I went out and shot 130 balls last night. The good news is that I woke up this morning with just a little pain in my left shoulder but that was it. The bad news is that my driver shots were absolutely horrible. They were consistently going straight off to the left. The only good part being the consistently.
I was thinking about it when I went home and it occurred to me that I was keeping my left arm straight at address but probably reverting to my old bad habits when I was impacting the ball. Which would turn the club face and thus give me the bad direction. So I figured I needed to work on holding my arm straight through the shot.
I got to the range this morning to try it out and, wow, it was far far worse. It not only felt bad, but the ball was now hooking severely. Still consistently, which is good. But the shot was completely unplayable. I'd have to address the hole at a 90 degree angle off my left shoulder to play that shot.
So I hit the web. Turns out the whole "keep the left shoulder dead straight" is a load of crap. None of the pros do it. So why was I trying to? Because a far better golfer than myself looked at my swing and told me to. Ok. But I didn't heed the advice of another golfer who just days later told me that it really wasn't so important.
Lesson of the day. A swing needs to feel good and I should be confident enough with my swing to figure out for myself if the advice I'm getting will help or hurt.
Posted by jherr at October 25, 2005 07:52 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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