Learn to Play Golf - Bob McGuire, Oswego IL
I was pleased that the Diversy Driving Range was within walking distance from my apartment. At that point, that was the only thing I was pleased about. I was on my way to my first golf lesson, and I was pretty sure I was going to hate it.
I'd played some miniature golf; I'd even hit a rather complicated hole-in-one (by complete accident), that I bragged about from time to time; however, these encounters were brief and usually involuntary. The truth is I had no desire to watch the game, and even less desire to play it. But, the whole point of my 31 Flavors project was to explore new things, so there I was, at the Chicagoland Golf Academy, "exploring."
The women of Women in Golf 1 were huddled just outside of the main office. A man with a gold name badge and crinkly eyes introduced himself as Ed Oldfield, our instructor. He handed me a left-handed iron and a paper badge to write my name on. It was about this time that my foot started cramping and would not let up.
Even my body seemed repulsed by the idea of playing.
After the rest of our class arrived, Ed asked us to gather on a little patch of lawn outside of the actual range. I forced a smile and limped over to join the circle of about 10 women. Ed welcomed us with a warm smile and an brief introduction. He had played golf most of his life and had been a golf instructor for much of the latter portion of it. Turns out his dad was also golf instructor, so you could say that golf was in his blood. His list of clients was long and varied, one of his most famous being Ronald Reagan, whom he taught for 3 years.
He went around the circle asking our name, age, job, and why we were there. Ages ranged from 22 to 68 and backgrounds varied from Event Coordinators to Stay-at-home Moms. Most of the women had a husband who played, or wanted to use the skill for networking. One girl, Danielle, admitted she was single and was using it as a way to meet men. I liked her instantly.
Ed announced that we weren't going to do any hitting today. Instead we were going to start with The Address, or set-up position. He explained that 3/4 of the golfers out there don't know how to stand properly, so if we got this part down, we were already ahead of the game.
He went on to explain how the grip and stance effect the angle of the swing. Most right handed players tend to do a swing called a slice, where the ball veers to the right; a swing that veers to the left, is called a hook. If you veered too much to the right, most likely your ball would end up in the trees, so Ed made a joke, a little too loud, that it was better to be a hooker. The type of swing we wanted was a right-to-left swing called a draw.
Ed said there were three kinds of grip that were most commonly used in golf: the Baseball Grip, the Overlapping Grip, and the Interlocking Grip. In order to get the draw, Ed recommended the Interlocking Grip. I was the only left hander in the group, so I had to transpose everything in my brain.
The Grip:
Grip handle with right hand, v between thumb and pointer finger pointing towards left shoulder.
Grip left hand just below right hand, left pinky finger interlocking with right pointer finger.
The Stance:
Inside of heels same distance as outside of shoulders.
Foot closest to target (in my case, my right) pivoted outward
Back foot (my left) square.
Ball just a little left of center
Knees slightly bent
Body weight on the balls of your feet
Flat back
Bottom out
He tactfully commented on two things that men don't have that women aren't quite sure what to do with, and said that we needed to play over them.
The Address:
Ed had each of us take turns stepping to the middle of the circle, to present our newly learned address, and receive feedback from the rest of the group. It was easy to spot the narrow stances and rounded backs on others, but correcting those flaws in your own stance was more difficult.
When it was my turn, I felt that I was doing everything he had instructed and was surprised when he said I needed to bend my legs more. When I bended them as much as he wanted, I felt like I was squatting. Years of dance have instructed me to keep my pelvis tucked, so sticking my bottom out felt very foreign and silly.
Once we had the stance down, Ed decided to quickly touch on the swing, without using any balls.
The Swing:
Start in Address: interlocking grip, head inline with spine, iron next to ball
Wind up, twisting upper back away from target, transferring weight to left foot and swinging club over left shoulder, almost parallel with the ground
Untwist, driving club downward to make contact with ball
Follow through, pivoting the back foot and transferring weight to front foot, as swing continues over right shoulder
Again we each took center stage and attempted our own version of the swing. Most of what I observed was that some of the women weren't bringing the swing back behind the head and parallel with the ground. Ed joked that he wouldn't want to be standing next to Danielle during a lightening storm because her rod was vertical instead of horizontal.
When I stepped to the center, I had the same difficulties as some of the other women. Maybe
it's all of the years playing softball, but after unwinding, my club didn't want to go back behind my head; it just continued outward like I'd hit a ball to right field. After correcting the final position of the club, he worked on the rest of my body, prompting my pivoted back foot up farther, forcing me to transfer my weight to the front foot, and squaring my hips so that my belly button faced the target. Within two minutes my body was already memorizing the movement.
The lesson was over and I had survived. As I walked back home, I reflected on all of the rules I had digested in 90 minutes. The trick, as I had experienced, would be to incorporate those rules into my body. The reason Ed had asked our ages, was because golfers usually play into their 80s. So, it turns out that I had another 50 years to perfect my squat.
Ed had mentioned this was one of the hardest games you could play, and I believe him; however, I wasn't as miserable as I expected. While I'm not eagerly anticipating the next class, I'm not dreading it either. We'll see how I feel after actually hitting the ball.
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