Entering unchartered waters
I’ve been a self-taught golfer for my whole golfing life. Mostly because of limited financial resources while raising a family but also due to having some success in golf relative to the amount of effort expended. I always attributed this to being one of those people just born with the natural ability or skill. Now role the tape forward.
Over the past eighteen months or so, that so-called ability has just not materialized into a whole lot more, in spite of the fact I play more now than in prior years. In fact I have felt my game going the other way, worse rather than better. I’ve lost approximately a club to a club and a half in distance and just am not striking the ball as solidly as I used to. So with the beginning of a new golf season, I decided it was time to change my ways and seek professional golf help. Yes, I said it – professional help!
So yesterday evening I went for my very first, paid golf swing evaluation. I went to a place called Golftec to see if some of the same tools that the pros use would help with my game.
They are running a promotion on their 90 minute swing analysis and describe it as a fact-based diagnosis, motion measurement and a proprietary tour player database. Sure enough, they attached a bunch of sensors to me and recorded video of my swings with a 5-iron. Seeing yourself in a video is quite revealing. You don’t look like what you think you do. Here I am.
See what I mean?
The high-tech lesson actually lasted the whole 90 minutes and was very informative and comprehensive. A number of suspect areas in my swing were identified complete with side-by-side comparison with tour pros and an audio critique. Pretty cool. A “lesson plan” was created at the end to help me with practice to correct those items. The program also includes a web site that you can visit to re-view the video and commentary, and lesson as well other useful tools.
All in all, it was a very valuable experience. Although the value will need to demonstrate itself in the form of results. And to make sure I give myself a reasonable chance of improving, I went to the driving range to work on a couple of things right away. I can’t tell you that there were immediate positive results, but I’ll stick with the advice and give it a chance.
