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Checkup Leads to a Cure

Returning to the instructor to fix what’s wrong is often the best treatment for an ailing swing.

By Greg FloresPublished: October, 2005

Dang Nguyen, 29, is a novice golfer in search of a better game. He’s receiving regular instruction from Jason Taylor, the Southern California PGA’s Golf Professional of the Year. We’re monitoring his progress.

ang Nguyen is in his ninth month of golf instruction and is consistently shooting rounds around 100. As a father, husband and man with a career, he has found it difficult to devote as much time to instruction as he or his instructor, Jason Taylor, would like.

“My schedule is wacky,” Nguyen said. “With my work, I get to play a bit with clients, so I get the chance to play, but my time for lessons is limited.”

Last month Nguyen slipped into a rut that all golfers experience. He was making poor contact that resulted in a loss of power. Luckily, he has developed a decent short game to keep his scores in check, but he desperately wants the sweet sound of a well-struck shot to return. After struggling with his own attempts at fixing his swing, Nguyen returned to Taylor for a checkup.

“When your swing goes extremely bad, it’s typically a flaw in ball position, alignment or posture,” Taylor said. “It’s the same for all players. In Dang’s case, his feet were severely open. His aim was more than 50 yards left of the target. This led to his shoulders being wide open as well. This affected his swing path and his ability to make solid contact and resulted in a lot of weak shots hit to the right.”

After a few swings, Taylor had the train back on the tracks.

“I squared him up and he made an immediate improvement in a matter of just a few swings,” Taylor said. “From the position he was in, there was no way he was going to get compression. Once he got back in line, he could feel everything click back into place.”

For Nguyen, it felt like a burden had been lifted.

“It was a huge relief,” he said. “I was getting frustrated and the harder I tried, the worse I did. I needed Jason’s trained eyes. We went back to the basics. I made some half-swings with a 7-iron and I could feel the club release. It felt good.”

With that, Taylor feels Nguyen is ready to make another leap in his growth as a golfer.

“His short game has improved. It’s what kept him going when he was hitting it bad,” Taylor said. “Now that he’s hitting it more consistently, I think he’s ready to make another big drop in score.”

Nguyen can feel it, too.

“It’s so close I can practically taste it,” he said. “If I could have hit the ball like this the last few rounds I’ve played, with the way I’ve putted, I’d definitely be back in the 90s.”

Taylor said it’s time to see Nguyen again on a consistent basis.

“This is the time when he needs those fundamentals ingrained,” he said. “Consistency is important to Dang’s improvement right now. Every player would benefit from more instruction. You could see it in Dang. As he tried to troubleshoot his own problems, he got more and more frustrated. If players just went for a tune-up every six weeks to check the fundamentals like ball position, alignment and posture, you really won’t ever hit it that crooked.”

Jason Taylor can be reached at Jurupa Hills Country Club at (951) 685-7214.

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