Short Game Lesson 21st July

The main focus of the lesson was the short game: chipping, putting and the short 35 meter pitch.

Chipping:-

My observation of Benny during our playing lesson was that he has too much weight forward in his set up. Combine this with too much forward lean of the shaft and Benny is not getting the true loft of the club, resulting in low running shots making it very hard for Benny to control the speed.

Benny implemented the changes successfully; he now has a softer, more controllable ball flight.

Putting:-

In a previous posting I attached a video of Benny’s home practice drills. This was meant to improve his stroke mechanics. There has been a significant improvement in his stroke, but his speed control is still sporadic .

Putting is like a game within a game. It has very different mechanics to the full swing. It has little, to no body motion and the energy comes from the forearms, wrists and a little bit of shoulder. Benny, like 90% of golfers has too much body motion in his stroke.

Hence the problem with his speed controls.

Pitching:-

Another area in which Benny is not performing to his full potential.  Benny has the ball coming out on too low a trajectory, caused by not enough upward motion in his back swing and as a result Benny is not getting the correct angles into the ball.

Enjoy the short video below:

On- course Lesson July 11

Wow!! Benny is a new man.

 The session started  by my teaching Benny how to best do a pre-round warm up.

Firstly, he warmed up with his new wedge game system these are shots between 30 and 70 meters, followed by some full wedge shots and then some 7 irons. He finished with a few drivers going thru his pre-shot routine.

Benny had a lapse half way thru the warm up by turning it into a technical swing session. I quickly stopped Benny and reminded him that this is the time to warm up to get the rhythm and tempo for the day and not the time to be working on his swing.

He now needed to warm up the short game by hitting some sand shots followed by some speed putting and finished with some short putts. Once again running thru his routine Benny was now ready to play.

We played the first 6 holes at KDE and Benny was great. He had 6 bogies and managed it easily.  His routine was great and I was working hard with him, taking him thru the shot selection process. Making the right decision for the shot at hand, Benny is improving in this area.

Where to from here?

Short pitching, chipping and putting is the focus for our next lesson on Tue 21st.

We need a big improvement in his chipping technique and I have some drills for him to work on. His putting is improving, but he still needs to lift to another level and the 30 meter shot has improved, but I am expecting more out of Benny.

Benny has never experienced this level of control on a golf course before and it is great to see him playing golf as I know he can.

Stay tuned this is getting exiting!

Benny’s Lesson 5 July 2011

 

 As I mentioned in my previous article, the areas of focus for the month of July 

are developing a wedge and sand game while also continuing with the development of his putting.

 The lesson commenced with a discussion of Benny's stats.  I explained to Benny that we are going to add three customized stats to his golf game program plan and they are:-

1.     G.I.R. (greens in regulation) for wedges.

2.     Chips inside 6 ft.

3.     Putts made inside 6 ft.  These are key statistics for us to concentrate on.

 In the first part of the lesson I put Benny thru a 3 ft and 6 ft putting drill, I needed to observe him.  He was tentative and this was resulting in inconsistent speed, he was also struggling with the aim of his putter (pointing left).  Benny has to concentrate less on his shoulder alignment and more on the putter face. His homework is to practice aiming his putter face first and allow his body to aim around the putter face.

  Onwards to the range to demonstrate a wedge game system of how to hit a variety of shots from 30 to 80 meters. I firstly showed Benny a number of the different techniques available. He needs to develop his distance control and was very successful implementing all these different techniques.

 During the next part of the lesson I explained to Benny that the average length bunker shot is between 10 and 12 meters. Our goal was to master the technique of performing a bunker shot to make it travel 10 to12 meters. Once again he did really well with these attempts.

 The lesson concluded with  a summary of what I wanted him to practice and for the first time Benny is now starting to see himself accomplishing these goals .

 My focus to date has not been so much on Benny's scores, although I have been monitoring his statistics closely.  I wanted to concentrate on the foundations and teach Benny the skills he is going to need to play to the best of  his ability.

 So many golfers spend their golf career looking for the over night magic fix that does not exist.

 A very productive lesson.  Next week we are on course again and I am going to teach Benny how to best perform a  pre-round warm up.

Stay tuned

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