My left arm’s doing something odd ...

My left arm’s started to do something odd. No, correction – my arm’s started to feel odd. I think, actually, that it may have just started to do something right.

It’s sort of changed direction. Just after impact. It used to chicken-wing, the elbow bending towards the target. Now it’s not.

Did I say just after impact? That’s a ridiculous thing to say. How do I know when it started? All the evidence, indeed, suggests it happened before impact. Hence my cuts and slices.

Now my elbow seems to be staying straight. Two feet beyond impact, my arms are still in their ‘inverted triangle’ shape. Before, the left arm always tugged the triangle out of shape.

And as it did its chicken-winging, my whole left side, from the hip to the shoulder, used to stand up. Now my left side…

… oops, sorry about this. Nothing more boring than the analysis of someone else’s swing (and, of course, nothing more fascinating than the analysis of one’s own).

It’s interesting though (is it really though, Tony?!?) that all this seems to be happening while I’ve been editing the chapter on chipping for the ‘Golden Rule’. My chipping seems to be realigning itself. And realigning my long game too.

All very odd. And, I’m 99 percent convinced, all very right.

When is a chip not a chip? And when is a golfer actually a glofer?

I used to obsess about the long game. Chipping and putting just didn’t do it for me. I know, I know – “scoring is all about the short game”. In which case I wasn’t interested in scoring. Just striking.

Fundamentally, though, I thought I was already a pretty good chipper. I just needed to put in the hours, that’s all. I could do it already. I was just a bit rusty.

How wrong can you be?

Since my last visit to Knightsbridge Golf School (KGS) – and what with the rain and wind and dark evenings - I’ve spent the last few weeks on my chipping.

Not practising. I always think that word suggests just doing more of the same, while hoping for better results (that’s Einstein’s definition of insanity, isn’t it – doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result?).

No, I try not to practise. I try to change, or refine (in my case, still a lot more changing than refining). Trying to chip differently. Or, more exactly, trying to hit the ball properly.

It’s been a revelation. Until spending an hour on the short game with Dave Lamplough at Knightsbridge recently, I used to chip using my arms and hands. There was no body turn, just a bit of body slide. And it worked. Sort of. Some days. Some holes. 

Basically, I could not chip. It was more a chop, or a chap, or a chep. As in I still don't play golf, I play glof. An approximation of what I am supposed to be doing.

Now I’m basing my chipping on a body turn, no independent arm or hand compensations and a small downward press of the right hand to compress the ball. It feels better and it sounds better.

And, of course, this does not merely apply to chipping either. It applies to the impact zone in my full swing as well.

So a chip is not a chip after all. It’s also part of the full swing.

PS Oddly, learning to chip is affecting my long game as well. It’s making me want to be more precise. And by turning through and beyond impact, rather than sliding, my left arm feels as if it is doing something completely different. It feels as if my left arm is not chicken-winging through impact any more. Instead, it’s staying straight and helping to retain the inverted triangle shape of the arms and shoulders.

According to the new KGS book, provisionally entitled “Golf’s Golden Rule”, this is good. It should be more accurate as well as powerful. I’ll let you know the results when I next get the time to play a round. When it stops raining.

On dishonesty, excuses, self-pity, unfairness and shock

Okay, okay, it’s true. I haven’t been totally honest – that’s with me, let alone you. I’ve not told the whole story of what happened the other day. I suppose I haven’t come to terms with it yet.

Basically, I had a shocker. I’m still in shock, in fact. I’m bewildered. I’m still trying to grasp what happened. After three months of consistent improvement, I crashed and burnt.

I went round my home course in 17 over.

And that after parring the 1^st, 2^nd, 7^th and 14^th – four of the six toughest holes on the course and where I’d readily accept a bogey.

I can find excuses, of course.

It was brass-monkey cold, for instance. The greens began frozen hard, then began to thaw wet and soft. Their pace seemed impossible to read. But I still began with three pars and was three over after seven.

So I’m still in shock. I mean, I’m sure my ball striking is better than it’s ever been. I feel as if I’m a better player all round than I was a few months back. I’m confident I’m on an upward trend. But 17 over is 17 over.

More excuses? Well, my new chipping method, as I last posted, was wonderful in terms of technique, yet poor in terms of distance control. I also missed a bunch of short putts. And on the 6th I hit my drive about 80 yards along the ground after forgetting to smash off the layer of ice encasing the bottom of my shoes.  

Worst of all, I unforgivably lapsed into self-pity on the 18^th when was seemed an okay-ish drive ended up out of bounds – unannounced, the OB markers had been shifted 20 yards further in on that particular day. “Unfair!” I grumbled, on my way to a bitter, frankly-I-don’t-give-a-damn  quadruple bogey (of course golf is unfair, Tony, it’s how you deal with it that counts, surely you’ve learnt that by now?)

But I’m still shocked. I mean, I know so much more about my swing now since teaming up with Dave and Steve at Knightsbridge. I understand my faults and foibles. I’m tightening up my technique by the day. I should be threatening to hit a 75. How could I possibly shoot an 87?

Adam, my 8-handicap partner, must be asking himself the same thing. He just couldn’t handle the greens, then, on the par-four 10^th, he hit both his first ball, then his provisional out of bounds on the way to a 10. I shouldn’t think he’s scored so badly on a single hole for the past decade.

Oh well. Last night my overtired daughter burst into tears after struggling with Maths homework. I heard myself tell her: “You’re good at Maths. You’re doing fine. It’s how you deal with setbacks that matters.”

