Precision Challenge: Kelly’s First Golf Lesson
3/13/13 – Kelly’s Take
Kelly’s First Golf Lesson
Today was the day for the my first lesson with Robert. Of course, I had to look the part. So, I put on my khaki pants, my adidas golf shoes (yes, I have some from the PGA Show last year), and wore my pink golf shirt. I think really the only thing I was missing was a pink bow in my hair with a hat to complete the look, but for the most part, I pulled off the “golfer look”.
Now most people bring a club to their lesson, but I am relying on the experts here. So I went clubless in hopes my new coach would find the perfect fit for me. Let’s be honest, even if the club was too big or too small, everything feels awkward so I am not going to know the difference. Turns out I got a nice club with pink on it to match my outfit!
I really enjoyed the process of learning something athletic again. It has been awhile since I had a lesson to learn an athletic skill. It’s a lot of fun to have that time to really focus on doing something with one person helping you. I had no idea how much I missed that from playing tennis. Clearly, here I am a complete beginner and it shows. However, improvement shows immediately when you have nowhere to go but up. For those of you who play tennis, you understand that my biggest fault in the golf swing is turning the club face over. If you ever would like to learn how to hit the ball right, I’m your girl.
The movement itself has some similarities to the tennis swing and some noticeable differences. The differences that I noticed the most were the drop of the right shoulder when you come through with the club and the lag in the club on it’s way through. In tennis, your shoulders should be level and you reach away from your body as you hit. Here, I am being told to bring my hands over to square the club face. Translation in my head: Drop your right shoulder, transfer your weight, hit cross court…hit cross court!
After the completion of my lesson, my new coach gave me homework. Can you believe he expects me to practice? Ok, I suppose that will help me win the challenge. Next lesson: Wednesday!
Robert’s Take
Kelly and I have both had our first lesson and we each and finding the other sport difficult. This started out as a challenge between us, but the reality is we are a team. She is my tennis coach and I’m her golf coach. We are in this together, to prove we can accomplish our goals. My biggest revelation is that we can both understand the mechanics of the proper motion, and we can both get our racket/club in the correct general area; however, both of us are a mess trying to get our hands and arms to make to proper adjustments.
I have tried to relate to tennis players by having them think “topspin forehand”. Well, for all those tennis aficionados that I had you do this….I’m sorry. The hands don’t react the same way at all. The hands don’t change their relationship to the target until well after the ball is gone in a tennis forehand. In the golf swing, the hands do not keep the same relationship to the target during the swing. I will elaborate more on this in a future video.
Kelly made incredible swings for a novice, well, actually she is truly a beginner. She could make adjustments as fast as anybody I’ve ever taught. It was great seeing her process the information and try to “discover” the proper motion. It’s extremely fun watching her sift through the process of motor skill learning. Watch the video and see how incredible these swings are after 45 minutes. I can’t wait to see her bomb it STRAIGHT.
This is a very exciting journey. Both of us are extremely competitive and neither of us are very happy being really bad. Hopefully this desire not to be terrible for long will be a great motivator for us to practice effectively. It will be a fun journey.
See Kelly’s first golf lesson below:
