The Golf Lesson: 3

I had my third lesson with Mike at Golf Galaxy today. I told him I shot a 94 last week and my drives were around 170-185 these days. He didn’t seem all that surprised, but when I told him I wanted to focus on short game stuff for this lesson, he raised his eyebrows. I suppose I’ve been so focused on getting longer that chipping and pitching seem like an afterthought. But I know my short game needs work.

Mike said, “Okay, let’s start with your sand wedge.”

I went into my bag and got out the club marked U, which is my shortest iron and the one I use to hit out of bunkers.
“That’s not a sand wedge, “ Mike said.
“It’s not?” I said, genuinely shocked.
“Don’t you have a club with an S on it?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “I use the U club for sand and the W for 75 yards and in. I thought the U was the sand wedge in my set of clubs.”

Mike then reached for an actual sand wedge among his clubs. He showed me how a real sand wedge has a different edge at the bottom. It’s not flat to the ground like my U club.

“That gives it bounce, right?” I said. “ I have heard of that.”

“Right,” Mike said. “You need to get yourself a sand wedge.”

Since I didn’t have a sand wedge, we used my U club for the lesson. I showed him the two techniques I typically used for pitching and chipping. One is like a regular iron stroke, where I vary how far I take the club back to control the distance. In the second technique, I stand facing the target at a 45 degree angle, with my heels together and toes pointing out slightly from each other like a duck. My husband taught me the second method. It seems to work well for him.

Mike showed me another way. He could see that my duck feet were an attempt at an open stance. But he said that wasn’t really an open stance.

“Imagine a door,” he explained. “Closed would be your hips and feet parallel to the target line. Open would be your hips and feet swinging open toward the target like a door.”

He showed me how opening my stance limits how far I can take my arms back. This will give me better control on short shots. For the longer pitch shots, I don’t need to open my stance as much, since I need to take my arms back more to hit farther.

The other main point is to keep all my weight on the left throughout the shot. Also, on shorter shots, arms stay straight, and there is no wrist hinge. On longer shots, I can let my wrists hinge for more power.

Using this new technique, Mike had me practice short, medium, and long pitches. The toughest thing was resisting the urge to shift my weight from right to left. On one of the medium shots, Mike held up a plastic tube about waist high and said, “Okay, now try and hit the ball over the tube.”

I tried, but the ball veered to the right and hit Mike right in the crotch. He put his hand up to block the shot, but not quite fast enough. He flinched, then laughed. I laughed too, in embarrassment.

I don’t know when my next lesson will be since that was the last of a three-lesson deal. It probably won’t be anytime soon, since I have a lot of pitching and chipping to practice. But if I do take another lesson, I’ll have to remind Mike to wear a jock strap next time.