A common issue we have around DRH, no matter what we tell ourselves, is that our care level about actually playing golf drops severely throughout the winter. Jon will still regularly push to try and play or hit some balls, and generally has more ambition. Tommy stops almost completely as documented in his Winter Golf Blues post here. I’d say I fall somewhere in between. Hell, I even went on about how much I don’t care about playing golf right now on Episode 1 of That Range Life – A Show Sometimes About Golf. I mean, I’d love to get out and bang a ball around the course, but I sure as sh…’heck’ don’t care if I shoot a million. But that all changed as we enter the middle of February in Chicago. As of today, I’m officially motivated to play good golf again.
As you all know, I’ve been on this wild pursuit of fixing 7 years of wedge yips for awhile now. Well, good friend of the progremme, Dave Wheatley, put me in touch with a new online coaching platform called Golfin (content coming in the future, stay tuned) to help save my life salvage my wedge game. Why not? While I’m progressing, I still suck horribly with the wedges so I’ll try anything. So I sign up with Golfin and get matched up with world-renowned short game coach, Andy Gorman. Andy I touched base early last month for our first consultation where I shared my woes with him and he assured me, “don’t worry, mate, we can get you back where you need to be, I’m sure of it.”
I’m Back!
Ok, my wedge game isn’t back, but my actual desire to actually play good golf again is back.
My discussion with Andy left me with hope and a few insightful things to have in mind when I hit the range next and get him some video to review. That feeling of hope didn’t last long… (Side note: turns out Andy is based out of a place just down the road from where I go in England for the day job. Small world, eh?)
I recorded some videos as directed by Andy. Hit a few good shots, a few ok shots, and a few absolute trash shots. Whatever, that’s what we’re here to fix. So I sent the videos to Andy and awaited his feedback/insight.
A little time passes, and alas, Andy provides the feedback I was both dreading and craving. He did a great job giving me both positive and constructive feedback, but the truth was, I hated what I saw and knew I was a mess. So many things I was doing were exactly I’ve been actively trying NOT to do with my wedges. But tangibly identifying that feels like 95% of the battle for me right now.
Within this video though, Andy made a few points that I felt could generally apply to my swing as a whole. It felt like a whole new world of possibilities all over the golf course could open up to me with a lot of focus and work. Now we’re onto something.
The Road Ahead…
Ok, so I actually think the road to salvaging my wedge game is going to be shorter than anticipated after going through this first phase with Andy. That said, some of the concepts he mentioned may take more time, but I think the results will pay off. One thing pointed out to me in my videos was that I was doing this weird thing where my arms were hanging in such a way that my hands were so close to my body that they were pointing back to my ankles instead of a little forward. So gross. It was preventing me from having enough room to get my hands through as well as many other resulting issues.
This issue with my arms had me setting up too close to the ball and lifting the toe of the wedge a million miles in the air. In the video, Andy comments, “I don’t know if you do this with all of your clubs, but don’t.” (In so many words.) Now, I don’t think I do, or at least as bad as I do with my wedge, but it’s a great thing to focus on in the future. I think it will help me with my setup BIG TIME, but it’s going to feel super weird for awhile.
There was one more thing. As mentioned in previous wedge yips posts, my weight at setup was so heavy on the right side that I was swaying and had terrible hip rotation. The whole weight transfer thing is something I’ve realized I need to cleanup throughout the bag, but this video really highlighted the concept. I’m hoping this insight will pay off for all my clubs, but it too will take some major adjusting.
Time to Finally Play Good Golf Again
I’ve been through golf swing “things” in the past. They’re never easy and the bad habits are so hard to break. How bad can it be, though? So I don’t go out and break a few course records this year? Right, that wasn’t happening anyway. May as well give trying some big changes a shot. What I AM confident in is that they are fairly simple things that could have a huge payoff in producing a consistent and reliable swing and strike. If that means my whole season is devoted to just that, so be it. I want to get it figured out and play some good golf again instead of being the inconsistent golf-blog-writing golfer that I currently am.
Anyway, I’m surprised I’m saying it in February, but I’m super motivated to get better all of a sudden. It feels better to have something tangible to work on this year. It feels good. I’m sure I’ll sound different two months now when it feels like I can’t hit a ball. For now, I’m riding the wave of optimism and dying for the spring weather to hit.
