Golfmosis

I know I said in my very first post that I wasn’t going to spend much time on personal stuff. That is still my intent….however, personal experience is sometimes different than personal stuff, at least that’s my attitude today and I’m sticking with it. I say this because I thought you might enjoy hearing about a gift I recently received from my Wife and Daughter for Father’s Day. FD morning 2008, I was handed an envelope with the word “Daddy” written in crayon on the outside. It’s still strange to see something addressed to me labeled “Daddy” as my first is only 18 months and has only been talking for 6 of those. I went almost 40 years praying that no one could call me Daddy….now it’s about the coolest thing in the world. Inside this envelope was a gift certificate which entitled me to a one day golf school at the local Jim McLean Golf Center. Expecting a green fee or a $25 gift card to any of the 4 golf super chains in the area, you can imagine my surprise….and fear. It hit me very quickly that these guys weren’t going to be the assistant club pro or the old guy down the block that meets you at the range for $40 to see if “we can work some things out”. These guys were state of the art serious. The more I thought about it, the more apprehensive I got. We had scheduled a 5 day road trip to the beach the week following Father’s Day so I knew that I would have plenty of time to come to grips with the prospect of having my “finely tuned golf swing” dissected, chopped, cut and rebuilt. I played one round of golf on that vacation and shot a 79. Sub-80 is really good for me, especially on a course that I had never seen. Ok, so I play new courses from the forward men’s tee. Sorry Ladies, I know the tees in front are supposed to be called the forward tees (gender neutral so as to be PC) but I don’t know any men that play from the front and almost all the women golfers I know do. Hence forth on this blog, the tees closest to the hole will be known as the Lady’s tees. More men should probably play from these tees but that’s a topic for another entry (coming soon!). By the way, I’m all for women playing from further back, as long as they can do it without being slow. That goes for you men out there as well. If you’re gonna play the tips, light a fire under it! So I shoot a 79, beat the crap out of the two doctors I was paired with and then start to prepare for my lessons. Over my last 20 rounds, I’m an 11.4 handicapper. Not bad. Could be better. I figure I must be doing something right to get around most courses with those types of scores. Ever been wrong? I have. Lots. But possibly never as wrong as I was when I made that assessment of my golf swing.

As soon as we got back, I called up the JMGC and scheduled my day of golf. It would include 1 hour of biomechanics assessment, 1 hour of club fitting and 3 hours of lessons with a JMGC Master Instructor. A break for lunch was mixed in there somewhere. On a bright shiny Thursday morning in July, I was met in the parking lot by the biomechanics technician and manager of this particular JMGC. He took my bag and led me to a well lit room draped in black cloth. Several machines were present along with a 50 inch plasma TV mounted on the right side wall. Little did I know at that point that I could hate a TV so much. After letting me warm up hitting some 5 irons into the dark curtains, Justin (JMGC man) hooked me up to several electrodes. One on my head, one in my glove, one on my hip. I’m sure there were others but I don’t remember where they were. There was also a belt around my waist that had a wiring harness coming out of it. Sounds uncomfortable but it wasn’t bad actually. I hit several more balls wearing this apparatus and then Justin had seen enough. He was a pretty low key guy but he almost seemed alarmed. He showed me some numbers that had come up on his computer and explained to me what they meant. I kinda got it but I’m a visual person so it wasn’t until he played back a video of my swing that I understood the gravity of what had happened. I’ve watched enough golf on TV, Instructional shows on the Golf Channel and have read enough Golf Digest to know what a decent swing is supposed to look like. I think you know where I’m going here. Mine was not that swing. Almost nothing about it was that swing. To add insult to injury, before fully process the horror that was my swing, he split the screen and put a video of Adam Scott right beside me! ADAM FREAKIN SCOTT! At that moment, I think I felt like the guy on the nude beach with the smallest genitalia and no towel to use for cover. Lots of words came to mind. Hopeless, demoralized, embarrassed ….etc….etc….you get the picture. In a situation like this, the only way it could be worse is if more people see it. Well, guess what. None other than Jim McLean walks in to talk to Justin. JIM FREAKIN MCLEAN! What the hell is he doing here? Doesn’t he live in Florida? Of course he can’t help but see my side by side going on in HD on the wall. After discussing with Justin for about a minute, he turns to leave the room and says something to the effect of “Try to hang in there”. Thanks Jim. Now back to work. After being told that my hip flexors were made of cement and my right ass cheek was trying to play a different tee box, some excellent adjustments were suggested to put out the immediate fires. Very unnatural feeling adjustments but necessary…oh so necessary. We spent the rest of our time in the Vader room trying to establish a swing thought or technique to help keep me in a better position during my backswing. I’m sure there was more that needed to be addressed but after all, this was only the 1 day school. With some well wishes, Justin passed me off to the club fitter. He was setting up the launch monitor on the range so I just hit some balls to warm up and talked with him about nothing in particular until he was ready. I’ve been on a launch monitor before but nothing like this one. It was manufactured by a Danish company that uses radar technology derived from a missile tracking system. Once again, very high tech. He asked me to hit some six irons for the machine. Armed with my new posture fresh out of biomechanics, I confidently set up and smashed a high draw right at the target. “This is working out great” I thought to myself. He asked how far I normally flew my six iron. “I’d like to say 160″ I replied, “but realistically I’ve lost some distance since I turned 30 so it’s probably more like 150″. One hundred and thirty two yards. 1 STINKIN hundred and 32 yards. My totally smashed 6 iron traveled 132 yards in the air. How could this be? Humbled once again, I was told that the Master Instructor would have some suggestions on how to increase my distance so, not to worry. We determined that my current irons which had been fit for me at another establishment were adequate and my driver was fine. I hit some more balls off a lie board and then we went up to the shop to flatten the lies on my irons and talk hybrids.

