Getting the Season Started

Written on 3-7-21.

        B and I drove to Bayfield today for lunch at Chavolo’s, just for a change.  We took Misty and Kody with us, and we are parked in the parking lot at Bayfield Intermediate School now parallel playing.  Not parallel parking, but parallel playing.  She is reading The Survivors by Jane Harper, and it’s obvious what I am doing.  Life is great.

On to golf again…

When I played at Pinon Hills last, I played with somebody named Wes.  His son is playing for Tom Yost on the Piedra Vista golf team.  He was very polite, and we had fun together.  I hope to play with him again someday.  He was pretty good, and he earned a birdie on the tough #8 par five.

I earned two pars, one on hole #2 and the other on #6.  Those are both super scores for me, but the one on #2 was nothing short of spectacular.  My drive found the fairway, but it was short of the 150-yard marker.  Pinon Hills now has black and white striped poles in the middle of each fairway at that yardage, and those are great for aiming points.  My approach was low and left, and it ended up in the back end of the bunker over there, a long pitch from the green.

This next shot was...

The Drills That Helped Me the Most

Written on 3-6-21.

        We’ve gotten a lot done today, and included was to announce at the Aztec’s volleyball game at 3:00.  This was their first match of the season, and it’s March.  Normally, this would have happened in September.  Better late than never.  Kelly’s daughter, Kacee, got to play today, also, so it’s a beautiful thing.  Soccer, football, and other sports are also ramping up, and I am sure that all of those kids/athletes are thrilled.  Is this more of what could be the beginning of the end?  More people are vaccinated now, but we still have a long way to go.  Who knows if this will end soon?  God knows.

We are going to Mom and Dad’s this coming Friday.  Bev took them to get their second dose yesterday, and then she called B and me on her way home.  She is so glad that we will be going and staying for more than just a few hours.  She said Mom was...

A Golden Lesson from Chandler

Written on 3-4-21.

        Happy birthday to my big sister, Bev!  We did get a chance to talk on my way home from Newcomb.  I also sent a text right away this morning (very early for me at around 6:30 AM) to send her a birthday greeting.  It was early, because I was getting ready to go to work.  My sister is 57 now.  Whoa!

I got two gifts today in the golf world.  My new GGA (Graves Golf Academy) grips arrived, and they were around $75.00 due to my Gold Membership, so I am counting that as the birthday gift from Mom and Dad.  Thanks, parents!  

The other gift is a video lesson from the Chandler himself, the head guy at Graves Golf and the leader of the Gold Membership Program.  I have tried to emulate his swing often, so I am curious about his feedback.  Here is a summary of his advice for me…

First, he complimented me on the work I have done with holding onto the lag in my downswing.  It has improved to a point just before impact.  Almost there.  I release a bit early, but he said, “All in all, a much better job.”

For the next part of the lesson, he is using Moe for comparison.  He says the address position is looking pretty solid, but he would like me to relax my trail arm and not make it so tense.  He says to “soften it up.”

The next tip is that I should never have space between my legs when I get to the top of my swing (Moe never does).  The space should get smaller.  My lead knee should go in, and it actually goes out, or at least it was doing that yesterday when I took the video.  That forces my head to go forward a little bit and my spine to drop a smidge.

In the next video, he compares my swing to Todd’s.  Wow!  I have Big Moe and Li’l Moe as my examples.  Cool!

In this video, he is showing...

Use the Chopstick Drill, Shallow the Club, and Have Pelvic Thrust?

Written on 3-2-21.

        I am watching my video lesson (at McCoy during a break), and I am getting feedback on another drill I sent yesterday.  They do give feedback right away, which it great.  I went through each position, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 this time.  Todd says if I can do this correctly, I am very close to getting the single plane swing down.  

At position 0, Paul Tessler, my virtual coach for today, is telling me to make my lead hand face the target more.  He can see too many knuckles.  I am not sure how I can fix that if my hand is on the club using their grips.  Hmmmm.  If I put my hand on in the right position, it should be correct, right?  

At position 2, I went too far.  We should be able to see my trail elbow from the face on view, and mine goes behind my body.  From position 3 to position 4, I stopped rotating, and I just used my arms, wrists, and hands to go to position 4, and he is telling me I need to keep that lag I have created and rotate more at that point.  

My trail hand is supposed to be non-rotational, right?  When I stop rotating my body, I rotate my trail hand instead.  Keep rotating my body at that point.  This sounds like what I was trying before with the big muscle body turn and hands to the wall.  If I can just set up correctly with this swing, I can do the same thing.  Just turn and burn while keeping my hands in their proper positions, and they will go where they are supposed to go.    

From the down the line view, he is telling me I need a little more forward bend with my upper body, and my feet are not quite square to the target line.  My feet are slightly open, he says.  They look parallel to the target line to me, though.  I raise my body up right at the top, and then I go down into my lead knee.  It doesn’t have to be so dramatic up there (my words).  He wants me to send in another video of the chopstick drill.  We can clean it up if I do that correctly, he says.

Later tonight back at home, I just watched the Weekly Training video with Trent White called Shallowing the Club, and I learned that I need to finish high with my hands.  That was the feeling Moe had when he felt he was pulling the flagstick out of the hole after each shot.  From what I learned this morning, I need to figure out how to get from lagging to a high follow-through.  I plan to go to the range tomorrow to video my swing after all of these drills.

I watched the Pelvic Thrust video next.  He shows a nifty drill to help keep the pelvis in the right position like Moe did.  Bring a chair up after addressing the ball, and then feel your bottom on there.  On the backswing, feel your right cheek on the chair, and on the forward swing, feel your left.  It’s a great way to keep your body in the proper position. 

The more I keep my head back, the more my hands will rotate and get my club face square!