Perfect....just perfect

Well yesterday evening was better than I imagined. Such a still and warm evening...Pimms and dinner on the patio - we were out there til about 9pm. Felt like we were on the French Riviera.

So September is here now and what a blustery day for coaching. First up was the Lady Captain - we've had several sessions over the past few months and the amount of time Carol spends practising and working on her game is evident for all to see. She has spent a lot of time practising without a ball so she can focus on her swing, without getting distracted by the ball and I have to say that it's worked really well for Carol. She's gained 20-30 yards with her longer clubs, and more importantly, gained confidence in the irons she has struggled with for a while. We worked on trying to keep things more compact - by that I mean, the arms and top part of the body working together. There's a slight tendency for the arms to work on their own which makes the shot much weaker.

My second client was a total beginner who was given some lessons for her birthday. She's been to the driving range with her husband a couple of times and expressed an interest in learning. We started with putting - the smallest stroke and generally the easiest to start with and worked up to a chipping stroke. She felt a real sense of achievement with the putting drills we worked on and covered all the basic elements including aim and alignment so that she can go away and practise.

My last client of the day has recently completed a series of sessions with me and was bought a 9 hole playing lesson for an Anniversary present. It was exceptionally windy and the temptation from most people is to try and hit the ball harder to get through the wind - this tends to add more spin to the ball, which is exaggerated by the wind, so my recommendation would be to have a slightly wider stance (adding stability), softer hands and swing easy - the ball will generally fly straighter. The main thing he needs to focus on is aim and alignment, especially with putting - 'D' has a great feel for distance, however not spending the time to get the aim correct can only result in missed putts.

Vijay Singh is reknowned for the amount of time he spends practising - he not only practises his swing but he also practises his aim and alignment. This is such an important part of your game and causes so much frustration - when you hit a great shot but miss your target purely because your aim is poor.

I'm covering the shop in the morning and have another afternoon of coaching - hoping the weather's going to hold out.

Thanks for reading - hope you enjoy and please feel free to leave comments.

Ciao for now.