I had a lesson today and...

RangeMonkey

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it felt miraculous.

In my last lesson we focussed on timing of hip rotation, and club head lag. It added a good 20 yards to all my irons...when I hit it well.

But I went from hitting it well (enough for me) about 70% of the time, all the way down to about 20% of the time.

In frustration I booked another lesson after just a couple of weeks. Within five minutes he identified the issue, and inside another ten minutes had identified an approach that resonated with me enough to get my hit rate back up to more like 50%, whilst preserving the distance.

I’ve come away knowing what to work on now to keep the improvement going.

Desperation to delight in under an hour ?
 

Parsaregood

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I had a lesson today aswell, trying to keep better connection between the arms to the top of the backswing, helps keep them in front of me on the way down. Also on a mission to increase my swing speed from 113mph to 120mph over the next couple of months, have ordered the swing speed training shafts so will see how we go. My aim is to have it topping out around 120 but to swing easy and still be about 116. My coach thinks I should be able to do it without a great deal of trouble
 

pendodave

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I had a lesson today aswell, trying to keep better connection between the arms to the top of the backswing, helps keep them in front of me on the way down. Also on a mission to increase my swing speed from 113mph to 120mph over the next couple of months, have ordered the swing speed training shafts so will see how we go. My aim is to have it topping out around 120 but to swing easy and still be about 116. My coach thinks I should be able to do it without a great deal of trouble
Would be interested in feedback on the speed training. Although looking at the numbers, we might not have that much in common...
 

Parsaregood

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Would be interested in feedback on the speed training. Although looking at the numbers, we might not have that much in common...
I'm told that the overspeed training is a pretty fail safe method of increasing speed from 5-10% depending on the person and how dedicated they are to the training. I really dont think you could not get faster if you put in the exercises, so worth it I'd say.
 

HomerJSimpson

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Went to the range last night. Looked back at some video footage of my last lesson a few months ago and noticed my posture was more slumped again. An old habit that has crept back in. Stood taller and worked on making a full shoulder turn and releasing as we worked on. What a change. Much more consistent again. Hopefully the course will be open although given the rainfall due I have grave doubts it'll be open by the weekend and I need to see if I can take the range stuff back out when I play
 
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I had a lesson on Monday. Not played much the last few months due to a stiff lower back which is slowly improving.

Truly shocking to look how bad my swing has become looking at it on video. Huge early extension, stood up tall at impact with near vertical shaft. No wonder I can't hit more than a couple of straight shots in a row.

A lot of work required was the pro's remark!

Worked on improving hip turn on backswing, squatting into impact and making a positive turn through. Obviously felt awful buts looked way better on video.

Could barely make a decent contact but that is not the point at this stage. Club position on downswing is way from the outside but we will work on that further down the line as there was more than enough to focus on in a single session.

Going to put some hard work and effort into sorting my swing out once and for all, the last 2 or 3 seasons have been crap and instead of my best being capable of breaking 70 I can barely break 80.
 

Parsaregood

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Had my 5th of 10 winter lesson last week, things are really going well, lots of positives from the weekend game - hitting plenty fairways with confidence off the tee.

Lesson here:

Backswing looks decent, I'd say though even the driver is slightly behind you when its parallel to the ground and theres quite alot of separation between your elbows at the top which is why the club is a little laid off. Looks good though, I think your downswing needs alot of work, my feeling is it would be easier to get it started on a better path if the club was more on line at the top. Plenty of drills you can do though to get the club moving on a better path down. I'm sure your pro is working with you on these things and even if you concentrated solely on shallowing out transition you would hit much better shots a higher percentage of the time which is what it's all about. Good work though!
 

Kennysarmy

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Backswing looks decent, I'd say though even the driver is slightly behind you when its parallel to the ground and theres quite alot of separation between your elbows at the top which is why the club is a little laid off. Looks good though, I think your downswing needs alot of work, my feeling is it would be easier to get it started on a better path if the club was more on line at the top. Plenty of drills you can do though to get the club moving on a better path down. I'm sure your pro is working with you on these things and even if you concentrated solely on shallowing out transition you would hit much better shots a higher percentage of the time which is what it's all about. Good work though!

Thanks, working at the range to get the feeling my hands pass through a circle on the back-swing and through the same circle on the down-swing, this coupled with better club face control....(bad habit is letting it slip a tad 'open') ....Work in progress :)
 

chrisd

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Strikes me as a really good pro Kennysarmy. A good and thorough explanation and swing looks good. I'm having a 45 min lesson tomorrow, I hope it's as productive as yours
 

HomerJSimpson

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I've been having two 45 minute lessons per month for a year and have just gone now to one per month until the season starts.
Good man. Only joking and hope you're seeing the benefits when you play. I went the other way in 2019 and really scaled back the number of lessons and tried to take what I was learning onto the course.
 

chrisd

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Good man. Only joking and hope you're seeing the benefits when you play. I went the other way in 2019 and really scaled back the number of lessons and tried to take what I was learning onto the course.

Cheers Homer. The lesson today was with the driver which hasn't behaved over the year, we made some big changes which made other changes, and it certainly looks better but will take some time to bed in
 

AdamW

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I've been having two 45 minute lessons per month for a year and have just gone now to one per month until the season starts.

Wow that is a lot of lessons!

How much do you practice between lessons?

Currently having one lesson a month shared with partner to keep costs down so get 20-25 mins. Practice wise then go on the range at least 1-2 times per week and try to implement it on course twice before going back. Wondering if i need to bump the lesson frequency up though as still struggling with hitting irons right a lot
 

chrisd

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Wow that is a lot of lessons!

How much do you practice between lessons?

Currently having one lesson a month shared with partner to keep costs down so get 20-25 mins. Practice wise then go on the range at least 1-2 times per week and try to implement it on course twice before going back. Wondering if i need to bump the lesson frequency up though as still struggling with hitting irons right a lot[/QUO TE]

I play usually twice a week and hit balls on the range twice as well. But I am trying to change a fair few things in my swing and the extra lessons help to ingrain them. Age is a major consideration in my decision as I'll soon get to the stage where I'll probably start to lose distance so I'm looking to improve the technical side of the swing and still hope that the work I'm doing will help get a single figure handicap eventually (at least for a few days)
 
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