How good is it to be playing again ? The sun has been shining, golf is back on the telly and club competitions return in July. A sense of normality. A cold beer at the end of it and we are complete.
Caddying still seems some way off but there are some possibilities once the regulations change from only members of the same household. There may be some players lobbying for that change after spending three months with them already!
Coaching has started taking off which I am loving, with plenty of golfers seemingly taking stock during lockdown and wanting to make some lasting changes to their approach.
One common issue I have been addressing with a few clients is how to stop hanging back on your right side. It’s OK to identify the fault but very often much more difficult to find the trigger that works as the solution:-
Sit back,
hit it fat,
move the ball back,
sit further back on so it goes on.
So, what can we do to convince ourselves and break the cycle? As with many solutions, the key initially is to remove the consequence and any expectation so you can try different approaches. I suggest removing the ball, this allows you to feel the swing more as there is no distraction.
I like to place a tee level or even further forward than the front foot and get the client to hit the peg. A few repetitions of successfully hitting the tee and you start to feel the sensation of your weight transferring over your left foot. Your brain is starting to believe. You now put a ball in play a couple of inches behind the tee, but your aim is still to hit the tee. You have no expectation of getting a good strike on the ball as your target is the tee. By transferring your weight, you will naturally shallow out your swing and even concentrating on the tee you will start to get some great strikes with irons because you are compressing the ball with a slightly downward strike. Your mind is getting even more convinced. You can then remove the tee but keep your focus ahead of the ball as that’s where you want your swing to bottom out to impact on the ball whilst the club is still moving down.
Do this on the range to ingrain the feeling and get comfortable with where you are best focussing. Make sure you take the feedback from every shot. Is the divot after the ball? If not put the tee back and keep working on it.
Once you get the feeling of that purely struck iron you will never go back. Just make sure you adjust your yardages as if you are used to hanging back then the irons will start going further.
Try it and let me know how you get on, or if you fancy a one to one session with me to go through the process, please get in contact
