New Swing at the Range

With the spectacular weather the last few days—temperatures in the mid-60s and above, and clear, sunny skies—the golf courses around here opened long before the daffodils will. The courses may be jumping the gun a little, but, suddenly, I felt a decision was necessary. Knowing several improvements I wanted to work on, I thought I could very well continue hitting my plastic practice balls in my backyard and videotape my progress. On the other hand, I also knew that my swing was good enough to take out on the course. Or, at least, I was pretty sure it was good enough. After some dialogue with self, I decided it was time to play.

Then the question became, Do I go directly to the course and see what's going on with tee times? Or should I go to the range first and see how my swing works with real golf balls? Since I already have, in my shoulder bag, several early-bird tokens saved from the fall, I decided that I might as well go to the range and see if I could get a mat.

Since I arrived at the range early in the afternoon, around one o'clock or so, it really wasn't bad: half a dozen cars in the parking lot. So I got my bucket of a hundred balls and started hitting.

Starting out with a 9-iron, which is what I've been practicing with in my backyard with the plactic balls, I could hardly believe how well I hit the ball. I went through the bag and felt good about each club. I did have some questions about distance, and I did pull a few balls left, but, overall, I couldn't have been more gratified.

The driver required a few adjustments, but there, too, I was happy, hitting straight drives out there, about a 230 carry. Very satisfying, considering I haven't been hitting that club at all during the winter practice.

The results were so good that I started modifications as I went along. Mainly, I wanted to delay the release and lengthen the follow-through, which (to me) means throwing the right hand, fully releasing the left, and finishing with both hands far out toward the target and resolving somewhere around my back.

The more I worked on these points, the better the shots became. I hit the pitching wedge for accuracy and found it was going around 120 and, within reason, around the flag. The nine (here I keep in mind the Johnny Miller video on YouTube, where he's hitting at that island green at Sawgrass, a 145-yard shot) was going straight out there, about 140 carry. How could I not be happy with that?

Recently, I read something that amateurs don't hit their irons with that much diffence. Where the pros can hit irons with around ten yards or so of difference between each one, the distances amateurs hit their irons are more clustered together. That's what I found with my own swings. The distances I was getting, however, told me that my swing was in good shape. My six-iron was going over the green where the flag is supposedly 155, and my five-iron was going out there about 175 or 180 carry. All my distances are measured as carry. I don't know what difference that makes, but that's my yardstick.

The more I hit, the better the results. With the club control I have now, I can make adjustments and actually make a swing. After dozens of swings, I started to feel the lag and the way the release brings the club down into the ball, with the left arm squaring up the clubface and the right hand supplying the propulsive forward momentum.

As I say, the distances I got today were very gratifying, but I know that I can hit still farther. One of the aspects of greater distance is a quicker tempo. In the video below, you'll see me swinging in the backyard at a 27/9 tempo. If I can speed that up to to 24/8 or 21/7, I'll get commensurately greater distance. See the Tour Tempo book for a detailed explanation of the 3-to-1 ratio of the golf swing. Let the movie load completely and then play it to see how the audio syncs up with the video.