The happiest golfer in the world

I’m the happiest golfer in the world. Since yesterday. And it's guaranteed to stay this way, for 24 hours at least.

I’ve just come back from the range. For the second day in a row, I’ve hit high, long straight shots with the mildest suggestion of draw. Me. The guys who hits ugly low cuts.

Of course, this is one of those dangerous self-diagnoses. Self-delusion, I know, is often an immediate neighbour. But I really, really do believe my swing is changing from an over-the-top pattern to an inside-to-square-to –inside.

I think I’ve (largely) stopped my hand roll. I think I’m releasing correctly at last. I think my left arm is extending for the first time beyond impact. I think my upper body is rotating around my spine and turning through to the target. I think my hips are behaving, and resisting rather than slipping and sliding.

Really. I do.

Now all I’ve got to do is wait for it to stop raining and put in a proper round after my local course stops impersonating a quagmire. I really, really believe I've got a mid-70s in me. Really. I do.

Knightsbridge Dave, Knightsbridge Steve, thank you for letting me write ‘Golf’s Golden Rule’ with you. I really think you may inadvertently have turned me into a golfer.

I’m the happiest golfer in the world. That's 48 hours of golfing happiness, and all in a row. I promise to return to this blog tomorrow – even if it means admitting to the most tragic of self-delusions. But I don't think it will come to that. Really. I don't.

Eureka!

I’ve a healthy distrust of eurekas.  If all my golfing eurekas had really been just that, I’d be playing on Tour by now. Most, if not all, of them slink off into the long grass almost as quickly as they appeared.

So what to make of today’s new sensation?

Hard to say.  But I think there’s reason to be hopeful.

In the past, I’ve often not understood my eurekas.  Suddenly, for no reason that I could pin down, I’d  start striking the ball better (not well, just better – it’s all relative, remember). It might last 10 minutes, it might last half a round.

Today, at the range, it wasn’t like quite that.

Suddenly, I felt that my left arm was extending fully in the follow-through. The arm seemed to be naturally extended, and seemed to fold differently. The club seemed to release more powerfully. And the ball seemed to hold its line better, even threatening to draw slightly. On shot after shot.

I paused and chewed the cud.

I never draw the ball. I cut.  I’ve been working recently on my body action, in an attempt not to come over the top. Somehow, though, I’ve still managed to slide the ball low and left-to-right, even when approaching  from the inside.

 Today, though, the ball went straighter and higher. Unheard of.

And this time I felt I really could pin something down.  I concluded that, previously, I’d still been chicken-winging my left arm slightly coming into impact, thus preventing the release.

I even believe I know why this happened. Having concluded a chapter on ‘hand arc’ – the arc that the hands follow throughout the swing - with Knightsbridge Golf School pair Dave Wilkinson and Steve Gould for their new book, “Golf’s Golden Rule”, I’ve been thinking hard about my hands.

So today, after a bucket of cuts and fades, I tried to feel as if I was throwing my hands further out along the ball-to-target line – or even outside it, towards mid-off (that was the feeling, not necessarily what I was actually doing, you understand!). That seemed to extend my left arm after impact, where normally I pull my hands inside the ball-to-target line and into my left side, bending the left arm in the process.

 This makes sense to me. It probably doesn’t to anybody else. Perhaps Dave and Steve know what I mean.

I just hope it makes as much sense tomorrow. I’d like to continue to flirt with a high draw. Who wouldn’t?

A Good Muscle Strain?

I've just strained a muscle down my right side - or the right side of my backt. I’m trying to convince myself that this is good, even if it makes sitting in front of my laptop uncomfortable.

I’m trying to convince myself, indeed, that it’s due to my at last beginning to ingrain a correct move into impact and follow-through.

I’m not saying this should cause a muscle strain. In fact, I’m sure it shouldn’t. But when you’ve been moving your body in a completely different way for years – forever, actually – it seems natural enough for your body to grumble.

When I was interviewing Dave for ‘Golf’s Golden Rule’, he mentioned that Nick Faldo used to feel his right side holding back for a fraction of a second as the downswing began. That seems to have struck a chord with me. I’m getting the feeling of holding my right shoulder and hip back, rather than letting them spin out and over as per usual.

It’s yet to be course or even range tested. It’s still in the early stages of kitchen-mirror development. But I like the new feeling a lot, despite the strain. Sneak out this afternoon and bash a few.