My Swamp Experience

[krpainter]

I left last Friday morning for the swamp after shoveling out of 6+ inches in the morning to make a delayed flight out of Baltimore. When I reached Atlanta it was sunny and beautiful...finally made it out to the golf center about 2:30ish. Yoda was waiting and I got to meet him and Ted (aka Luke the Nuke). We went up and did some initial filming and also got to see Ted hit a couple driver shots, which was the early highlight of the day (unbelievable how far he can hit it with the minimum motion he has -- he is a pure hitter and it almost looks like a 3/4 swing -- but doesn't sound like one!). The first thing I found out after viewing the tape was that I was loading for swinging on the backstroke, but hitting on the downstroke.

We headed down to the range and spent a painful couple of hours working on precision allignments (Yoda referred to it as an exorcism of sorts). Yoda had me make the following changes:

1. Change alignment to be more open to the left of the target---I would set up right of the target and thinking I was perfectly alligned but when Yoda would step into where my feet where and I would step back and look sure enough it was directly right.
2. When soleing/grounding the club I should do it lightly and more towards the toe (line the sweet spot of the club up on the ball and then let it drop to the ground which puts the clubface closer to the toe where it touches the ball).
3. BIG THING -- my head was leaning left at address and through the swing (right eye dominant) so this was the difficult thing to get used to setting up with a vertical head.
4. Right shoulder should be more back and left shoulder more forward (shoulders were pointing to the left).
5. Left hand grip should be more on top or vertical to ground.

I said painful because I would hit, Yoda would correct and then I would hear him say "setup and do it again"....over and over again until it became natural. The whole time I was not making solid contact with the ball at all.

When it was close to getting dark on Friday, the master started putting every thing back together again (he definitely had a timeline and a plan). He had me get out the driver and use the precision allignments we had gone over. Once I got into the allignments I just made a motion and the most incredible thing happened -- I WAS CRUSHING MY DRIVES!! I have never been able to hit a solid, compressed, and straight drive in my life...not on the range, not on the course, not anywhere, but Yoda had me saying "that's not me!" after every long drive.

I met Yoda and Luke the Nuke for the traditional Yoda breakfast at Cracker Barrell on Saturday morning. When we made it to the range on Saturday morning, we worked on extensor action, forearm tracing, and feeling PP#3. The last couple of months I had heard of PP#3, but never felt it conciously until Yoda had me directing it downward (to China as Ted says!) to the ball and I could actually feel it. I was hitting the best 8 and 5 irons of my life. I struggled with my hybrid 3 iron and driver on Saturday, but I feel I am definitely on the right track towards good golfing.

We finished up on Saturday with a short game session. I learned several different chips for different situations around the green and a new putting style. We went on to sand shots and that was where I was once again truly amazed at Yoda's teaching ability. I only knew 1 sand shot before which involved some sort of motion and some prayer. Yoda told me what to do and then I would swing and produce a long sand shot, then a medium sand shot, and then a high soft short sand shot...the amazing thing was he would tell me what to do but not what to expect, and then I would hit it long out of the sand he would say "thats your long sand shot"...it was simple adjustments that would dramatically change the result based on the shot you want.

Bottom line is, Yoda is the best instructor I have ever seen or heard. I am currently a 23 index and I left feeling like I was allready a 15 index (my goal for this year)...and I haven't even played a round this year!! Yoda and Ted (YodasLuke) are 2 of the nicest guys you will ever meet, and they sincerely take an interest in your improvement...not just filling time till the next lesson. When I was hitting the best drives of my life on Friday night, Yoda was smiling more than I was!!!

During some downtime in the instruction, I got to watch Yoda hit some irons and a driver and it was pure joy to watch his swing. I can't wait to make it back down there, especially since its snowing again up here! I am maybe the only student to ever get lost from the Cracker Barrell to the swamp (very short trip) but I hope Yoda will let me come back down!

Keith