A Change For The Better

A wild and windy Downshire Golf Centre on a Thursday night. A bit bleak considering we're into Summer but the venue of my latest lesson with Rhys ap Iolo. Having deviated from the Plane Truth system in the last two lessons to take in a chipping and a bunker lesson it was back to the swing itself. I've felt in recent weeks that I've made progress and my cut in the Haig Cup at Royal Ascot over Easter from 13.3 to 12.0 would indicate that the swing is beginning to develop into something a lot more stable and reliable.

As usual the warm up went well and I was hitting the ball with ease and consistency. Stand on the mat in the teaching bay and I become a gibbering wreck and the swing resembles an octopus receiving electro-shock therapy. To be fair though the swings that Rhys recorded show that the shallowness and below the plane downswing I've struggled to cure is getting much closer to getting back into the right position. On the down side the backswing and in particular the club head at the top of the swing being across the line is still a huge issue. This causes reactionary and corrective processes on the downswing to deliver the club properly and the need for me to have the timing "on" to do so regularly.

Therefore it was back to basics. More work on the takeaway and getting the club set in a flatter and more off-set position. The logic behind this is that it will give me room to make a turn and get a steeper angle of attack, with more control of where the club head travels and finish in a much more balanced and flatter position. Rhys had me visualising hitting a ball off a lofted stand akin to a baseball swing to get use to the club head travelling flatter and more behind me. Very different to any of the feelings I've been use to recently. On the plus side we've low ceilings at home so I could give this a go with something like a 6 iron. Mind you not sure the wife will like the marks on the plaster if I revert to old habits and get too steep.

The interesting thing is that it felt so wrong and that I was destined to bring the hosel of club down on the ball resulting in a shank. It was a mental thing and lo, swing it behind and turn and ye shall make good conduct and the ball will high and true. In addition there is no need to focus on a good hip turn or the angle of attack (although this will need to get steeper over time) and everything falls into place.

The great thing with working with Rhys and the Plane Truth system is that he sort of lets you work it out for yourself. I hit a ugly fat shot and he asked why it happened. The glaringly obvious answer was I hit the big ball (planet earth) before the little white one. I had to stop and think about it a bit but it came down to a shallow swing and a hip slide and what I couldn't see was the club had got out of position behind me and I'd gone back to the old ways. The position he wants to get the club in is counter-intuitive and so it is off to the practice field at Royal Ascot to work on it. Fortunately it is only the usual roll up on Saturday and so if I go out on the course and it crumbles then apart from a few lost balls then I'm no worse off. There is a monthly medal on Sunday which has the potential to be painful but at the end of the day if I get 0.1 back on the handicap I just need to work harder to shave it back off. When it clicks and I've no doubt that it's a case of when and not if, then I think this will be another giant link in the chain that is the new and improved one plane swing.

Yet again I walked out of the lesson invigorated and fresh for the challenge. Yet again Rhys has taken away what I thought was going so well, but has done so like a silent assassin and it doesn't feel a contrived or forced process and certainly isn't change for the sake of a more stylish looking swing. In fact he doesn't care, up to a point, what it looks like as long as the club meets the ball in the right way and the club head path is under control. It's funny how I feel I've come so far in such a short space of time since the first meeting with him in December and yet I don't really feel I've had to make huge changes at all. What I have done seems to have been very natural and easily assembled. It is working for the most part on the course and when it does go wrong I know the causes and can usually find a band-aid fix of sorts to get the ball round. After last night he has reaffirmed why the club is doing what it is doing and how I'm still having to rely on natural (yeah right) timing more than I should.

I'm a little nervous about my practice session as no-one likes to stand there and watch the balls disappear all over the place in a variety of different mis-hits. However as long as I focus on what I need to do, get the feeling working and eventually find a way to deliver the club to the ball properly then all the pain will be worth the effort. Fortunately I love this part of the lesson and putting in the work after the teacher has corrected the fault. It is a huge feeling of satisfaction when you get the first one spot on, and more so as you do this more and more. It reaches a natural conclusion when you can take it onto the course and it works. I don't expect it to be perfect on every hole and there will be an element of not trusting it 100% for a while. However get it right and it starts to become easier to just rely on.

Of course it's inevitable I'll put the work in, get it firing nicely and report back to Rhys for the next lesson only for him to introduce the next stage and so the cycle will start again. It isn't a swing rebuild of major proportions and as I've mentioned he's not doing it for the sake of it, but just a question of taking what I have, stripping it back a little and putting it on a firmer footing. It is a process I understand and I trust him implicitly to give me something more substantial which will stand up over the competitive golf to be played this summer and get me well on the way to my target of 10 by the end of the season. Once we can get this fundamental right and can then introduce the steeper angle of impact then for the most part I think the process will be complete. I'm sure Rhys may not agree. From there we can tweak and shave away the layers but it'll be a lot more solid and reliable. We can then dedicate a lot of time to the short game where we can really shave some shots off the score and hopefully get me to where I want to go. I'll definitely be a happy Homer.