Swinging after the doctor injected something into my right hand, I started to understand how light the grip should be and how relaxed one's hands and arms should be. Swollen and very sensitive to contact, my right hand hardly touched the grip, yet I hit my best shots in the backyard. I tried to feel completely relaxed and concentrate on turning the torso. See what you think.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Get Needled
After a visit to the doctor, my practice swing has never been better.
Swinging after the doctor injected something into my right hand, I started to understand how light the grip should be and how relaxed one's hands and arms should be. Swollen and very sensitive to contact, my right hand hardly touched the grip, yet I hit my best shots in the backyard. I tried to feel completely relaxed and concentrate on turning the torso. See what you think.
Swinging after the doctor injected something into my right hand, I started to understand how light the grip should be and how relaxed one's hands and arms should be. Swollen and very sensitive to contact, my right hand hardly touched the grip, yet I hit my best shots in the backyard. I tried to feel completely relaxed and concentrate on turning the torso. See what you think.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Long and Winding Road
The Beatles' song captures the situation. Now eight years and counting, the swing is improving, slowly, making me think often of the "10,000 Hour" rule. So, if the swing is ever going to happen, it might be sometime in the next two years. If it doesn't happen then, I should just retire and go back to tennis.
I haven't written in a long time, for two reasons. First, my employment situation improved, and second, the swing has been changing daily. A good thing, considering that I've been practicing like a maniac for six months. And it's been only in the last few weeks that I've felt that I'm on to something good. My practice has been mostly in the back yard, using plastic balls and Callaway practice balls and Almost Golf balls, hitting with a sand wedge and a nine-iron. This short game practice has returned generous rewards. When I go to the range (maybe once a week) for a "reality check," the results don't feel or look as great as they do in my own back yard, but I can see improvement.
Here are a couple of clips from my practice at the range today. You'll notice some good things and some things that I still need to address, but, in general, you'll see a better swing than I used to show here. Don't miss the woodchuck scurrying across the range as I get ready to hit my first shot. I never noticed him until I started editing the video. Obviously, he's learned that he's safer on the fairway than any place else. I've noticed that at Mohansic, my regular course, where deer feel perfectly safe out on the fairway, a target that golfers like me rarely hit.
The first shot, and the best, is a wedge. Everything looks pretty good here. In the next shots, you can see I'm trying to hit the ball. The swings don't look terrible--they're a big improvement over the way I used to "swing," but they're still rushed and incomplete in the follow-through.
I haven't written in a long time, for two reasons. First, my employment situation improved, and second, the swing has been changing daily. A good thing, considering that I've been practicing like a maniac for six months. And it's been only in the last few weeks that I've felt that I'm on to something good. My practice has been mostly in the back yard, using plastic balls and Callaway practice balls and Almost Golf balls, hitting with a sand wedge and a nine-iron. This short game practice has returned generous rewards. When I go to the range (maybe once a week) for a "reality check," the results don't feel or look as great as they do in my own back yard, but I can see improvement.
Here are a couple of clips from my practice at the range today. You'll notice some good things and some things that I still need to address, but, in general, you'll see a better swing than I used to show here. Don't miss the woodchuck scurrying across the range as I get ready to hit my first shot. I never noticed him until I started editing the video. Obviously, he's learned that he's safer on the fairway than any place else. I've noticed that at Mohansic, my regular course, where deer feel perfectly safe out on the fairway, a target that golfers like me rarely hit.
The first shot, and the best, is a wedge. Everything looks pretty good here. In the next shots, you can see I'm trying to hit the ball. The swings don't look terrible--they're a big improvement over the way I used to "swing," but they're still rushed and incomplete in the follow-through.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Slough of Despond
Lately, I've been thinking of editing the title of this blog from "learning a good golf swing is difficult, but realistic" to "learning a good golf swing is not only difficult—it's nearly impossible." When I think about a real swing, I'm reminded of the "Slough of Despond" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the archetype of discouragement and demoralization.
As you know by now, from previous posts, I am a devoted student of the swing. I know much more about the swing than I can actually perform. That's probably true of most golfers who take the swing seriously, but what I've been learning over the past few months is that the familiar credos about the swing are sayings that I thought I knew, but really didn't. Often, lately, I find myself thinking, "Oh, that's what that means!" At the same time, I'm realizing that what I thought I knew and had incorporated into my swing was something that I really didn't understand and wasn't performing. In other words, in trying to learn the golf swing, you think you know something about it, but you really don't: a perfect George Carlin moment.
So, I haven't written for a long time, mainly because things were changing so quickly that keeping up with them would be a full-time job, and I already had one. Also, my efforts weren't getting me anywhere fast.
Then I had my "Aha!" moment back in the fall, when a video of my "swing" showed me that I didn't have one; I was all arms, hitting at the ball. Casting, hitting way behind the ball, losing clubhead speed way before impact. Powerless effort instead of effortless power. Then, in my customary fashion, I decided that I couldn't live with this and went to a new pro to work on developing a real golf swing.
