The lesson was awesome, again. After adjusting to a grip change and learning the importance of various rotations through the takeaway, this lesson focused on shortening the backswing – not with less power, but with less arm movement. It’s going to take some work, but I’m excited about the improvements I was already seeing during the lesson.

It turns out that Victoria Hills has just been ranked in the Top 50 courses in the country by readers of Golf Digest (41st overall). I was certainly impressed. Rolling greens, strategic holes, and a lot of elevation change – especially for Florida. It’s the first time I’ve looked down on a green from the tee box.

Given that I had a lesson in the morning, I didn’t play bad, but I didn’t play well. I started to score for the first few holes, but after a while I realized that my swing just didn’t feel right, mainly because I kept trying to work on the things I learned in the morning. So, I stopped keeping score and settled with focusing on good shots and putts the rest of the day.

It was fun, though. The course can be tough if you make stupid choices or try to get too aggressive. The greens were very receptive to ball spin – sometimes too receptive – but they left challenging putts for anything more than 10 feet away.

This week I’ll be working on the new swing tweaks from the lesson. I have to get better by the weekend. Both Friday and Saturday I’m participating in two separate best-ball tournaments. I think this means I’ll have some sort of swing practice every day this week.

We started on the range for a few shots before heading into the bay for video analysis. I think video analysis is one of the best ways to improve body motion for any sport. For one, video doesn’t lie, so what you see is what you did. Also, with the right software it’s possible to draw lines to better understand angles and the geometry of body movements. And probably most important, if you have the right setup it’s a quick feedback loop, meaning you can see what you did and make adjustments in a matter of minutes.

My lesson is a good example of the adjustment benefits of video analysis. The picture below is a capture from my video where we were looking at my takeaway. On the right side is what I was doing when I arrived at my lesson (the before), and on the left side is what I need to be doing on my takeaway (the after). The red line is the swing plane my clubhead should be on during the takeaway and downswing.

As you can see, in the before (right) it’s well above and outside of the swing plane, which my body translates into an above and outside-to-inside downswing. But in the after (left) you can see that the clubhead is pretty much on the swing plane, with the clubhead nearly perpendicular to the plane, which is how it should be at this stage of the swing.

When I execute the takeaway as I’m supposed to, I get near-perfect, straight shots. It’s really pretty amazing. I do have a few other small problems in my swing, but right now if I can get the takeaway down I should see a lot more accuracy in my shots.

In fact, even though I haven’t had a lot of chances to practice the takeaway, during today’s 9-hole round I started to notice more accuracy with my shots. For the most part I was hitting the ball where I wanted to, and if I didn’t, then I knew it was my takeaway and more often than not I could feel my arms separate from my body as you can see on the right side of the picture.

The instruction continues to be awesome, and I’m glad I signed up for more lessons. I won’t share my instructors name on here for privacy reasons, but he’s good at what he does and I’m thankful he’s willing to share as much technical information about the swing as he does. I feel like I’m learning all about golf swing mechanics to the point where I can understand the how’s and why’s behind the swing. I even caught myself analyzing other golfers during the 9-hole round today.

Speaking of the 9-holes, I scored a 41, which I’m somewhat happy with considering I’m going through swing changes. My main problem today was putting and short pitch/chip shots around the green with my sand wedge, but I can’t complain too much because I really haven’t been practicing any of my short game in favor of solidifying my swing.

I also played on both Saturday and Sunday over the weekend. Saturday turned into more of a practice round as I tried to learn how to do the new takeaway. Sunday was a little less of a practice round, and I scored an 80 at LPGA International’s Champions course – my best score at that course so far. As of today my handicap has dropped to a 6.2, but as I work through these swing changes and such I expect it to level off for a little bit until I get some consistency in my swing and start working on my short game again.

Physically, I’m still sort of recovering from the massive amount of golf I took in. Not only did I do a lot of drills and take a lot of swings each day, but temperatures were in the low to mid-90′s with a heat index around 110 degrees. I think I went through at least a dozen water bottles a day to stay hydrated.

I went into the academy with the mindset that I would only get out of it what I put into it, which I believe is generally true with anything involving education. We were allowed to get to the academy early to practice, so I took advantage of that. We were given a booklet of all the information we were learning, so I took notes. If I wasn’t sure about something, I asked questions. When playing on the course each day, instead of just “having fun”, I took the opportunity to practice the things I had learned. Besides, that was more fun for me anyway.

There’s a lot to say about the academy. I don’t really know where to start. For that reason I think I’m going to keep it simple for now and reference the academy over time.

So for now, I can say that I feel like my golf game is either much better or that I now have the building blocks to get much better. My swing is actually pretty messed up right now as I try to make a few changes, but with practice it will become more consistent again. The good thing is that I think my swing will be even better once I get that consistency back – I’m already noticing a 20-30 yard increase in distance for all my clubs, and when I strike the ball correctly my accuracy is excellent.

I now know how to practice more efficiently, which is important as I don’t have a lot of time to practice. My putting and short game are drastically improved – for instance, I have much more confidence in my chipping abilities, and pitching from 50-60 yards is no longer something of concern.

That’s probably the best thing I got out of this experience – my golf game confidence is much higher than it used to be. I feel like there isn’t a situation out on the course where I won’t be able to figure out a game plan. That’s a big difference from before where I wasn’t confident if I was doing the right thing half the time. It turns my game from one of guessing and then trying to execute with doubt to one of picking from options and executing the chosen option.

Despite a short vacation out of town without golf, I’ve already had two practice sessions since my time at the Academy was finished. And already I’m seeing huge improvement. My swing is starting to come around with the changes, and my short game is getting much better. It’s amazing the difference some good knowledge makes.

Tomorrow is Tuesday 9-hole golf, where I’ll get to try out some of what I’ve learned. I’m not necessarily expecting to play much better – particularly since I’m still figuring out my swing – but I do have a goal to shoot less than 45 for the 9 holes, which I think is reasonable at this stage. I’ll report how things go after the round is over.

Today I’m not feeling well, so I’m taking it easy in the hopes I can practice tomorrow night with better weather and health.

I’m also considering getting some golf instruction, possibly at the PGA TOUR Golf Academy. To this point I’m entirely self-taught through books, video, articles, and experimentation, but I figure if I’m going to get serious about playing at a higher level then it can only help if I get some guidance.