight up after release when pointing towards target. Do a couple of practice swings then when comfortable hit the ball.

For a fade when hitting the ball keep clubface open.

Do exercise of hitting fades and draws.

Oh yeah while Ryo was having his lesson I was hitting balls and was looking at my clubhead speed. The fastest I could get it was when I did the full "Remax" longdrive swing and I got the clubhead to 100 mph at impact. The distance driven was 229 yards.

Ball position

Learned finally about ball position and how to woods should be.

For woods just set club on ground and let it lay flat. This should be impact position. Align middle of body to end of club. Pretty simple.

I was always keeping my driver and hybrid tilted forward and not flat on the ground which opens up the clubface more. And this works for all clubs so very easy to follow.

Swing 1.9: Video Analysis

Went to golfinparis to have my swing analyzed with Rina on the trackman.

He corrected a few key things which I have forgotten to do when I try to change my swing to do other stuff.

1. My wrist have become inactive. I have no lag whatsoever and my body is doing all the work and it feels that way. Need to let my arms relax as well. To correct this he changed my address position.

• Wrists need to be more bent so on takeaway they can hinge more freely. So club is resting more on heel.
• More weight on toes.
• Basically I'm bent over more

For putting this is the opposite where we don't want any wrist action.

2. Grip. My left hand was gripping the club too much in the palm and not enough in the fingers. It should just be the fingers gripping the club. This really helped and I feel the release in my wrists a lot more.

3. Feel. The last part was trying to get me to release my wrists. By not turning my body as much and using my wrists to get the club back all the way.

So this worked and I expend much less effort and hit the ball a little farther. And also my lag is back. I could have corrected this on my own by looking at video but I didn't.

So three exercises five balls each:

1. Address position and then hit 5 balls

2. feet together slightly pointing back 5 balls

3. normal swing same feet position hit right, left, center 5 balls.

Change clubs do it again.

Went to the range today and tried it out and of course it worked. We'll see how things hold up over the long term but I have enough control over my swing now that I can change pretty quickly my habits. It was nice to be able to hit the driver consistently and have some say over which direction the ball is going!

Extension

Was hitting balls yesterday and really trying to get a good extension like my son has!

I believe the good feeling I need to have is when it feels like my arms are being pulled out of their sockets. This way the muscles in my arms are relaxed and fully extended and I let the weight of the club do the work and not have my arms tensed up and end up with chicken wings.

So the thought is to once again concentrate on having the swoosh sound after impact and just let the weight of the club head pull my arms.

Going to have my swing analyzed by video tommorow. Should be very enlightening!!

Here's swing from a few weeks ago.