[O.B.Left]

Right you are rwh. A few weeks ago when I visited the swamp I was hitting my normal volume of swampballs (400-500) while Yoda was giving a lesson. As I was admiring OBLeft's swing, Lynn walked up to me during a break and asked, "Hey Bagger, so are you hitting now?".

No says I. Still swinging.

He asked me to go to the top of my swing, adjusted my wrists into a correct position and said, "this is where you need to be". He's had me working on start up in the past but I had bigger issues to deal with at the time.

Later in the day I visited Steve Ferguson, GSEB who teaches along side Ted and Lynn. He had a shiny new HG Driver and I asked to take a few swings with it. I took one swing and he said, "hold on right there". He grabbed his camera and set me up for some video. He pointed out the same thing Lynn was seeing. My clubshaft was cross-line at the top and the clubface was closed to the sky.

Five minutes later Steve had me doing start-up swivel drills. He said, "Fan it, Fan it as hard as you can at startup, you can't fan it enough". Note to the reader, this is clubface fanning while tracing a straight planeline, not taking it inside at startup. It took me about 5 swings of hitting pushed right shots until we figured out that the lack of a start up swivel has created very little roll in my release. So once I started rolling everything came together.

Its amazing what that little start up motion does to every section of the swing. Over the years Lynn has taken me from stance, to pivot, to arms, and now to hands. The final missing pieces of my swing are finally coming together.

Thanks Bagger. It was great to meet you and to talk of G.O.L.F. and life.

I have an old tendency towards an angled start up, the club sort of looking at the ball. Lynn deduced this to be due to my old pre RFT takeaway where I "maintained the triangle" (non bending right elbow) while pushing the club back with my left arm with a big shoulder turn. Ah, remember the seventies and soft rock?

Things have changed a lot in my start up but I still have some residual angled hinging going back. It isnt the first wobble in my swing but its something I hope to tackle soon. I love that feeling of "free wheeling" into the ball with the clubface like a little baseball bat.

What was the drill Steve gave you to train you start up swivel? Does this move preclude a lagging takeaway? Did you have to dial down your extensor action until after the swivel was completed?

O.B.