The great thing about living in Canada is that you can actually spend time to train for golf during the off-season. During the season, I would play round after round, and not really focused on trying to work on anything, but in the winter time — you have no choice, I ain’t playing with a winter jacket on the all-season golf courses. So here’s my game plan (which isn’t far off from what I’ve said before)
- Off-season strength training at Laylor Performance Systems
- Eat better, yes, that means try not to kill myself at all the Christmas dinners.
- Lessons. I’ve signed up with Nick Starchuk.
- Dedicated practicing – drills, putting, etc.
So I’ve decided to take lessons with Nick after much persuasion by a few TGNers (you know who you are).
Before starting my first lesson, Nick analyzed what my strong/weak points of my game were, and asked if I have held previous coaching (who doesn’t read this thread? jk), and where I want to be. So, I said, my strongest game during the season was my iron game, my weakest was my driver, and probably putting. I told him that I would probably like to start fresh, and learn this methodology.
So after the chit chat, the first thing we did was analysis my current swing (which you will see below before and after). Nick wanted me to correct my takeaway. In the past, I’ve been trying hard to correct this and I thought I did until I saw the video again, and I realized that I keep pushing my arms outsides when I do my takeaway.
#1 Nick asked me to visualize and almost feel like I am taking the club towards my back leg, that’s how extreme he wanted me to go… it felt awkward at first, but in video, it looks like I am on plane. So turn the hips with the shoulder, but really bring the club towards my back foot and hinge my club earlier + hold.
#2 Grip pressure is firm. He doesn’t want a lose grip. He said, if everyone had lose grip on the tour, then they would never need to change grips. Grip is firmly, that’s how the shaft will bend. More importantly, my right hand, he wants my index finger, where the knuckle is, on the inside to feel as if that is the point where it is pushing onto the club. If you were to put the club down on the floor at address position, and if you lean the shaft forward with your hands, he said the pressure point you should sense is that inside of the index finger where the knuckle is. There is the force pushing it forward/down.
#3 At the top (3/4), push out with the right hand to crate width and torque. Also, since my grip is strong, he wants my right hand to feel like I am a sever holding up a tray of food, so the right hand is bent with the palm facing up while pushing out constantly.
#4 I have a tendency for my left hand to kind of let the grip go, usually caused by the last 3 fingers of my left hand. You can see that I am lose, then I re-grip as I come down on the swing. If I showed you my glove you can also see evidence of that. So after doing 30 minutes of taking it back slowly, getting into the right feeling and position, he said think about gripping harder for the last 3 fingers of my left hand. Little do I know, I don’t over extend on the backswing (dropping the club), and I feel like I have more control of the club face.
Of course, there are more technical stuff that Nick explained, and I think I would need more lessons and research to quite understand, but I can leave it up to him to explain after the club path / club face / planes / angle of attacks.
See video below:
Before:
After:
HOMEWORK:
#1 Practice to take away, get used to it. Video tape myself, and make what’s uncomfortable, comfortable because it is right.
#2 Use an 8 iron, and get my ball speed up above 110mph+. Ideally, he wants me at 115. Not club head speed, but ball speed, that’s the only thing he cares about… for now.
This is the start to my game plan, I hope you guys have one too.
