A little levity on this Friday, perhaps?
The solitary nature of my swing research means that I’m usually lost in my own world of swing analysis for hours at a time hitting balls, and I tend to forget that A) There are other people at the range, unless they do something to bother me and B) Not everyone can drive the ball over 300 yards.
I get some chuckles at times when I’m back home making swing clips or just analyzing swing after swing looking for things to work on, and then I notice what others around me are doing while I’m working out.
I literally, having been doing this for twenty years, don’t give any thought to how far I actually drive it compared to the average golfer, even many pros, so sometimes I notice these things and think, “It’s too bad everyone can’t hit it long, it’s so much fun…”
I think it was back in ’07 that I noticed the assistant pro from the shop would always, when things were quiet in there, take a chair and sit outside the door when I was hitting balls and it took a while for me to clue in that that was why he always happened to bring his chair out to watch while I was doing so.
It was early in my journey, so I don’t know whether it was good or bad, I’ll be honest. 🙂
After that, I stopped hitting balls near the clubhouse and would set up as far away from there as I could, thinking perhaps I was being disruptive or whatever.
In this clip from 2022, I was working on just smashing it as far and straight as possible, and I didn’t notice the gentleman set up just behind me other than to know he was there – I will notice someone in the camera view as I review each swing before hitting another when actually filming swings, but other that, I’m oblivious.
I didn’t realize until I got home that he was spending more time watching me hit my driver than hitting his own balls – in the first swing clip, you will only see his club and leg as I’m watching my drive.
All I had noticed then was that he seemed to always be taking a walk behind his bag when I watched myself on replay after swings, and there was nothing behind us except about 30-40 paces of open range area before some mounds and the road.
Odd, but OK… and I realize now that he was watching me hit driver out of camera view…
In the second swing, he obviously knows that I have my camera set up and am shooting video, so he makes every effort not to actually look at me until I’m in my back swing – then he turns his head quickly to watch the impact and the ball flight.
After that, it seems he watches the ball getting very small very quickly and then ponders something about life before stealing another glance at me as I indicate a near perfect result to myself.
I get it – I’m in my fifties now, overweight and out of shape and usually sporting a silver beard, and I don’t look like I’m swinging all that hard because the motion is mechanically-correct with no violent moves, then you hear the impact and watch the ball – and all I can say is, yes, I have a little bit of athletic aptitude, but the swing model is doing all of the heavy lifting when I hit balls!
As for the swings, I don’t know if you’ve noticed the flaw in my setup – the ball is too inside the leading foot, so my hands are a little more off the thigh than is optimal and the driver shaft is nearly vertical.
So at impact, I still have that Power Line from the shoulder through the hands to the club head, but as you can see, the line is vertical and not leaning away from the target – a little better setup and it would have been optimal, and I likely could have gotten a good deal more yards out of that drive.
Wishing you all a great weekend, more to come!
WAX Golf 