He watched me hit two wedges (which I thought I was hitting great) and said, with conviction, that my weight was on my toes and that unbalanced stance was causing the shanks. That diagnosis began a long conversation about posture and turning. After he left, I hit a couple hundred balls, just working on turning and balance and posture. Of course, this working on basics represented a huge regression. I had to forget about hitting full shots and focus, instead, on an abbreviated swing where I could pay attention to keeping my weight under my ankles and finishing with my chest forward and vertical over my left leg, the post around which I was turning.
After a break for a little while at home, until about 4:00, I remembered that I had to pick up my driver at Yorktown Baseball and Golf and that when I did, I could hit another hundred balls and do some more practice. While I hit (I hit only a couple of shanks, none of them as bad as the day before), I felt really good about the irons and hybrids. Even with a short swing, I was getting decent distance and, even more important, consistently accurate shots. I liked the way I felt and liked the way I looked at the end of the swing. I had my balance, my chest seemed to be erect, and my left arm had swung around my body over to the left side. I felt as though it must look something like the pros after they hit an iron shot for accuracy.
The 3-metal was a wreck. I continued to slice it and mis-hit it and hit the ground behind the ball, all kinds of swing problems. Out of curiosity, I tried the repaired driver a few times and actually hit one decent drive, after which I quit; ending on a good swing seemed more positive than pushing my luck by trying to hit one more drive.
After my hundred balls, I went over to Mohansic to practice the short game, which has become, be far, the practice I enjoy the most and which is the most rewarding for me. The putting felt great. I can see that I'm getting good touch in my hands. Observing Dave Stockton's advice, I hit with one ball and practice a complete putt every time I hit the ball. The long putts are the focal point of my putting practice, from, say, 25 feet up to 90 feet, with the primary goal of controlling speed and getting the ball to the hole without leaving it short, one of Stockton's fundamentals about putting (he always wants the putt to die at the hole but get to the hole and stay within 17 inches past it). Letting the back of the left wrist take care of the direction is another fundamental I keep in mind.
Lately, I've been practicing chipping with a 9- or 8-iron, following up on Brian Flanagan's suggestion during a recent lesson down at Fairview Golf Center in Elmsford. Today, I chipped with the lob wedge from thick grass to a short-side hole and then used a 9-iron to chip uphill across the green, just to a spot, working on rolling the ball consistently, probably about 60 or 70 feet. That felt awesome. I could really feel the similarity of the putting stroke and the chip, and I was able to chip ball after ball at the same spot and roughly the same distance, concentrating on using the toe of the club. As usual, a very satisfying hour or hour and a-half.
Like a minor god in classical mythology, Golf looks down on pale mortals with amusement. As King Lear says, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport." At least there's an end in sight, and, fortunately, we don't have to suffer the eternal futility of Sisyphus
, endlessly rolling his boulder uphill. All we have to say to the Golf immortal is, "OK. You win." Easy. The problem is that golfers are nuts. The Golf gods must be crazy, and they make us crazy. We can't recognize an impossible situation when one squats right in front of our noses—in the correct posture and weight under the ankles. Completely oblivious, we show up at the practice tee or the driving range the next morning. That's where I'm headed now.
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