The Hard Work Starts Here

When does ambition become a dangerous addiction. I only ask as there must be a logical reason I was standing on a frozen practice ground at 10.00am this morning. The temperature in the car on the way there hadn't risen above -5 and even the thermometer by the putting green was hovering at -3.

Still, the lesson had been booked months ago and I wasn't going to let frozen turf and sub-zero temperatures put me off. Homer's journey had started and today was going to be the dawn of a new beginning for me. As regular followers of the Golf Monthly Forum will know I've invested a lot of time with Grant Sayer (my teaching pro from Maidenhead GC) on tempo as a starting point of some other swing enhancements. Basically I needed to slow my swing into something that didn't break the sound barrier everytime. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when he said he was impressed with the progress I'd made.

However as always there was a downside. My left hand had become too weak and my initial takeaway was too flat and moving too far inside. He explained the problems this would cause (which correlated to the bad shots I hit) and we went to work. Strengthening the grip was easy but we also worked on taking the club back in a much straighter line before making the turn. It almost looked as though it was going back hooded (shut) although in reality it wasn't. We also used the well known Leadbetter drill if planting the butt of the club in the navel and gripping down the shaft and getting the feeling of the stomach and hands moving back together.

All in all there wasn't as much wrong with the swing as I thought. Yes there are still lots of things wrong but building Rome in a day and all that......... I have a couple of drills to work on so we'll see where it takes me. Grant is out of commission now until March with knee surgery so I'll have plenty of time to get it right before he inspects it. Off to the frozen tundra of the practice ground tomorrow to give it a go. Might even try and get a cheeky nine in even if we're on temp greens.