The Mistral

In the spring of 1889, continuous, strong winds almost drove Van Gogh mad and may have induced him to cut off part of his left ear. His antagonist was the great wind of southern France, the Mistral (in French, it means "Master"), which sometimes blows at 55 miles per hour.

My ears are still intact, but after two days of blustery, gusting, sometimes powerful winds, I could imagine the maddening effects of the Mistral. In my little practice area in my backyard, I could hardly tee up a plastic practice ball before it was blown across the flagstones. Comic relief defused my frustration whenever I hit a ball out far enough that the wind took it and swept it to one side. Hard as it was to assess how well I was hitting the ball, the Mistral didn't stop me; it did test my patience, though.

In other respects, including the blustery winds, Vincent would have loved this afternoon: an azure sky, completely clear of any clouds, intense sun, and intensely illuminated foliage. The light alone reminded me of the way the Impressionists taught us how light affects what we see. Brilliant light, brilliant shadows tune our perceptions to a fine pitch. On a day like today, our senses are hyperactive. We seem to see every distinct thing in our range of vision. This accentuated vision may be what enabled me to see the rotation in KJ Choi's swings on YouTube. In this Impressionist landscape, I had a very productive practice session.

Watching KJ carefully, and comparing it to the model golfer in the Arnold Palmer video, I noticed how the hips turn, but also how the left shoulder suddenly rotates to the top of an arc right at impact. I've noticed this before, and read before about getting the left shoulder up as quickly as you can. Now, in the receptive mode I found myself, I could see the logic. Moving the hips quickly and bringing that left shoulder up quickly both would combine to propel the swing of the clubhead through the ball. For me, this is a break-through understanding. Suddenly, I realized how the pros hit the ball so far.

As I worked out these swing subtleties, I wanted to go out and see how they would contribute to way I could actually hit a ball, on the range. So I wrapped up my practice, ignoring the Mistral, and headed for the range.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. The Mistral was blowing harder here than it was in my backyard. I quickly realized that this multiplied difference only made sense. I've noticed that all weather conditions are accentuated here on the range at Mohansic. It must have something to do with the elevation. The range is at a high point and faces a long expanse, stretching towards the Hudson River, with nothing to block any weather patterns moving from West to East. Today, the range seemed like some of the Adirondack outcroppings I've climbed to: cold, windy, and completely exposed. Now and then, the wind blew over one of my clubs (even though it was in a club stand) and blew a ball off the tee. The wind seemed, for the most part, to be blowing from right to left, rather than in my face. This seemed fine to me, since I thought I could hit right-to-left shots and use the wind as an aid.

As I think I've indicated, I was working on rotating my hips and lifting my left shoulder right at impact in order to get the most clubhead speed that I could. Naturally, many things went wrong. I was trying to do too many things at once. But now and then, I felt as though I was getting a good hit on the ball. And my goal here was to see how far I could hit the ball. That was my measure of success. Finally, on one stroke, probably using a real ball, not a range ball, I hit one that I hooked to the left, but deep, and when it landed, it flew through the tree branches at the far end of the range, at the 250 yard mark, flying through a branch and sending a few leaves fluttering to the ground. I've never hit a ball that far here. It was only one ball, but it gave me an indication that my swing was improving.

That shot was probably about 255 yards carry, slightly downhill, and compared well to a drive that I saw Villegas make on the Golf Channel where his carry was 264. His swing speed was 116, which means that mine is probably around 110 or so. That means I'm OK. And I'm really just beginning to swing the driver with thoughts of distance. The best is yet to come.

After this session at the range, I went out the tenth hole, thinking I would hit a drive or two or three, then hit a couple of approach shots, and then do my short game practice around the green. The first drive I left way out to the right, long gone. The second went right along the line I had planned, and the third followed the second, just a little bit right.

When I came up to me balls, I hit the first perfectly, with a 4-hybrid, just short of the green, and hit the second, over a short pine tree, right of the green, but long, into a greenside trap. Here's where the short game comes into play. When I chipped the first shot, I chunked it, hitting ground first. I had it hit a few practice balls afterwards in order to get the right feel. Then, on my second shot, which ended up in the bunker on the right, I hit a good shot and landed on the green, rolling toward the hole.

All this tells me that I can play this game in a reasonable manner. Shooting in the eighties is what I ought to expect. To break eighty, I need to play more and tighten up my game. The plan now is to continue working on the swing arc and to go out as much as I can to play a few holes, practice various shots, and practice the short game and situations around and on the green to build up my skills and confidence in chipping, pitching, bunker play, and putting. Future posts will describe my progress.

In the video below, you can see how my swing is improving, with more width, more turn on the backswing, more hips, and the right arm straighter and longer than before. I can tell by the way I'm hitting the ball that the swing arc is getting better. Tomorrow's practice will isolate the release of the left arm, training the arm to slow down while the left hand supinates and the right hand throws the clubhead past the hands. This very sophisticated combination of actions, which are measured in hundredths of a second, is the key to a good swing. This is where the clubface is squared up and where clubhead speed and power are generated, the most difficult and the most exciting part of the swing.