Muse back!
April 28, 2008 / Monday
Practice, Practice, Practice
Well, I'm now officially done with my six week series of beginner golf lessons. We wrapped up with a class on hitting out of the bunker. I'm not spectacular at it, but I am at least willing to spray some sand to get the ball out. It was pretty amusing, actually, since there was a bit of a headwind; I was shaking sand out of my hair the rest of the night.
While I'm talking about sand, a note about the setup for future reference: Low to the ground, open stance, weight on FRONT foot. Choke down on the grip for shorter shots and hit down on, THEN through the ball.
Speaking of grip, the instructor tried yet again to change my grip. It still felt weird, but less so than it did last week. It's different from the grip recommended by The Great Internet, but she explained that it was more suitable for women, since we generally have weaker hands. I filed it away as something to think about working on and spent the rest of class hitting with the Internet Grip.
On Sunday, I headed to Spring Valley for some more practice. My main objective was to work on my putting, which, quite frankly, sucked. I did a round on their 7-hole putting green, starting each hole from 15-25 feet away. The first couple holes took about four strokes per ball to finish, but by the last two I was sinking everything in two strokes. Not bad.
I gave the Instructor Grip another go, and found that if I did it correctly, I really did have a better handle on the club throughout the stroke. I'm developing something of a setup routine now. I line up the ball to the target, set up my grip, line up the ball between my feet, and adjust my distance from the ball so that I'm not trying to balance on my toes or my heel. Next comes the hard part. I try to run through a list of everything I'm supposed to do during the swing, and when I manage to do everything on the list the results aren't bad. Of course, trying to remember to keep my lower body still on the backswing, my eye on the ball, my left arm straightish, my wrists not so stiff, my grip firm but not too firm, to rotate my body, to finish with my rear foot pushing forward, to hit through the ball, and to fight my urge to whale at the ball and just relax is not easy! I guess that's what practice is for; one of these days I'll just do all this naturally, right?
Right.
I'm itching to get a round in soon. I want to see if all this practice will mean anything on the fairway. Expect grumbles if it doesn't...
April 28, 2008 11:41 AM | Golf