Alignment Golf - First Week
 

Since there is no Alignment Golf forum I thought I'd post here. I got the videos earlier this week and have been on information overload trying to absorb it all. I've had two short range sessions and lots of hours of watching the video and swinging a club in the house. Tonight I played a round of golf (lighted golf course) with the information I worked on after watching the tape.

While I didn't shot the best round of my life, I had a good round considering I made major swing changes throughout the week. Tonight I hit at least a dozen GREAT golf shots. I'm talking about the golf shots you see on highlight films and the memorable shots you file away and rely on to build your confidence. Before the dew started gathering and the fog/mist started rolling in I was sucking back the ball anywhere it landed with the short irons and wedges. I even sucked the ball 5' back and off the green with a full 125yd pitching wedge shot. 6 irons shots were just stopping dead from 175yds out. While the driver wasn't perfect, it was much improved. The pulls are almost gone but I didn't hit any pulls that would kill people on the other fairway (I credit VJ's rope drill.) The contact was SOLID. I could here and feel the the compression happening.

Club distances were a little down (5-10 yards per iron) but I figure that will come when these new swing pieces become more ingrained. I find myself reverting back to my old methods at times mainly with the driver or when I was at the max distance of a club. Alignment and ball placement need to be re-tuned.

While I didn't play my best round, I KNOW I'm on to something here. It's exciting to see these results without very much practice. A dozen plus highlight shots in one round??? This DVD ROCKS!

Another Pilgrim On the Road
 

Great stuff, D0ntell.

:cheers:

You're on your way now. Stay with it . . .

This stuff works!

:golfcart2:

Can't wait for mine to arrive. I've stagnated between 13-15 for ages and have great trouble with swaying and especially bobbing. Last few weeks i've been totally concentrating on keeping the lower body still with the weight almost staying on the front foot with a fair tilt at address. Sort of hitting. Desperate measures for a big long term problem. This DVD will hopefully give me some good clear aims and goals with the swing.

I MUST get rid of excess movement or i am doomed. Glad to see the DVD/DVD's is/are so promising for you.

John, I think you're going to be excited. I stagger around and do a bunch of other things too but I started with trying to educate my hands. What I'm finding is that the if the hands are doing what they are supposed to do the rest of the body has a chance to actually do what it's supposed to be doing - atleast for me.

My golf game is a lot like the "big wheel" on The Price is Right. I can spin the wheel and some shots are good and some are bad and most are okay but they are all over the board. The DVD's are like the cheaters guide to figuring out how to spin the wheel for consistency.

I've worked hard over the last 6 months on pivot and #3 PP and keeping my head still, and getting my weight shifted fwd, and all these other key swing pieces. The DVD's show you how to put that all together. You can work on all those things (and I have) and still not get much better - you gotta understand the whole package and how each part does something different. The DVD's give you that information.

I have Ben Doyle's GOLF video. Way to advanced (IMO) for someone who doesn't know what TGM is or has a good understanding of TGM. In it he talks constantly of "educating your hands" but I never knew what that meant. I always knew there was something key to the golf swing in the hands and major rewards to be had if you can educate your hands but there was really no way for anyone to explain this to me. The DVD is explaining it. Contrary to what a lot of people/Instructors (non TGM people) say those hands are more important than just hanging on to the club... I think in the future when I go back to his DVD there will be a lot of information in there that I will be able to understand.

A lot of the things I was doing in my swing were/are compensations for what my hands were (in most cases were not) doing. There's a lot more parts of the swing than the hands and they are critical too but for me my hands are causing a lot of the problems my other components are compensating for.

They say Rome wasn't built in a day and I assume my swing can't be rebuilt overnight but it really speeds up the timeline when you've got construction plans and heavy machinery. :D

Update - 2 weeks
 

Since this was Christmas week, I haven't been able to get to much DVD watching or practice in. Top that off with the rain, constant changing temperature and the 10-20+ mph winds and it has been near impossible to get out to the range or the course. Today I got a chance to go to the range.

Spent most of the time chipping and putting on the practice green. With a flat left wrist it's really hard to duff a chip! Out of about 60 or so attempts, the only duff I had went 2yards not 2inches. Putting was pretty nice too.

The real fun was with the driver. I've been doing a little in-house practice with the bungee cord around my left shoulder, the rifle drill, and the little rope drill (shown by VJ.) Out of about 30 balls, I had only 2 pulls, 1 slice and 3 hooks. I was pulling the heck out of the driver a couple weeks ago. One thing I noticed (felt) is that I was focusing on the shoulder and I started letting the left wrist cup a little. That's a pretty easy fix as long as I can stop coming over the top. As a matter of fact I pushed a couple balls today, that's something I haven't done in a long time. The best part - no killer pulls, no super slices, and no duffs....

We've got a new cold front coming in tomorrow and a high percentage of rain forecasted for the next couple of days. Looks like I'll be practicing a lot of indoor putting and chipping.

Great Job
 

It's really fun to hear about your new found success and excitement about your swing. You can't go wrong learning from Alignment Golf. Please keep it up, you are doing a great job!

Kevin

Ag
 

When you guys write about rain and those things keeping you away from practicing, it brings another benefit of AG. There is 16" of snow in Minnesnowta so getting outside is out of the question. However, we can get to our basements and chip a la VJ and Yoda. I find I can really focus on each pressure point for a small given period of time. For a hack like me it is like making new, reliable friends.
Thanks for this wonderful resource.
:)

It sucks living in an country where the courses are playable year round. No forced practice.

I can turn down a drink, but not a round of golf.

Ignorance
 

Why in the world do you live in Minn? Do you just like wool. Why not try South Carolina

Week3
 

Week 3 saw two golf outings. Since I'm sick and it's going to rain the rest of the week I figured I'm done golfing this week. Hit some good shots but had several doubles and 2 dreaded max'es throughout the two rounds. One of the maxes was on a par5 where I refused to take my medicine and play for bogey. Instead i tried to hit that 1 in 100 super-magnificent 2nd and 3rd recovery shot hoping to pull off a miracle. Instead I simply dug a bigger hole each time....

The driver was hit or miss literally. On the first outing, the driver highlight was a short par4 290yds. Slight wind to my back and I drove the green. Missed the 30' eagle but got the birdie. Had a couple of other good drives but in yesterday's round I lost 5 balls off the tee 2 with the woods/hybrids. :crybaby: Most of it was due to my lack of patiences for a 5 hour round and having to wait 5-10min on each tee box. I started off well par, par, par and then we ran into the backup. #2 and #3 are very tight fairways and I normally don't play the driver on them but stripped both of them with the driver. After that, I just fell apart.

One thing that seems to have caused me a lot of strokes was my wedge, short iron and chip play. I couldn't get anything to stick on the greens. It was low 60's both days and my buddy said it was because my balls were too cold. Both times, I had left them in the car the night before and the temp was in the 40's overnight. I'm not sure if that was it but literally nothing would stick or backup on the green. If I could have got the balls to stick my rounds would have been a LOT better. If I would have played smarter and played the shots for roll out instead of thinking "oh this one is going to stick" I probably would have scored a lot better. Stupid pride... Oh well, all in all I'm on the right path and I'm pretty pleased with what I'm learning.

I'm still throwing the right shoulder out instead of down. Not as much as i was but I'm still doing it especially when I'm using the longer clubs. I'm going to focus on making that a thing of the past. Also got an impact bag yesterday and I am working with that.

Back to work next week so I guess I'll be done updating for awhile.