Genesis - The Journey Begins

The golf swing is such a complicated action, yet only takes a second or so. As a kid I took a few lessons, but rarely understood much about what should happen in the golf swing. For example, only a few years ago I learned that the divot should come after the ball. This was a incredible revelation for me. After college I struggled mightily with my game. I would play well in the summer when my short game was sharp, but in the winter months or when my short game was off, it was a massive struggle.

My handicap would range from 7 in the summer months to 10 in the winter months. I rarely had consistent swing thoughts and would go through long periods of playing terribly. My low came at my annual tournament in September at my club when in the final round I shot an 92 and played terribly.

Early the next year, in June 2007, I was getting ready to play with a friend at the member-guest of his club and the day before we were scheduled to play a practice round I read an article in Golf Digest, something called stack and tilt. At first read it seemed foolish the idea of staying centered over the ball would never work, at least not in the world that I had been taught. But what intrigued me was the idea of staying left the entire swing. I had always had a problem with swaying and having a reverse pivot. This swing almost seemed to encourage a reverse pivot to start. I would learn later it is anything but a reverse pivot, but that is for a later discussion. I decided I would try it out on the range. Just to see what would happen. I started to hit some shots really well. I thought, you know what, I am going to try this for this round. I shot a 77 and played beautifully. I have used it ever since.

This would definitely be the start of the journey. I have learned that in golf the fun is getting to the destination not in reaching it. Of course it is fun to achieve your goals, pat yourself on the back, but the real joy comes from learning and seeing the progress unfold. That is the purpose of this blog. I want to chronicle the journey, share my learning and keep them as a log to show new things I have learned and show the progression.

Part of this journey was started by purchasing a video camera. I think this is best game improvement tool I have ever bought....and I have bought a few. What you feel and what is actually happening in the golf swing can be TOTALLY different. I mean totally different, therefore you need a camera to go back and see what you did is what you want to accomplish. This first video is my swing shortly after switching to stack and tilt. It is older and the videos following will be newer and from my new Casio FC-100 which does 210 fps.

So more to come, but here is where the journey begins.