About a month ago I bought a voucher on Cudo to get my swing analysed at Golf Tec. When I arrived there I had to fill out a form so they could get an idea of my experience and ability. Of course I’m just starting out so I didn’t rate myself highly and I also have no idea of my handicap, other than using a free app to enter a score which tells me that the estimated handicap is about 36.
I met the coach and he got me to start out hitting some balls while he watched and recorded me from the down the line view. I was standing on a regular putting mat and in front of me was the large screen projector, displaying a virtual driving range. Surrounding the sides were dividers and walls which enclosed me in and stopped the ball flying away if I hit it badly. Above me was netting to stop the ball hitting the roof.
The good thing about this place was although it’s a simulator, you still have to hit the ball into the screen which then records and calculates your shot, showing how far the ball would go on the virtual driving range. It then gave you the distance and various stats, including your angle of strike and club head speed. Overall I felt that I was doing ok, even though I was only making small swings.
After hitting a few shots the coach got me to sit down and then showed me footage on an Ipad of Adam Scott hitting a shot from down the line. Then he showed me footage of my swing and asked me to spot what the differences were. I said that straight away my back looked very curved. He said yeah that’s exactly right, your back being curved is causing alot of issues with your swing. Also during my swing, the club was going very far behind me away from my back. He showed me the side by side with my swing and Adam Scott’s swing. Looking at them showed the massive difference in the posture of our swings. My back was very arched and hunched over, with little to no bend in my knees. This was causing my swing plane to be very flat. But there was some positives also, my follow through was pretty good and didn’t have any issues there.
What he got me to then do was to assume my normal stance, and then stick my butt out and straighten my back. I could immediately feel the muscles pulling in my thighs and how weird it felt to be in this stance. Next the coach got me to adjust where my swing was so that when my hands were at eye height, the butt of the club was pointing to be inline with the ball. When I brought the club up to the top of my swing, the club head was much closer to my head and it felt like a much steeper swing compared to before.
The coach then got me to practice hitting shots in this stance with the swing. I had done some practice swings, but when I tried to hit the ball I was mostly topping it. He said not to worry as this will take a lot of practice to get used to, as I’m trying to unlearn my old swing and fix my bad habits.
A drill for practicing bringing up the club in the backswing was to assume the posture with my butt sticking out leaning against a wall. Then make backswings and the ensure the club doesn’t hit the wall. He got me to try this for a few minutes and I pretty much kept hitting the wall and thinking this was really tough. I didn’t manage to do one backswing without it touching the wall and so I will have to continue practicing this at home.
The 30 minute lesson was over pretty quickly and we did a a recap of what to practice. Then I had an hour to have a free hit or play a course, so I just kept hitting on the driving range for almost half an hour and practicing what the coach had shown me in the lesson. During that time my best shots were between 150 to 160 metres with the 6 iron. I kept hitting balls to try and ingrain some consistency and to keep going over what I’d learnt. Once I got tired of hitting the shots on the driving range, I moved to playing a golf course in Dubai. Of the 15 holes I played, I could barely hit a decent shot at all. Most of the holes I was scoring double par, which was disappointing. From this experience I feel that in practice I’m not concerned about the shot and so I’m more relaxed and hit it better. But when I’m on the course and it counts for score, then I’m more tense and care about the result. This causes me to hit poor shots and lose consistency.
At the end my back was pretty sore and I was exhausted, as I was hitting for an hour and a half. Overall it was a great experience and to have a lesson and then one hour on the simulator for $20 was amazing value.
