Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

So you want to shoot a 72. You want to cure a slice or a hook. You want to get consitency with your golf swing. Well so do I. I have recently added becoming a scratch golfer to the things I want to be good at. With this portion of my web log I hope to inspire others to realize that golf isn’t a sport that only a select few can be good at, or a sport where you have to spend thousands on a teaching pro to help you perfect your swing and cure that slice. Rather than spend all that money I am going to take a different approach. I plan on finding a good resource (I actually have a great resource which I write about below!!!) and then I am going to build consistency into my swing and become a scratch golfer (thats a person with no handicap, aka can shoot par or better.)

I plan on showing that you don’t need a ton of crazy training aides, or even the perfect clubs to fix slices . Rather I plan on becoming a scratch golfer by building a consitent swing throug praticing good technique. I also must mention that I don’t have all the time in the world. I work a 40-50 hour work week, I have other activities that I am trying to perfect, hobbies that I can’t do without, and a girlfriend who would probably move out if I spend to much time working on my game. So with that I hope you will stay with me as I work to become a great golfer and I hope that you will become inspired by seeing how I work through lowering my score.

First a brief intro to my golf game, and the book and methods that I plan on using to save it…

From the start I just want to say that I am by no means a great golfer. Like most people who play I have my good days and my bad days. I currently shoot in the high 90’s to low 100’s on a bad day and in the low 90’s on a good day. I took about 5 years off of playing through college and after graduation and before that really only played about 15 times a year during high school and middle school. I now live in a Hawaii and I am able to play year round on some of the worlds most gorgeous courses so I decided to add golf to my list of what I want to become good at, also I want to try and do it without spending a years salary on a teaching pro.

I started at the beginning of the summer of 2005 so that means I am working towards becoming a scratch player by the year 2008. I am now 23 so that would require me to accomplish this by the time I am 26.

To expand further on my abilities I’ll give a brief history of when I did play during my teens. I actually started when I was a bit younger but didn’t play much let alone think that I wanted to become a scratch player. So I’ll begin in middle school where I basically played with 3 other guys who were relatively athletic (one of which is currently a scratch player.) We all started out as you would expect slicing, hooking, duffing the ball all over the course. As I have mentioned before I had a bit of a temper and I hate not being good at things so I would get a bit upset. As two of my friends got better I would get more and more upset at making the same mistakes. I never really practiced but just expected to get better.

Finally my anger culminated into breaking a 7-iron across a tree and I believe bending a 9-iron the next time out. That was it. I decided from then on to not keep score (which didn’t last), and not care about how I did which did. Just enjoy being out with my friends. I started to wear knickers, installed a walkman with a speaker in my bag, and just go to be different. It worked, I enjoyed it more, but only played about 10-15 times a year.

During my hiatus from golf I didn’t think about the game much and I surely didn’t think of becoming nor want to become a scratch golfer. I had golf clubs so a lack of equipment wasn’t stopping me. I knew that someday I would take it up again, but didn’t think I would ever want to become really good. (I think people who are scratch golfers are really good.)

Well, times change and now I want to be a good golfer. As I mentioned earlier I started golfing again at the beginning of this summer. My first time out I had a few good shots and ending up scoring around 110. A true weekend duffer score, but a start at any rate. So I began going to the driving range once or twice a week, and getting out on a course once a week. My scores started coming down and I have shot in the low 90’s a couple of times with my best score being a 90. But… I still shoot over 100 (or 50 for 9 holes) every now and then.

After the first few times out I decided to really focus on my golf game and build consitency into my swing. If anyone has ever been golfing before they know that everyone you play with usually will have quick fix for whatever ails your golf swing. If its a slice that needs fixing you’ll usually here close your grip more and move your right hand further over (for you righties). Or maybe you just need to move your left foot back, there that will fix you slice. Or the ever popular aim left and use your slice to your advantage.

All these fixes might be good in the short term, but unless you’re playing with a teaching professional who knows a fix rather than a bandaide chances are the problem will just rere its ugly head the next round of golf you play. What you really need is a swing the is consistent. A swing that will always bring the face of the club back to square. With a bandage on the probelm you’ll just create more headaches. You’ll never be able to diagnose your swing. You won’t be able to feel what you did wrong. In order to build a consistent swing you have to find a sorce that simplifies the swing and breaks it down at the same time. You need to have specific points to think of while you practice to burn the motion into your muscle memory. Only then will you get a consistent swing.

In order for myself to do this I decided to search out a good source. Being short on cash I did what everyone does these days, I scoured the internet. After reading through some interesting articles I didn’t find anything that was really cohesive. A lot of the articles focused on fixing a slice but none of them talked openly about swinging where you can feel what you did wrong.

Then I found
Swing Machine Golf.

Although the price is a little daunting for a book $70, I feel that it is the only one I found that is worth paying anything for. The theory behind the book is to copy the only perfect swing there is, the Iron Byron. Modeled after Byron Nelson, who was said to have a machine-like swing the Iron Byron was built to test golf clubs, and was built to swing the club the same way every time to get accurate results between diferent clubs. You might think it has dials and switches and feedback control galore, but it has none of this. Built in 1966 for $250,000 the iron byron has a motor that rotates and arm that has a free swinging hinge for the golf club to sit in. That’s it, and there’s the simplicity I was looking for.

Swing Machine Golf itself is loaded with pictures that break down each portion of the swing. I mean lots of large color photos. The other nice thing is that with all the information that the book contains the author breaks the swing into three main parts, the backswing, the stance and the follow through. He then takes the only three things that the Iron Byron has and shows how they apply to each part of the swing. That way when your out on the course all you have to do is remember three things; forward tilt, wrist hinge, and body rotation.

This isn’t a shameless plug for the book, and I make no money for you going to the link above for the book. I can honestly say that within the first week at the driving range after practicing the positions (although the author says not to do this) I began to actually feel my swing. By this I mean I could feel what I was doing wrong and within a ball or two fix it. My first time out on the course I drastically improved and for the first time shot both the front and back 9 under 50.

Since then I have been up and down with my scores. Mainly this is because I haven’t had the same focus as I did within that first week. Well, now I plan on regaining that focus and I plan on becoming a scratch golfer. As I mentioned I will be tracking my progress within this section of my web log. I will be posting my scores with a description of how I played along with what I did wrong and how I fixed my problem. I hope to supply tips that others can use while they’re out on the course. Tips to think through your swing rather than having someone tell you to just close your grip and that will be the end all fix to your slice. Join me as I work towards becoming a scratch golfer.