First Lesson with a Pro

[taylorjonasher]

My family gifted me four lessons with the course assistant pro for Father's Day, and had my first one this morning. I walked away feeling much more confident with my driver than I showed up.

Having just met my pro - Drew - we went over what my big problems are what I wanted to accomplish. I let him know that I am currently struggling with a two way miss with the driver, but leaning towards a hard cut with a  random snap hook for no apparent reason. Turns out the biggest culprit was alignment. I've been aligning myself too far right (the adjustment felt like I had my lead foot halfway down the third base line), and I've been subconsciously compensating by coming over the top in an attempt to bring it left. A simple shift half a shoe left pretty much corrected most of my issues; I'm hitting it straight to a 10-12 yard cut off the tee after this morning. Additionally, the feeling of "dropping" my hands into the slot behind me, keeping my butt down, riding my hands and the clubhead along a hula-hoop and twisting the clubface shut with my left hand (I do this for my irons, but not so much for my driver) got me further on plane and staying behind the ball, sneaking in a few draws. These are things that I had worked on myself over the winter, but fell away from as the season opened up and not being able to put as much practice in. It was great to reawaken and validate these concepts, as my swing feelings and corrections have all been self-taught up to this point. My swing wasn't as broken as I thought it was, and being able to self-diagnose the issues from the ball flight is a huge confidence booster.  

The 45 minutes beating balls under the supervision of someone who knows what they're doing was incredibly valuable, as I walked away with a few cues and indicators of what I have been doing to generate my shot shape. I'm excited to put the concepts into play on the course and continue to work with him and improve. 

How many other people have had a similar experience with a pro? 

[cnosil]

7 minutes ago, taylorjonasher said:

 

How many other people have had a similar experience with a pro? 

I’d say this is generally what happens with a lesson. There are exceptions,  it this is why it is recommended to take a lesson and not chase things via YouTube.  

[cksurfdude]

23 hours ago, taylorjonasher said:

I walked away with a few cues and indicators of what I have been doing to generate my shot shape. 

Don't know if you're a note taker, but for me it's really helpful (for the old not as good anymore memory recall) to jot down the key concepts and drills from a lesson to refer back to later.

Do you have a plan for the next lesson, e.g. the next weakest part of your game?

But sounds like the first lesson was really productive and wow it turned out to be a really great gift!!

 

 

Edited July 10 by cksurfdude

[taylorjonasher]

35 minutes ago, cksurfdude said:

Don't know if you're a note taker, but for me it's really helpful (for the old not as good anymore memory recall) to jot down the key concepts and drills from a lesson to refer back to later.

Do you have a plan for the next lesson, e.g. the next weakest part of your game?

But sounds like the first lesson was really productive and wow it turned out to be a really great gift!!

 

 

We had a discussion at the end with the key takeaways: Alignment, drop the hands into the slot, maintain posture! This post will act as my notebook for now - this is a great idea though! We didn't set an agenda together, but I want to work on my toe misses and lower my low point with the irons; I don't take much of a divot. I'd like to hit down on the ball more than I do now - my ball flight and spin on strikes that I actually hit down and through are what I want every time. After that two putting sessions should round things out, my short game already bails me out of most situations that I get myself into!

[Rob Person]

That's fantastic that you were able to walk away improving !  Also awesome of your family!

[NM01]

On 7/10/2024 at 12:25 PM, taylorjonasher said:

but I want to work on my toe misses and lower my low point with the irons; I don't take much of a divot. I'd like to hit down on the ball more than I do now

Working in the swing should fix your toe strikes. Work on a better swing not focusing on a result of a bad swing.

The notion of hitting down on irons and up on driver is something that needs to die in golf swing talk. Hitting down or more down than now is the incorrect way to approach trying to improve. If you work on your swing you will have the proper aoa for your swing