Lesson 2 - Lessons Learned

So yesterday I had my 2nd lesson with Tim at GolfTEC. Previously, Tim had me focus on my grip, my stance at address, and stabilizing my lower body. I think I've come a long way in those areas, but I know I still have a long way to go. It's starting to get complicated with all the things I have to think about... and I'm only on my 2nd lesson.

I played 2 rounds of golf between Lesson 1 and Lesson 2. I averaged double bogey on every hole. :( My score is getting worse. However, I knew this was going to happen before I signed up with GolfTEC. I'm still very inconsistent. I hit some great shots and I hit some very ugly shots. I'm still working on stabilizing my lower body. As I continue to fix my swing, my game is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but I'm prepared for it. I'm sticking to my guns to make the changes Tim tells me to make. I'm sacrificing each round of golf now as practice.

On to Lesson 2. Yesterday, we focused on my upper body. YES! (and YIKES!). Somehow over the past few years of golf, I developed this really bad habit of overturning my shoulders and dipping my upper body during my backswing. This is a big no-no. If you watch the pro's, their head is always stable from start to finish. To accomplish this, Tim wanted me to focus on my shoulders. He wanted to turn my shoulders "straight" versus "down". When I did this, the camera showed my head completely stationary. This seems like it would be a simple thing to fix. However, the problem is I don't feel the difference between turning my shoulders straight vs down. :( I do know that I have to keep working on it in front of the video cameras so I can see it when it happens. I think that after a few hours in front of the camera, I'll start to develop a feel for it. One of the tricks that I'm doing is to swing extremely slow and try not to swing hard. Also, I do feel my weight shift to my heels when I turn my shoulders straight. This is definitely a start, but I need more. Here is a great picture showing the before and after:


In the BEFORE picture (left side) you can see my head dips quite a bit. The green line shows where I was at address. On the right side, my AFTER picture, you can see that my head stayed straight. Hence, I have stabilized my upper body. The other great thing is my club is straight at the peak of my swing. YES! Now I need MORE PRACTICE!