Sunday 14 September 2008

Creative eXplosion/ Chart Hills 2008



The above shots are from a recent trip to Q School where I have just returned from caddying for our star pupil Darryn Lloyd. An exciting prospect with extraordinary ball striking ability, at 19 years of age he was sure to turn some heads and excite some imagination. Excite he sure did, turn some heads he did to, but more importantly he has confirmed to himself and seen first hand the current state of the modern game and the young players failing to conquer it.

From my own teaching angle I have written numerous pieces expressing my feelings towards current coaching techniques and there resulting effects on the game. The past week has provided a first hand experience of the result of such coaching and further highlighted the valued point of possibly the most important Teacher of our time, Mr John Jacob's, who so accurately wrote in his 50 Years of Golfing Wisdom;

I get the impression that many young players are making a conscious effort not to let the clubhead work in the hitting area. In other words, they are so keen on late hitting that they are never actually using the clubhead at all - despite the fact that hitting is surely the most natural thing to do with the clubhead, certainly more natural than trying to hold the clubhead back!

I must of seen at least ten players openly admiring the late hitting, halfway down position. Like Jacob's I have seen many players attempting to create a feel for that late hitting position, though I venture to say the great players never feel such a position, Darryn being one of them, the purest strikers feel a much more complete thing, that of swinging the clubhead through the ball to a target.

This years school was simply littered with players all freely discussing their own golf swings, but how many could actually say they had a swing, rather than just a set of many failing positions?

Darryn can safely say he has that swing and no one can touch it for purity of motion, speed of flow and unity through sound repeatable application of the basic fundamentals of the set-up.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.