I was waiting on the practice tee at Harbour Town Golf Links for my first lesson after lunch. Little did I know that it would turn out to be a lesson of a lifetime. The story you are about to read is true. Scout's Honor — and I am an Eagle Scout.
My teaching spot on the Harbour Town practice tee was the last spot on the right. I was standing, setting up my camera, when a couple drove up on a cart. A lady jumped out and introduced herself to me as my next lesson. She was very petite, about 5'1', and could not have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. She introduced me to her husband and said he would like to stay and watch the lesson if that was OK with me. I always prefer husbands, when I teach wives, or a parent, when I teach juniors, to watch because the spouse or parent know what we talked about and worked on so they and be a help later on.
The lady, I'll call her Pam, (not her real name to protect the innocent) began to tell me her problem without me even asking. She said she was hitting it terrible and had lost her swing. I asked her if she had changed her swing lately and was working on something new. She said she had, and when I asked what she was working on she said that, rather than describe it, I should just watch her and see for myself. With that, she grabbed a club and hit a ball. My eyes bugged out as I could not believe what I saw. She rolled over another ball and I saw 'that' swing again. If you told me you saw 'that' swing and described it, I would say you were lying. I could not believe anyone could or would swing that way. She hit another ball with 'that' same swing. I finally was able to speak and said 'STOP. I have seen enough. In fact, I have seen too much.'
I said that I had only one comment. 'I think your backswing is a little long, in fact quite long.' The husband responded to her. 'See. I told you so.' As he was saying this, the little lady jumped forward and gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek while saying, 'Thank you, thank you. I was hoping you would say that.' My response was to ask her that if she was hoping I would say it was too long, why was she still swinging that way? 'Because my pro told me to and I wanted to get your opinion,' she said.
My next statement was something along the line of, 'Your pro told you to swing like that? To hit your left butt in the backswing and then hit your right butt in the follow through.' (That's right. I did say she hit her butt on each cheek on each side of the swing.) I asked her why he would say that, as I never had heard anything like that, never mind ever seeing a swing like hers.
Pam said that she had a short backswing and, for the most part, really hit it pretty good, solid and straight, but she felt too short. So she went to her pro and told him she wanted TO GET MORE DISTANCE. (NOTE: The dreaded and evil 'gotta have more distance.' Hitting it solid and straight is not good enough.)
She said her pro's first and only comment was that her backswing was too short and needed to be longer. He explained that the longer the backswing and the follow through, the farther the club travelled. The farther the club travelled the more club head speed she would generate and thus hit the ball farther. He concluded that the maximum swing length would be for her to swing back all the way to where she tapped herself with the club head on her left 'cheek.' And then, to max out the follow through, she would swing to where she tapped her right 'cheek.' Her last comment was that, despite hitting it poorly, she was concerned 'because in swinging, I could not just tap my butt. I only can slap it and it hurts.' My comeback was, 'A PGA Pro told you make a swing that long and to tap your butt on both sides to know you were making a full swing?' She answered 'Yes.'
I said OK. Let's fix this swing. I mentioned that I heard her say her old swing was short. I told her that I believed in a limited turn ¾ backswing. She said 'that sounded like the swing I had.' So I said 'Let's see it.' Pam proceeded to make a close to perfect PPGS with her 7 iron, with good balance and with what I felt was a good and controlled power level. I watched her make around 5 or 6 swings, all the same 3/4 backswing. I then said it was time to test the driver. She said no problem and teed it up and made a pure ¾ backswing and hit a solid and straight drive. Pam was smiling, as well as her husband, when I said the lesson was over, except for one more point I had to cover.
I went into my 'distance is dangerous' lecture. I can't count the number of players I have worked with who had good swings and hit the ball relatively well, in terms of solid and straight, and ruined it by looking for more distance. I then went into my, 'You are what you are' lecture. We all have only so much strength and power and we have to accept that. Looking for distance is the number 1 way to destroy a good swing. Hitting the ball solid and straight is, and should be, the essence of what all golfers strive for in ball striking. I believe it is, but only gets warped out of shape when 'DISTANCE DELERIUM' takes over. We have to accept our limitations and play within our means, like we have to live within our means.
The answer is that, sure you would like to hit shorter irons to greens and hit par fives in two, but that is not you. So you have to first work on hitting your longer irons, hybrids and fairway woods better. But most importantly, you have to work on your short game to become a wizard at getting it up and down and putting the dimples off the ball. Short game is all about touch and feel, so every player can do it. Power is not the issue. Hitting it shorter and staying in play is the name of the game. Hitting fairways and greens is better that playing army golf (left'¦right'¦left'¦right) and looking for balls in the rough and woods and loosing them in the water.
I close with this Surgism for those players who feel like they need more distance.
Hitting it solid and straight is not a bad fate!
The Surge!