Consistently Inconsistent

I had my fourth golf lesson tonight. I'd say i totally shot under par if i had to compare.
I don't know if it's because i was rushing around before class that i just didn't focus or what, but it was very off.. my game that is.

Tonight we were to learn the DRIVER. OK, I'll admit i was intimidated by the mere thought, but my suckiness wasn't even with the driver. I brought my best friend, the 5 iron, with me as well in case i got tired of swinging the heavier, more awkward driver. I started off with my 5 iron to get the feel of the motion with my instructor looking on while we waited for all the other people to show up. I was off.. topping the ball, couldn't get my grip right, my right hand was really hurting and getting tons of vibration. The club head kept falling under to the left and i was getting frustrated.. and knowing the driver was ahead made me more nervous because if i sucked this bad with my best friend, the 5 iron, the driver was going to own me.

George let us out of our cages to watch his instruction. He taught us how to address the ball at the tee.. which is very good information to have by-the-way. You see, all clubs in your bag have a different degree of angle on them. The higher the degree the steeper the slant the higher the ball goes and from what i saw it looks as though the shorter the shaft of the club so you have to stand closer to the ball (i guess that would make sense why the sand wedge is pretty slanted and you almost have to stand on top of the ball). The Driver is flatter than all of them, mine having only a 12 degree slant and the men's typically 8 or 9 degree. He explained that for hitting with the driver, the ball's mid-point or horizon line should be at the top of the driver's edge, therefore requiring a higher tee. At address, the ball should be closer to the inside of your left foot. Why? AHA! i bet you thought i didn't pay attention! When you are hitting with your driver, being that it is flatter, you want to have an almost upward motion to get the trajectory. So the farther away from center, (center is in the direct middle of your stance), to the left (for righty swinger, obviously opposite for lefty swingers) you address the ball the better your trajectory because you will be coming up and with a lot of force. You never want the ball on the outside of your stance though.

So here i am at address, my grip was adjusted by George and he's awaiting his star pupil to do her dirty work.. (which is usually topping the ball) I bring the club back, (remembering what my mom's SO told me about the tees to the front and rear), and i let go with as much force as i could muster up with the fear i had of hitting the ground. WHAM! the ball takes off.. to the right. lol,
but i hit it.. i didn't top it which is good. i mean how could you? the damn ball is like 2 inches off the ground and I'm hitting it with a club-head the size of donut. George corrects my grip again and shows me that my shoulders are not correct, and we fix that. I go for swing #2 and WHAM! there it goes! far far away! it started off straight then banked hard right! i swear if there was a wall there i could have cleared it and went around the wall! lol. it was very windy so that might have had a lot to do with it..

I continued to swing like that for a short while.. Then i stopped to take a breather and check my grip and stance and shoulders. I should never have done that because when i started up again i sucked.. I was topping, or missing, or hitting the ground, or slicing HARD right, i even hit the ball so below it that i nearly did a completely straight pop-up! kind of like in baseball when the catcher throws his face mask off, waves his arms and catches the ball! thank GOD there was a roof above us! lol. George came by and fixed me up again and i was back to hitting nearly straight shots.. i can't tell you how far they went because they went so far that it hit the wall of darkness and i lost it at the 100 mark. (there are no field lights there as they will be closing their doors soon to condo developers and the owner doesn't think it's a necessity to turn the field lights on being as they really don't have that many customers anymore. Such a sad day, because that place used to be such a hot spot.. they have a par 3, mini golf, mini race cars, bumper boats, batting cages and the like..)

If i had to guess, i think 1 out of every 5 balls did what it was supposed to do. When i ran out of balls George sent me down to get another bucket to split with a couple of other people and i simply could not get my groove back.. i think i was just exhausted. My hands were hurting from the bum shots with the 5 and the vibrations. So i pawned off a few more balls and hit the remaining 4 that i had and 2 of the 4 went straight and far.. the other two sliced off pretty hard. I packed up my stuff, bid my farewells until next week and went home.

When i talked to Kyle and explained to him my dilemma he put a phrase to it.. "Consistently Inconsistent- you are either going to be good with the Irons and suck with the driver, or vis-a-vis." He was 100% correct! i sure am glad there is a phrase for this dilemma, and that I'm not the only one that has that dilemma! lol i felt better after he gave it a name.

Next week.. The PUTTER!