Throughout all of this experimentation with clubs my handicap kept dropping, during the weeks of practise I would deliberately use different irons in practise. Not once in 3 seasons did I have a bad round caused by the equipment. Many golfers have the first hand experience or anecdote passed on by a mate similar to this, “A golfer goes to the club pro and asks if he has the “Insert latest Club design breakthrough” which will fix his “lack of distance/slice/hook”. The club pro says, “No.” Then grabs a persimmon #1 Wood or 20 year old Iron and proceeds to show he can hit is as well as the latest wizz bang design.
Whilst I have now settled on a set of irons my experimentation with drivers and hybrids is still continuing. After the trip to Adelaide this week I called in to the Golf Clearance warehouse for a browse on the travels and picked a Dynacast Fastrax 400cc 10 deg reg. flex Driver and an Acer XPS201, 120cc 17 deg reg. flex Hybrid @ $25 each out of the bargain bin. This is to test out if the change to regular flex in the irons is applicable to my other clubs in the bag. So far this week the driver has definitely been a plus on that level. Admittedly it is 20cc larger than the one it replaced but it certainly feels better in the hands so far, seems to have added distance off the tee in practise as well. The regular flex hybrid has a significantly heavier club head and so far in practise has been okay and on par with the stiff flex hybrid. It was the club head weight that made me choose it as it is similar to the Cobra Bafflers that I have checked out a few times. The regular flex shafts have made me work on my swing rythym and shot playing technique, whilst no longer having to work on getting the swing speed that the stiff shafts needed to be effective. This has made practise and playing a lot more enjoyable. Putting effort now into the ‘art’ of playing that smooth technically correct swing that has distance, accuracy and ease of effort in its execution.
These changes in equipment are all motivated to combine with the changes in my grip and swing from the last coaching session. In the last moth I have built on the coaching with some reading of Steve Elkington’s book “The Five Fundamentals”. From this I have added some more grip drills and knowledge to the direction from the coach. Again the key is to incorporate changes to my golf and still play well. This time though the focus is totally on my technique and gain better accuracy and consistency to be able to drop the 3-4 strokes needed to reach 10hcp. Thankyou for your time and attention all, “Hit ‘em straight” Geoff