The new pro was Dante Antonini, who came from Knollwood CC to be the full-time pro at Yorktown Baseball and Golf (and on Facebook). He has a great swing (which I recognized from a distance the second I saw it when I drove into the parking lot) and devotes himself to helping everyone who shows up at the range. So I immediately bought a series of lessons. And he told me what I needed to know. The trouble is that I can't do what the golf swing demands.
I don't even understand what the golf swing demands. But, whatever it is, I can't do it. And neither can practically every other golfer on earth. I looked into the statistics. Leaving out the PGA stats on golfers with handicaps, or indexes, this is what it comes down to. From a Website I found, these are the discouraging numbers. If there were 1000 golfers on the planet, only ten percent of them would ever break 90. Of those, only ten percent would ever break 80. And we're not talking about averages here. Would EVER break 80. And of those, only ten percent would ever break 70. And of those, only a very small percentage would make it onto the PGA Tour.
Those numbers confirmed for me that learning a good golf swing is virtually impossible. Very few human beings can do it. Once I realized this, I decided that there is no point in taking my quest for a golf swing so seriously. I could try to teach my wife how to play tennis, for example. I used to be a decent player, and I understand the tennis strokes and could teach them to someone else, but I don't know how to hit a drive 250 yards.
As a result, my life is returning to normal. The golf swing is on the back burner. I still go to the range, maybe once a week, usually less now that winter temperatures are often below 30 degrees, and I have a nine-iron in my living room so that I can rehearse swings.
Trying to learn a good golf swing is an addiction, and I'm an addict. So, instead of going to the range at every opportunity, I've been Googling the swing. I'm more interested in a "Virtual Swing." And I've been looking at all the hits on the "Double Pendulum" swing. It makes all kinds of sense to me, in a theoretical way, but the only people I see actually doing this are on the PGA Tour. I don't see anyone at the range swinging like this. The only one I see is my pro, Dante. And in the early spring, some college and high school teams come to the range to get ready for their season.
As I told an acquaintance yesterday, forget about golf. Take up boxing.
As you know by now, from previous posts, I am a devoted student of the swing. I know much more about the swing than I can actually perform. That's probably true of most golfers who take the swing seriously, but what I've been learning over the past few months is that the familiar credos about the swing are sayings that I thought I knew, but really didn't. Often, lately, I find myself thinking, "Oh, that's what that means!" At the same time, I'm realizing that what I thought I knew and had incorporated into my swing was something that I really didn't understand and wasn't performing. In other words, in trying to learn the golf swing, you think you know something about it, but you really don't: a perfect George Carlin moment.
So, I haven't written for a long time, mainly because things were changing so quickly that keeping up with them would be a full-time job, and I already had one. Also, my efforts weren't getting me anywhere fast.
Then I had my "Aha!" moment back in the fall, when a video of my "swing" showed me that I didn't have one; I was all arms, hitting at the ball. Casting, hitting way behind the ball, losing clubhead speed way before impact. Powerless effort instead of effortless power. Then, in my customary fashion, I decided that I couldn't live with this and went to a new pro to work on developing a real golf swing.
I don't even understand what the golf swing demands. But, whatever it is, I can't do it. And neither can practically every other golfer on earth. I looked into the statistics. Leaving out the PGA stats on golfers with handicaps, or indexes, this is what it comes down to. From a Website I found, these are the discouraging numbers. If there were 1000 golfers on the planet, only ten percent of them would ever break 90. Of those, only ten percent would ever break 80. And we're not talking about averages here. Would EVER break 80. And of those, only ten percent would ever break 70. And of those, only a very small percentage would make it onto the PGA Tour.
Those numbers confirmed for me that learning a good golf swing is virtually impossible. Very few human beings can do it. Once I realized this, I decided that there is no point in taking my quest for a golf swing so seriously. I could try to teach my wife how to play tennis, for example. I used to be a decent player, and I understand the tennis strokes and could teach them to someone else, but I don't know how to hit a drive 250 yards.
As a result, my life is returning to normal. The golf swing is on the back burner. I still go to the range, maybe once a week, usually less now that winter temperatures are often below 30 degrees, and I have a nine-iron in my living room so that I can rehearse swings.
Trying to learn a good golf swing is an addiction, and I'm an addict. So, instead of going to the range at every opportunity, I've been Googling the swing. I'm more interested in a "Virtual Swing." And I've been looking at all the hits on the "Double Pendulum" swing. It makes all kinds of sense to me, in a theoretical way, but the only people I see actually doing this are on the PGA Tour. I don't see anyone at the range swinging like this. The only one I see is my pro, Dante. And in the early spring, some college and high school teams come to the range to get ready for their season.
As I told an acquaintance yesterday, forget about golf. Take up boxing.
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