Lesson 5 – The swing (10-week golf improvement)

We decided to have a bit of fun in lesson four by going out onto the course and playing a couple of holes.

To give it an added edge of competition, any shots over nett par meant I needed to give my coach Scott Oxley from J Whitaker Golf £5. Any shots under nett par would cost Scott £5.

I managed to make a five on the first par-4 to leave us all square but played a good second shot on the next par-4 and two-putted for a nett birdie. Kerching.

Scott helped me out with a bit of course management along the way but saved any technical observations for afterwards.

My main problem was still the driver off the tee. I didn’t hit the fairway either time. My first tee shot had a bit too much fade and as a result I started my second drive too far to the left – where it stayed.

After emptying his wallet, Scott showed me a couple of really useful drills. The first was to swing the club like a baseball bat as a pre-shot routine to really feel the club coming around my body.

The other was to hold my head so I felt like I was staying behind the ball right into impact.
If I can get a good drive away, I feel I’ve got a good chance of making par” I then hit a couple of really nice drives which left me feeling more positive as I went away. They were two things which I felt able to take to the range with me a couple of days later and I had a good driving session.

However, I still feel it is the main area which holding me back/letting me down. If I can get a good drive away, I feel I’ve got a good chance of making a gross par.

So on to lesson five, it was time to go a bit deeper into the technical flaws in my golf swing and utilise some of the fantastic technology Scott uses at the J Whitaker fitting suite at Moor Allerton.

With Christmas fast approaching, this was good news for Scott as he couldn’t afford to be shelling out any more money.

Apparently all the members at Moor Allerton have been asking to have a go at ‘the five-pound challenge’…