Golf - Lesson 4

Golf lesson first thing on a Sunday morning. Second week in a row. I hope to get in the habit of sleeping early Saturday nights for a more productive Sunday morning. The drive to the lesson is long, and I wanted to tackle as many chores as. I had to justify it in my mind for how much fuel I will be burning. I had Costco lined up and a birthday venue for the event I will be covering in the next few weeks. Three birds, one stone, productivity gurus will be proud of me.

After the last range blue, I was looking forward to the lesson to discuss some of my slices with Aaron. To my surprise, the slices turned out to be shanks. I am still learning the golf lingo, but I was completely wrong in this case. As usual, I hit my first shot pure and straight, and I loved that feeling. It didn't last long. The back swing, according to Aaron, has come a long way, but the follow-through was still stuck. The middle part of the swing needed to be better.

Aaron set up a lot of exercises to get my follow-through right, and I was making decent progress. After a ton of shanks and thins, I asked Aaron to review my slap drill because I had religiously practiced the slap drill, and I was still confused with my declining quality of swing. Heck, I hit better in my first lesson than the third, albeit I was doing all the wrong things to hit it right. I am obsessed with doing it right, even if it means my game will worsen. The long game is a fruitful one. Back to the slap drill, I showed Aaron a couple of times what I had been practicing, and there it was, the root cause of all my thin shots (shanks still need some work). I had set up the drill so that my right hand slapped my left hand at shoulder level, making me pull up for all the shots I took. No wonder Aaron was surprised at my consistency in pulling up my body in follow-through. We fixed the drill with proper stance wherein both the left and right hand are waist height. That automatically pushed me to rotate my shoulders and hips, staying low.

Lessons learned is that frequent check-ins on your habit-forming activities are good. Step back and ask an expert to review your habits and provide feedback. For Golf can be a coach; for life, it can be your significant other or your friends.