It won’t be easy, but I’ll try to take my own advice. No tears yet. Stilll shocked, though.

Why I plan to give my golf coach a good kicking

Last week Dave Lamplough taught me 1) that my chipping action was horrible and 2) that it was pretty easy to sort out.

So today I went out into the early morning frost for 18 holes and chipped wonderfully, chipped fantastically, chipped out of this world and out of any other worlds that also exist out there. Lovely, gorgeous, to-die-for contacts that you could hear. Mini little impact zones, mini little compressions. And not just one, either, or the odd one – all of them.

But…

(and why is it there always seems to be a ‘but’ with my golf at the moment?)

… I intend to give Dave a good kicking when I next get up to Knightsbridge.

For, apart from one chip-in, I sent most of my chips way past the hole. On the 6^th, for instance, I chipped gloriously with a 9 iron, just as I intended, just as I wanted… and the ball rolled – albeit wonderfully - off the other side of the green.

You see, I used to squidge, smudge, nurdle and nudge, I’d fat and I‘d thin. Somehow, by hook and crook and despite my hand roll, my bad ball position and my lack of turn, I’d smuggle the ball up towards the hole. I got used to squidging and smudging and nurdling. I got quite good at it, in a horrible sort of way.

Today, I hit everything purely and right out of the middle. And everything went futher and straighter and truer as it used to. And - for the most part - too far.

Hitting the ball better, it turns out, it not the same as scoring better.

Secretly, of course, I’m delighted with my new chipping. It’s just a matter of getting used to hitting the ball properly, that’s all, after years of doing the opposite.

But don’t tell Dave that. It’s a basic principle - never be too nice to your golf coaches, they’ll just charge you more. Better to keep them keen. Better to give them a good kicking.

Are golf balls bad for your game?

I may be wrong, but I think I may be getting better at golf because I’m writing a book about trying to get better at golf.

I think the secret’s in the chapters. And the lack of balls.

Every few weeks I go up to Knightsbridge to interview Dave and Steve. Then I return home and listen to what they said and write it into a chapter. In other words, I get two or three weeks to think about a particular action or segment of the swing.

I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before – really think long and hard about one specific part. Normally, I think for about half an hour and then go to the range and try and practise it.

And what happens? Soon I’m ‘ball-watching’. The balls starts, say, fading, so I respond. I forget what I was meant to be practising and think new things, and then more new things. I fidget and tamper and experiment. And every now and again the ball goes straight again and I think: “Cracked it!”

Only by then I’ve long stopped doing what I was trying to do.

Now though, at home, in front of the computer, I type away and I think. Then I go and get a coffee. There, in the kitchen, is my training club. I swing away while waiting for the kettle to catch up. I concentrate on the move Dave and Steve have described. There’s no distractions. There’s no balls.

And this goes on for weeks. I stick to one part of the swing. One chapter. No balls.

I’m beginning to think this is why I am improving…

Disappointment and delight

I’m disappointed not to be playing in my monthly medal today. I had to pull out late. Sadly, there was just too much to fit into the proverbial pint pot, what with daughter going here, wife going there. That the trouble with owning only one car and living only one life.

But I’m delighted with the way things are going with the Knightsbridge Golf School book. We’re getting towards the end of the planned text and I’ll hopefully squeeze in a couple of hours of writing this afternoon.  

I shall be going over the interview with Dave Wilkinson again, the one where he explains how to inject more power into your swing. Without going into too much detail – I’m only on my first coffee of the day, after all – it’s all about the core, pressure, connection, leverage and sequence. Which, of course, makes no sense unless it’s explained.

But, the more I listen to Dave, the more it makes total sense. Having got this far, four months in, I feel my swing has been largely re-aligned. Now it needs refining, and tightening, and stabilising, so that it will stand up to having more power fuelled through it. I tried it the other day, with good results, but I'm still only doing things half right and three-quarters wrong.

The other chapter I need to write up is the short-game session with Dave Lamplough. Which has nothing to do about power. Oddly, though, the two are inter-related. By looking hard at my chipping technique, Dave has highlighted faults (I never knew it was possible to pack in so many errors into such a short swing!) which, once corrected, will feed into me hitting the ball better in the long game as well.

Refining, tightening, stabilising. So that’s my Saturday sorted. Along with driving my daughter here and my wife there.

(Mis)understanding connection – 864,991 times in a row

I have heard and read about the importance of connection in the golf swing, say, about, at a rough guess, 864,992 times.

I have understood what connection means, say, there or thereabouts, give or take… 1 time.

That one time came at the end of last week, while interviewing Dave Wilkinson and Steve Gould at Knightsbridge Golf School. Actually, strictly speaking, it came after interviewing them. While interviewing them was the 864,991^st time I had heard-or-read about connection.

We were discussing how to add power to the structure of your golf swing. Today, re-reading my notes, I think I get it. I get the fact that my swing has always – bar the odd fluke – been disconnected. Particularly when I am trying to hit long.

Simply put, my chest has hurtled through impact but left my arms behind. That comfortable pressure between the biceps and the chest wall? Never happens, especially when I’m trying to hit the cover off the ball. I abandon any sense of connection somewhere during my distance-crazed downswing.

Now I don’t think I’m a particularly foolish man. Why is it, then, that, after listening and watching Dave’s demonstration, I suddenly sense the importance of this bicep-chest wall pressure? Why is it that the penny has never dropped before? Perhaps it was something to do with the way they explained it.

I’m heading out to the range this afternoon, come hell or high water, to see if this works.