What to change next

A combination of circumstances conspired against me this weekend just passed, resulting in me not playing golf for only the third weekend since I moved here.

So, instead of playing golf, I thought about it a bit. I got a tripod for Christmas so I can now film my swing whenever I like without help, which I did last week. This weekend I thought about what I saw.

The verdict is that my swing looks a lot better. The changes I made last weekend have made a big difference. But, there is still plenty of room for improvement. I still take the club back too early, I swing too far back, and my hips are far too active in the backswing. My wrist isn't straight enough in the backswing either. Finally, my arms come left too soon in the followthrough.

So, plenty to work on: and I'm delighted about it. I'm very pleased that I myself can still see plenty of places in which I can improve. It's probably wrong, but I'm determined to take myself as far as I can before I give up and turn to professional teaching. I don't know why exactly, I suppose I just want to see how effectively I'm able to identify and resolve the problems that I have on my own.

Another positive from the videos is that my clubspeed appears to be better, given the amount of blurring that there is on each frame, and the distance the club travels reach frame. As well as self-criticising, it's good to look for ways to compliment yourself too.

So all that being said, what am I going to change next week?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. I've made that mistake far too many times now. For months now I've approached each and every golf weekend with changes in mind, and I've only got worse. This time I'm going to leave things be, and let my body and mind become accustomed to the way in which I was swinging last weekend. Once I feel it becoming automatic, I'll look at my swing again.

By that time I may find that some of the problems I mentioned before have gone away simply due to practice. The new posture aside, my new swing is all about two things that I think about when swinging. It's perfectly understandable that my body doesn't do these things perfectly the first time it is asked to do so. I'm unsurprised that my takeaway isn't sorted yet: when I do it slowly and watch my hands it's fine, but in an actual swing situation I can be forgiven for not getting it right just yet. And I'm not surprised that the followthrough doesn't do what it's supposed to all the time either. I just need to keep thinking about these things and eventually they will become automatic, just like keeping my left arm straight did.

So, the only change I'm going to make next week is that I'm not going to make any changes at all.