GolfTEC: Golf instruction meets the Information Age

My goal is to become scratch by May, 2009. That means shaving down a 7 handicap.

That’s GolfTEC’s goal too. GolfTEC is golf meeting the Information Age. GolfTEC is an online golf instruction company. Lessons are filmed and then uploaded online. GolfTEC also includes on-course playing lessons.

In fact, GolfTEC is like a golfers’ Viagra. My wife the other day on the course in an admiringly way said, “Even the ball sounds different coming off your club.”

My Las Vegas golf instructor, Tim Sam, has improved my swing in the first five lessons, but it hasn’t been as easy as popping a little blue pill.

During those five lessons, I was competing or participating in a number of celebrity golf events. I played in the World Series of Golf and the Marine Corp Celebrity Classic at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Yes, the worst time to re-work or re-build your swing is while you’re playing competitively. It’s like trying to make love after five minutes with your blind date.

My scoring results confirm this. I’ve scored in the 70s a few times (tolerable) and more consistently in the low to mid 80s (annoyingly unacceptable). Those higher scores can be attributed to the heat of competition, playing some new, tougher courses, and some on-course tweaking based on Tim’s pointers and drills.

Should we have waited to start the lessons? Yes, but I was real excited about getting to a swing I could live with for a long time.

The first move to improve my performance was a change in my set-up. It was awful. Tim said it looked like an 18-handicapper. He was right. I was stooped over the ball and my hands were too close to my body. As a result, I was coming down on the ball from the outside causing me to cast the club as opposed to swinging.

My shots were inconsistent and lacking distance. It was a tribute to my short-game that I could stay in the high 70s and low 80s.

To change this, Tim has my hands extended from my body - an uncomfortable feeling. The swing felt like a one-piece extension from my back.

But after a while, as I began to correctly use my back muscles, it felt more natural.

However, there were other problems.

As I tried to repeat this extended swing, Tim wanted me to stand taller. I couldn’t. (That’s right, I had trouble getting erect.) And it had nothing to do with my physical capabilities. I’m fairly flexible in my upper body despite being muscular and bulky.

Finally Tim zeroed in on the problem. “Are your clubs too short?” (Hey, no Irish jokes.)

“No, it’s my arms,” I said. I had always joked that my mother must have gotten a whiff of Thalidomide while I was in the womb. In reality, the Daly-Leahy genes carry a short-armed trait. Shirt sleeves dress shirts require careful examination on my part.

Knowing this, you would think I would have made the connection to my golf clubs. And you would think someone - a friend or a teaching pro - might have noticed this during my 42 years of playing golf. But no one did until Tim saw it on a video monitor.

So now the irons are re-shafted as if I were six inches taller. Tim determined the lengths of each club and my good buddies at Las Vegas Golf Repair did the rest.

I’m a new man. I’m now hitting towering shots over trees that are dropping safely on greens. (That’s right, I can really get it up now.) Remember that shot Mickelson hit to win his last tournament. I got it back now.

My taller stance now has my arms hanging straight down while swinging freer away from thighs. I’ve noticed the distance on my irons - 9-iron goes about 145 in Las Vegas and 135 at sea level - has returned.

That discovery alone was worth my time with Tim and GolfTEC. In retrospect, that short-armed, short shaft problem had been my biggest golf hindrance. (Notice I didn’t say short-coming.) In recent year, it had forced me to adapt my swing from a normal upright pass at the ball to a trapping, knock-down attack of the ball. Like Paul Azinger, I would keep the ball back in my stance and hit down. For my short irons, it was alright as I learned how to control the ball with spin. However, I had trouble with my long irons, especially when I needed to hit a high shot over a hazard.

Another change Tim instituted was my return to my old Hogan Apex irons which are closer to blades. The clubs I had been using for six months were too forgiving. As a result, I was not as precise with the irons. Tim thought I might be getting lazy in my swing and swing thoughts. Even though they’re seven years old, the Hogan Apex clubs still feel pretty crisp.

Tim also has me really extending the backswing. My wrists don’t cock until my hands pass my thighs. The amount of space between my thighs and hands has expanded. That allows wider shoulder turns - and more shot distance. These things I had known before, but failed to do. Seeing them on video helps lock these moves into my brain. It’s become second nature.

What we’re working on now are two things. The first is my hips. I had anemic rotation. (It’s probably why I’ve not competed on “Dancing with the Stars.") Tim’s trying to get me to fire the hips through. It’s made me realize how inefficient my swing was. I was relying on a strong upper body too much. Frankly, my lower body was lazy and needs to get to work. But now I’ve noticed that this lower body move is also becoming, though slowly, more repetitive.

The second current change Tim’s introducing is the flattened left wrist and a cupped right wrist at the end of the back swing. It’s the early stages to the supination move that Hogan discovered.

However, it was not easy for me. In fact, it was uncomfortable. Tim made two adjustments for me. One was a visual, the other was a feel. The visual was a video of Stuart Appleby’s swing. I could see it and how it kept Appleby’s hands from getting too far behind his body.

The feel was Tim making a slight adjustment with my grip. The grip was too strong. By neutralizing it, in other words, moving my left thumb down the center of the shaft, less than an inch, the swing became freer and more natural. More importantly, my club remained above parallel and my hands could easily drop into a better hitting position. I was no longer working so hard to get the club into the right position.

And you know what they say about proper positions.

Enjoy the lessons and feel free to comment. (Of course, I might be banned after the golf innuendos here.)