Lunch break.

Met the Wife and Daughter for a bite to eat. Put on a good face. Didn’t let them see the panic. Threw up after lunch.

Back at the range, Joey greeted me in the members area. Joey didn’t look like a Master Instructor….but he was. He had me hit some six irons…..hey…what is it about 6 irons? All the demos and club fitting irons are six irons. Never my favorite club. Oh well. He didn’t really offer any advice, just watched and filmed from back and side. After about 15 balls, we took the camera back up the hill to another darkly decorated room with a hitting bay…..and a TV. He plugged the video camera into a computer on a desk at the back of the room. He showed me my swing in super slo-mo…OH FUN……and then sat me down beside him while he drew lines on the images to show me where things should have been. The good thing about my situation was that there was no doubt or debate about where my shortcomings were. No sir……pretty obvious. Even with the most excellent adjustments made by Justin, I still needed a lot of fundamental work. We spent over an hour in the bay just taking ½ swings on the correct swing plane. Once I got into a little bit of a groove, we went back out to the range and I hit some more balls while Joey wrote up some notes and drills for me to take home. We ended the day working on some putting. Much to my surprise, there wasn’t much wrong with my stroke. I just needed to work on my green reading and alignment. Joey had few tips and then we were done. They all waived and said good luck as I made my way to my car. Hot, and exhausted, I drove home and slept well.

Two days later I went to the range to practice my new swing. I had done my drills each night before bed and was ready for the improvement to begin. I sucked. That’s the only way to put it. I’ve never hit the ball that badly in my life. Worse yet, I bought the large bucket which only prolonged the agony. I just can’t leave a range ball I paid for in the bucket. Over the next few days, I fought off the almost overwhelming urge to quit golf for good. I finally settled down, did my drills and went back to the range. Different range this time. Bad karma at the other. Whether it was the Great Golf Pumpkin watching out for me or just dumb luck, it got better. Not very consistent but there were glimmers of hope starting to appear. I mishit a lot of shots, but the ones I hit solidly were some of the prettiest I’ve ever hit. Distance was improving as well.

Here we are a month after my very eventful and …um….informative day a the JMGC. I’m better than I was. Getting better all the time. It was really a difficult day physically and mentally but my final take is that it was all worth it. If you really want to get better and look good doing it, save your change, get a part time job, sell some old clubs. Whatever it takes, get to the nearest golf school and strap it on! I’ll bet you won’t be sorry.