Golf Lesson 1

Got hooked on Golf, so wife and I have been taking lessons from a local Golf Club... again, I am copying the idea from a buddy of mine on using my blog to keep track of my lessons!

Scheduled a 2 hour lesson from 1pm to 3 pm with my wife and couple of our friends, us being in Houston I should have known better. The temperature that day was between 96 F to 100 F so in about an hour into the lesson all of us were ready to get indoor. Our instructor's name is Matt, showed us his PGA ring and established himself as someone who has been around golf for about 16 years.

Step 1: Club -> Make sure the face of the club is in the direction of where you want to hit the ball (seemed pretty intuitive and a dumb thing to say but he showed how a slight angle can change the direction of the ball tremederously!)

Step 2: Grip -> All of us were right handed so the first thing he asked us to do is grip the club with our left hand making sure that the club lies on the base of the fingers and meat of the palm (left palm right corner) and left thumb facing down... simple enough, a note to check if you are gripping correctly: If you can see a your index finger nuckle and the one next, then you are holding the club right. The right palm should close around the club so that both the V between you index finger and thum is pointing to the right shoulder.

Step 3: Stance and Ball Alignment -> The ball should be aligned either to the center between the legs or a little forward. Legs as wide as the shoulder, butt sticking out and your back flat. A good way to check this is you should fall forward if you were not holding the club.

Step 4: Arms -> Make sure the arms are straight and the wrists are straight as well. Take a half swing and see the face of the club. If the club face is still pointing to the direction that you are hitting the ball then you are doing fine. Without much speed gently swing the club and hit the ball. Practice this until you get comfortable with all the above items...

Short Game:
Putting -> Given that we were all really tired after an hour, Matt suggested that he would go over the basics of putting.
Make sure your nose is right above the ball, so if you drop the ball from your nose it should drop in a place from which you should put
Grip: Normal grip, make sure that you are holding the club in such a way that you can swing it like a pendulum
Ball Alignment: Make sure the ball is in the inside line of your front foot and it should never be to the right of the center line between your legs.
Club Movement: He asked to swing the club like a pendulum... making sure the back swing does not go beyond the right leg. the back swing should go near the right leg if you have a long putt. The movement after hitting the ball was important in putting. It was intuitive, however I sucked at it... My wife was doing great. She had 5 in a row and was pretty happy with the lessons and Golf in general.