Range Practice
Great day at the range today! I worked on two things:
- Flattening my down-swing
- Driver reps
Flattening my down-swing
I have always come over the top of the ball and play a fade. I have to compensate by aiming left and letting the ball fall back to the right. Recently I’ve been hitting a horrible pull shot (especially with my long irons and woods) which heads straight OB (like #18 on my last round).
I’m not necessarily anti-fade, but I would like to have more control and be able to fade or draw the ball based on the situation (right now I can hit it straight or fade, no control going left). This is particularly important to me on my approach shots as anything over 125 yards I don’t seem to have the control necessary to get on the green; I often miss with a pulled shot or the ball fades too much.
I used a great drill to encourage a flatter downswing by setting up my two alignment sticks. I wish I had taken a picture, but I’ve quickly sketched the setup here.
I used the first stick to straddle with my feet, ensuring that I’d stay perfectly on-line. The second stick was angled from left to right to discourage my clubhead from comnig over the top as it usually does. This forced me to keep my hands shallower on the down-swing and rotate through the ball.
I didn’t draw the ball dramatically but had a consistent 1-5 yard draw from my lob wedge all the way through my 7 iron. It is going to take a lot more practice to really nail that motion down as it is definitely not natural for my swing. Regardless, it felt great and looked great coming off the clubhead as well.
Driver reps
I knew today needed to be a big driver day. I chose not to play driver at Hunting Hawk because of lack of reps and practice. I played the driver yesterday out of necessity - if I didn’t have time to hit the range I’d have to figure it out on the course. I decided to hit a decent number of shots with my driver, and I probably got 25-30 through.
I did the same down-swing drill with the alignment sticks and also used a taller tee. For me it doesn’t feel like I can get the left to right club path, counter-clockwise ball rotation out of my driver unless I get that ball farther off the ground. If the tee is lower I almost always hit a low, left-to-right sweeping fade after coming over the top in my down-swing.
I have had a lot of trouble finding the middle of the clubhead with my driver. I haven’t typically played the ball this high off the ground with my driver before but I feel it is necessary as I am trying to straighten it out. I watched a great video from Chris Ryan golf on ball striking a few weeks ago that talked about how most issues with ball striking can be resolved with practice and developing skill. Technique is important, but ultimately you need to learn to find the middle of the clubface.
The first ~5 shots came off super high, with my impact at the top of the club face. By my last set of drives I was hitting the relative middle of the club face with misses coming inside and outside versus up. With a few more sessions I think I could be fairly confident with this tee height going into my next round.
Seeing that improved ball flight from my wedges and irons was amazing. I have a ways to go to cement that swing technique into memory but this was a good step forward. It was also to spend some quality time on my driver.
I was telling my buddy that I went to the range with how addictive the marginal improvements of golf can be. I will never have a perfect round of golf. I might hit an assortment of perfect shots but there will almost always be a marginal improvement that can be made. According to my scorecard I am the same golfer I was in high school and yet I play the game much differently. Each time I play is an opportunity to put a strategy into action, collect more data, and form an improved strategy for my next session.
I’m hoping to get out to the range at least once this next while we have some good weather. My brother is coming in town tomorrow so there is a good chance we will be playing golf again soon with him around. I need to keep up this good momentum!