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Pretty excited about it. I went to this new range for the first time that's pretty much off the beaten path, and they had an ad for the teacher there. He's the Director of Instruction at the Jim McLean academy at Chelsea Piers in New York among other things, and his credentials look fantastic (he's also been on Golf Academy Live on the Golf Channel).

I went to the range this morning and bumped into him, seems like a really nice guy, and set up a time for tomorrow. $50 for a half hour, too, which isn't that bad for a teacher of his quality.

I've been through the usual ups and downs and have "fixed" this, fixed that, only to have lose it, get it back, and lose it again. Through it all I think I know enough about the swing and about my game to be able to benefit from a good teacher, or maybe a better way to put it is that I feel I'm in a position to really be able to understand what he's going to suggest, etc.

Looking foward to putting together a plan for progress instead of constantly trying to figure out what I'm doing on my own.

i expect a complete breifing of youur lesson. good luck with your lesson.

Will do!

That's really exciting. I've been wanting to find someone to have a look at my swing and maybe tweak a few minor problems that surface from time to time, but I'm just not sure what to look for in a teacher. I don't want some schmuck who's going to try and change my swing into his "little project", if you know what I mean.

I really want to hear how your lesson goes. Good luck.

Ok, so I have been remiss in updating about my visit to the teacher, who I've seen twice now, so here goes.

So the first lesson, I think I basically hit one ball in the first 30 minutes. The rest of that time was spent telling him about my game, my tendencies, talking about theories, concepts, books, players, teachers, etc. It was really cool in that it confirmed for me that, although I may not swing the way I want to all the time, I have a lot of swing theory down, along with terms, etc.

So, we got to the swinging, and I told him I just wasn't comfortable with my takeaway/backswing. I said I felt like I knew what a good position at the top was and how it felt, I just wasn't comfortable in getting there (if that makes any sense). So he gave me what he felt was a good move to the top, which was not laying the club off so much and being a bit more upright on the way back. He said the way you could check is that if the club feels heavy, it's off plane, if it feels light, you're fine. Sounds simple enough, and I guess it is.

Then he confirmed for me that I was regripping at the top, or letting loose with my left hand grip. So he gave me a drill to work on, which was simply putting a dime under the fat pad of my left hand and hitting balls. If the dime falls out, you've lost your grip with your left hand somewhere. That worked, too.

So, second lesson, he had me hit some pitch shots. SH*NK. SH*NK. Ouch. I'm glad he saw it though - he said I was shanking because I was losing the angle of my wrists and coming outside on the way back down to the ball. So he placed 3 balls down at an angle pointing 45 degrees away from me and had me hit the middle ball. If you hit the outside ball, you're coming outside, if you hit the inside ball, you're coming from the inside too much. Simple, effective:

l
l . . . *
l . *
l*
l

l is the targer line, hitting toward the top of the page, *'s are the ball. I was trying to hit the middle ball. (periods don't mean anything, had to put them there to get the spacing right).

Then I hit two nice big ol' fatties right in front of him. I always thought I hit fat shots because I was swaying with my hips, ie laterally on the backswing. No, no, he said - you're hitting it fat because you're losing the L-angle of your wrists and forearms too early on the downswing, aka casting. When you cast or hit from the top, what you're doing is making the downswing arch larger than the backswing arch, and the result is that your club will contact the ground earlier = fat shot. The drill he gave me was very interesting and worked *WONDERS*. We had a contest - closest to the 100 yard marker with a 6 iron. Laugh if you want, but try it - it's hard!

In order to keep the 6 iron that short and that low, you have to take half swings and maintain that L relationship between your wrist and forearms - that's how you keep the ball low. In other words, you have to make sure your hands are in front of the ball at impact. You also have to shift your weight.

The cool thing about the drill was, you can tell exactly what you're doing wrong. If the ball starts off straight and fades, your swing path is ok, but the clubface is open. If it starts off straight and turns left, your path is ok, but the clubface is closed. If the ball starts out right, your swing path is from the inside, if it starts out left, your swing path is from the outside, etc.

The cool thing is, when you're swinging slowly, ie with a 6 iron at the 100 yard marker, not only can you tell by the ball flight what you're doing, you can feel it, too. If you're blasting away full bore, you can't. It's cool, because you go through the whole range of shots - some go right, some left, some fat - and you can tell each time what you did wrong. By the time I got to hitting them solid and straight consistently, I took a full-swing at a 6 and BOOM! Crushed it.

Great drill, great teacher. I've learned more in the past 2 weeks with him than in the past year on my own. Good stuff!

That's some good stuff. I learned a couple things there too. Are you going back for any more, or are you going to work on your own for a bit?

I just laid out some dough for a series. We're really working on fundamentals, and I like this guy a lot. Had a tough session at the range yesterday, but I'm going to commit myself to working on things with this guy.

Congrats on that find, sounds like you are back on track again though. Golf is def. one of those sports that you seem to move backwards to go forwards. Keep up the good work, keep the spirits high, and you'll see the payoff soon enough.