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Dialing a better swing
Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8 handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up. Tuesday, March 20 RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Before checking in this morning at the press center at Mission Hills Country Club -- site of this week's Nabisco Championship -- I cruised over to the College Golf Center, a commercial driving range on the College of the Desert campus. My West Coast swing swami, Rob Stanger, had given me directions over the phone and told me he'd meet me there at 6 p.m. -- but I needed to loosen some stiff muscles and take one last stab at diagnosing my recent tendency to hit my irons left and my metal woods right. As I pulled off Fred Waring Road into the parking lot, I took in the sign: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT -- 40,000 NEW BALLS. Good thing, too, because it takes a lot of balls to open a commercial range in the Coachella Valley. Many of the public and resort courses here have exquisite grass ranges and ball plans that make an afternoon of practice much less expensive than, say, a day's worth of electricity. Nevertheless, I liked College Golf. The 40,000 new balls proved to be not only round and shiny, but also cheap -- $6 for a very large bucket. The range itself is expansive and well-maintained; palms line both sides and the far end slopes upward to a private tee. The grass target field is beautiful, with nice greens and course-quality mounding scattered about. The mats are in excellent shape -- for mats -- and the middle tee stations are covered by anylon canopies and cooled with overhead mist nozzles, in case hot weather should unexpectedly descend on the Valley. I deducted points in only one area: the 15 grass tee stations had about 15 blades of grass per station. Hitting off hardpan wasn't going to help my tempo, so I settled for a mat. An hour later I gathered my clubs and withdrew to a shady bench, having accomplished nothing. Every solid shot I hit with the irons was a pull-draw, landing at least 20 yards left of my target. I started playing around with ball position (my version of crack cocaine) and in no time I was questioning every aspect of my setup. When I tried to hit my 5-wood or driver, the balls started on the proper path and then spun off high and right or ducked low and left. Showing some intelligence, I put the long clubs away and finished by hitting easy wedges to a flagstick, concentrating on tempo and balance. Was I frustrated and angry? Not really. Experience has taught me that it only takes a few seconds for a knowledgeable pro to spot my flaws. Besides, my problems seemed small after I read the following notice taped to the big ball dispenser behind the tee line: "College Golf Center has decided to honor all token keys and memberships up until April 14, 2001. Family Golf has gone into Chapter 11 and had no right in selling memberships and token keys during the end of its occupancy here. We feel we are doing the best we can for you and look forward to your business in the future." I congratulated myself for not having bought any driving-range stock when golf stocks were flying high. On the other hand, all the non-golf stocks in my 401(k) are diving as sharply as my tee shots. I'm in no position to be smug. Shrugging it all off, I drove to work. Wednesday, March 21 RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- I get to take some credit for my miraculous rebound. Yesterday afternoon, after I wrote the drivel above, I sat down in my room at the Residence Inn and reviewed my morning practice session. It occurred to me that I had been concentrating so much on the shape and direction of my ball flight that I had completely missed the most telling indicator: I was hitting the ball high. Very high. My 9-iron shots were tall enough to clear a redwood tree. You could slip a carnival Tilt-a-Wheel under the flight path of my middle irons. Okay, what produces high shots? A too-far-forward ball position? Right, but I had tried moving the ball back in my stance to no effect. An open clubface at impact? Right again, but I was drawing or hooking the ball with my irons; an open clubface produces a fade or slice. A too-early release of the wrists? Bingo! To produce a lower trajectory your hands have to be ahead of the clubhead at impact. I clearly had reverted to my old habit -- shared by 98 percent of the world's golfers -- of slinging the clubhead at the ball with the hands. This puts the shaft in an almost vertical position at impact and effectively increases the loft of the club. Sure enough, when I warmed up for my lesson last night I immediately got my trajectory down and eliminated the big pull simply by keeping my hands ahead of the clubhead through impact, "trapping" the ball against the mat. I also got back my missing yardage -- 125 for the pitching wedge, 155 with the 8-iron, and so on. And when Rob showed up, he gave me a mental image to go with the swing thought. "Make a slow swing without the club," he said, "and picture the palm of your right hand brushing the grass." He then had me take some practice swings with the club, making sure that I kept the palm of my right hand down -- which you can only do by keeping your hands ahead of the clubhead. With that cleared up, Rob worked on my shot-shaping ability. Before letting me hit a ball, he'd have me take two or three easy practice swings. My job was to stop the club on the follow-through with the shaft roughly parallel to the ground. At that point you can read the clubhead like a clock. If the shaft is pointing at the target and the leading edge of the clubface is vertical (12 o'clock), the ball will go dead straight. If the clubface is tilted a little right (1 o'clock), the ball will fade slightly and land softly. And if the face is tilted left (11 o'clock), the ball will draw. By the time we finished, Rob had me hitting nice long draws with my 5-wood and driver, and with the irons he had me fading or drawing the ball at his command. "It's pretty simple, really," he said. "You decide what shot is called for and then you just dial it up -- 11:30, 12 o'clock, 12:30. The ball tells you if you get it right or wrong, but with practice it's pretty easy to get it right." Oh, I left out the most important part of the lesson. When Rob arrived I was hitting balls under the lights on one of the bright green mats. He immediately hustled me off the carpet and took me down to a little patch of real grass beyond the tee line. "Are we risking banishment?" I asked, looking nervously back toward the pro shop. "I don't know," Rob said, "but I never give a lesson on mats. There's too much uncertainty and they destroy your feel." I almost gave him a high-five. I love having my prejudices confirmed. Thursday, March 22 RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- I played five holes yesterday morning with Rob on the Mission Hills Pete Dye course. Rob just wanted to see if I could take our last lesson onto the course, so he turned me loose on holes14 through 18. The results were encouraging. I hit some nice wedges and middle irons and one stupendous 5-wood from the 16th fairway to a citadel fairway overlooking the 16th green. My drives were a little loose, but they curved away from trouble. "I'm encouraged," I said. "You should be," he replied. Unfortunately, I put it all at risk last night by partying with the Nabisco folks at their annual tournament gala at the Palm Springs Convention Center. It was the usual grand bash: cocktails, dinner, an orchestra playing mood music, comedy by Gary Mule Deer. ("It's not my real name," he said. "My real name is Anita Mule Deer.") The surprise headliner was Michael Bolton, who bellowed other people's hits so forcefully that the tables shook and the cement in my temporary bridge softened. It was midnight by the time I got back to the hotel and 1 o'clock before I fell asleep. Around 2 o'clock I woke up with a start, Bolton's "Go the Distance" echoing in my skull. I congratulated myself for not having bought any Michael Bolton stock when he was flying high, either.
Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity
advice, share your experiences, or suggest a driving range, click here.
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