Mike412

It wasn’t the mirror that helped as much as “feeling” of my swing. I would go through my swing and stop in the downswing at club parallel to ground. Seeing the position of the club head, shoulders, and hips in the mirror allowed me to close my eyes and swing and “feel” how I was getting into those bad positions. For me my shoulders were sliding towards the target as they rotated which was causing an extreme out to in over the top swing which apparently I was doing an astounding job of recovering from at contact lol. That move was also causing my hips slide away from the target. I was also getting lazy with my wrists and allowing the club head kind of follow the grip instead of consciously making it catch my hands at or just after contact. I have focused on making a mental note of my back should at the top of my back swing and then trying to replace it with my front should on the follow through with a tight rotation around my spine. Couple that with being more aware of club head lag and it has been night and day difference.

I have felt like I was on the verge of really good golf (for me) all year. I felt like my iron and wedge play was really good and putting was decent. However, the driver has been absolutely atrocious, and I don’t mean errant, I mean topping it with the ball bouncing 2” in front of my tee and having to take my second shot from behind the the forward tees and that if I was lucky enough to not have water or extreme rough directly in front of the tee box. It has been absolutely miserable. Tried a lesson, and informed him of my on course struggles but he insisted we work on irons because “whatever is happening in your driver swing comes from the iron swing”. While I don’t disagree that wasn’t what was adding 10 strokes per round. But he did improve my iron play and I learned some things but nothing that fixed the driver. I was still playing TM r7 irons that I bought knew and was planning to get fit for irons in the fall which I did. I told him I was playing at a 20+ handicap but that if I could drive the ball I feel like I would be around a 12. So he started the fitting and a few shots in he told me the way I strike the I should be in the single digits which confirmed my thoughts. He told me I was very steep and tried to help to no avail. With this new knowledge I went and started swinging without a ball with my eyes closed and in a mirror to try to feel what was happening. A lightbulb went off. I identified two big moves that was really bad for driving the ball. Went to the range and the improvement was almost immediate. Played 18 on New Year’s Day, driving was amazing with the exception of 1 OB, but with that instead of my typical low 90’s I shot an 83 and that’s with my chipping costing me 3 or 4 strokes that it typically doesn’t. I am pumped for the possibilities in 2023! TL;DR: Struggled bad with driving all year, finally had an epiphany and dropped 10 strokes seemingly overnight.