Lesson With Troy Charles

Written on 7-12-19.

     Belinda and I are on a United Flight to Dulles, and we are about to have a long weekend with Guy, his girls, and Bev, the surprise guest of the weekend.  Originally, it was just going to be a brothers’ weekend, but Bev recently retired after 33 years at Verizon, so she had some time and some money, so she asked and she’s already there ahead of us.  We are so glad she asked!

     We flew out of DIA after spending the night at Mom and Dad’s last night.  They took us to the airport early this morning.  Emily was planning to stay for a crazy short time last night, too, but she felt she had rested enough on her flight home from New Hampshire for business that she decided to just head straight home instead.  Bummed we missed her.

     We did, however, get to visit with some friends at...

Tavern Littleton last night.  Darrell, Colin, Joe, Tammy, Jim, Tonia, and Mark and Missy were able to come, and it was great.  Colin was the odd man out, in a way, because it was more of a high school reunion than a college one, but I’m really glad he got to come, and he smiled, laughed, and told some stories.  Tonia had three glasses of wine, and maybe more, so she got a bit gushy about what a saint I was in high school.  It was funny, but she was sincere, too.  She wanted Belinda to know what a wholesome man she had, but Belinda didn’t need to hear it.  She knows me so much better than a nearly drunk Tonia ever could.  Darrell and I also invited Troy, Paul, Dan, Alan, Eric, Joy, and some others, but nobody else could attend.  I told them that I had my video golf swing analysis with Troy when I visited the folks over the 4th, and that will transition nicely to golf this time.

On to golf…

     After spending an hour with Troy, who generously gave me a free video swing analysis at his Golftec Academy in Lakewood, I’ve made some changes to my full swing.  I did my best to not be overwhelmed with information, but he gave me so much information anyway, and I don’t know how else he could have done it.  So many things to analyze.  He showed me nine different positions in the golf swing, and he has data on all of those positions and their averages from the tour professionals.  It’s been up to me to filter through it all myself.    

     I’ll start with the positive.  He liked what he saw…mostly.  Impact position looked awesome, he said.  When I showed him my driver swing, I blasted one of the first drives, and it carried nearly 280 yards and stopped at around 288, so he said why would I want him to look at that.  It even had a slight draw that started on the right side of the target line and stopped a bit on the left side.  What could he do with that?  The only tip for the driver swing, he said, was to keep my head behind the ball more.  That was very encouraging.

     For the other swings, though, my iron swings, he wanted a major change, so that’s what I’ve been working on at the range at Pinon Hills since I returned.  

     My first big change is “hands to the wall.”  If I have my butt against a wall at address, he wants my hands to swing around behind me and head towards that same wall.  It feels really “flat,” but he said he doesn’t even like that word flat.  What it does is give me a larger shoulder turn.  

     Along that same line, though, was the part of the lesson that blew me away.  I am pretty sure I understood this part correctly.  He was okay with me not putting most of my weight on my right foot on the back swing.  Huh?  I could reverse pivot if I wanted?  I don’t shift my weight from my right side to my left side as I swing through?  He said it’s more about staying centered over the ball.