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 Is that possible? Can a person set his swing down somewhere and forget to pick it up? If so, I know where I lost mine: Wisconsin. In the southeast corner of the state, to be more precise. I moved to Orange County about seven years ago from the Milwaukee area and my golf swing wasn’t among the possessions I packed in the back of the Ryder truck. I remember feeling it slip from my grasp. I was a 10-handicap and played about 60 rounds a year, which, in the upper Midwest means May-October. I was on the range one day and shanked a few irons and suddenly I was clueless. I went from a power-fader to a snap-hooker. I went from a guy who loved hitting woods to a guy who hasn’t pulled one out of the bag for about six years. I went from a guy who was close to leaving the 80s behind to a player whose handicap is probably in the 30s — if I bothered to keep score and played more than a few times a year, which in this part of the country means January-December. Golf went from enjoyable to confusing, but it’s time to get the love back. I’m starting over, and since I don’t feel like going back to Wisconsin and digging through the snow for my swing, I’m putting my game (or lack of it) in the hands of Erik Horve, director of instruction at The Golf School of Tustin Ranch. I told Horve — the 2005 Southern California PGA Metro Teacher of the Year and 2005 SCPGA Club Fitter of the Year — to break me down and start from scratch. While hypnosis won’t be part of the package, lessons, drills, practice sessions, video monitoring and clubfitting will be on the agenda. “The motion of the golf swing is influenced by grip, stance, posture, aim, alignment and ball position,” Horve said. “We’ll start by examining those areas and come up with a game plan from there.” Eventually, we’ll get into the motion of the swing, which will be Horve’s biggest challenge. I’m as over-the-top as they come and I cast the club on my downswing like a world-class fly fisherman. This should be interesting, and our ebbs and flows along the way will be chronicled each month. Hopefully, you’ll get something out of it, too — without the public humiliation. “As long as you can train yourself to do things the correct way through lessons and practice, and then trust yourself out on the course and stick with it, you’ll eventually see improvement and put it together,” Horve said. “But it’s hard. You need to fail — a lot — at first before you see progress and eventually succeed doing things the correct way. So you may feel like you’re getting worse before you get better.” Trust me, it can’t get any worse than it is right now. |
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