Live Golf Lesson

Yesterday I had a golf lesson with Andy Piper at Lavender Golf Centre. It was the first of a series of six I've got booked and was basically nothing more than a swing MOT to make sure the basics are in place and to just make a few tweaks here and there. It's now live in full on my Youtube Channel, also called Three Off the Tee (to make life easy) (Three Off The Tee Youtube link). Apologies for the darkness on the film and the residual noise but we were on an open bay at a busy range, and the lighting wasn't fantastic. That said, the quality is good enough to see the swing clearly and the issues as they arise throughout. Again the sound quality is patchy but you can still understand the points Andy is trying to get over.

A very interesting half an hour and to be honest not much changed to get things working better. The biggest issue was a separation at the takeaway causing the club to be too high, with subsequent adjustments required to get the club back to square. Timed well and it worked, but if the timing was out, it caused a number of different misses.

We were working with a seven iron and it only took a couple of swings for Andy to pick up on the separation fault, along with a slide of the hips without turning which was causing the flippy hands and the misses, mainly left but with the odd right hand one thrown in as well.

As you will see if you get over to the Youtube channel and see the video (and when you do, please subscribe), Andy placed a toy frog (no idea where that came from other than the depths of his bag) to stop me going to wide on the way back although a head cover would work equally as well and not perhaps looked as conspicuous. Either way it did the trick and I could really feel when I made contact on the way back and over the course of a few swings got the feeling of taking it back better. It's still going to need work as I've managed to ingrain this fault nice and deeply.

I need to be careful, as pointed out on the film, that I don't then become to quick with the hands and get too snatched and quick. You'll see a couple fly high and right when I do which is a familiar site to me when this happens. In essence I'm looking for a slow, consistent takeaway, good wrist hinge and swing to the top. From there I need to make a good rotation, without any hint of hip slide and through to impact, release and on and up to the follow through.

I've been struggling with big misses right, including a slice with the driver, and so we spent the last fifteen minutes of the lesson looking at that. We've tweaked set up to stand taller and therefore swing on a flatter plane. I need to keep focused on making a better takeaway, without getting too flippy with the hands while ensuring the club comes back more inside and not wide and separated. From there, with the driver I need to stay behind the ball and not slide the hips and look to make a more rotational turn.

Again, from the footage, you'll see that I have a habit of getting two out of three elements of what we were working on, and would usually go back better, and then either not stay behind, and lose it right as a result, or do that but then fail to rotate and so get active with the hands and flip it left again. That said, there are some clips where it all comes together. This is what I need to do regularly to improve on the 47% fairways in regulation I managed last year. Get the ball in play more often, should make it easier to hit greens, and from there make scoring easier. That's the plan

As it was only an MOT, we didn't go into great depth. I haven't played or practiced too much, primarily been fog bound or frozen in the midst of a chilly December and January. I'll start getting into the golf again as the weather improves, seeing no point standing on a freezing range, just because I can. Once that happens, each lesson will take one area of my game and work on it in more depth.

I hope you enjoy this insight into my swing and get a feel for the issues and that you go over to Youtube and have a look at it (despite the quality). Please feel free to like it and more importantly, please subscribe