I Tried It: How I improved my ball striking in just 1 hour (seriously)

I recently ventured into the big city for a swing evaluation at GOLFTEC‘s lone Manhattan location. Getting lessons in a place like New York can be difficult, as there aren’t many outdoor facilities within the city limits. With those constraints in mind, it’s important to find a spot to work on your game indoors — and for that, there’s no place better than GOLFTEC.

It wasn’t my first experience with GOLFTEC — I went when I was a kid and then got a few lessons several years back in New Jersey — but it was my first time to go as what I like to call a “golf swing nerd.” Whereas I was once simply listening to golf-swing instruction, now I can understand and digest the information. In other words, I can speak the same language as my instructor. This makes a huge difference when trying to make swing changes.

Understanding what your instructor wants to do and actually doing it are two different things, though. Luckily, knowing what your flaws are is half the battle. Walking away from my GOLFTEC swing evaluation, I now have three things I can work on to improve my ball striking for the season ahead.

Check out my recap of what I learned below. And if you want to schedule your own GOLFTEC swing evaluation, click the link below and take advantage of their March sale.

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1. Move the ball position back

Growing up in west Texas, I always had to contend with the wind as I was learning the game. As a result, I hit the ball super low most of my life. However, since moving to the northeast five years ago, I’ve begun training myself to hit the ball much higher than I did in my adolescence.

This training seems to have paid off, as my instructor noted that the height on my shots was were within an acceptable range. Unfortunately for me, old habits die hard. I still think of myself as a low-ball hitter, and as a result I let my ball position creep forward in my stance a bit too much in a subconscious effort to hit the ball higher.

This is a flaw that wasn’t even on my radar before I went in for a swing evaluation, but after seeing it on GOLFTEC’s OptiMotion technology, it was an obvious flaw. Sometimes, the only way you can diagnose issues in your swing is by seeing it on video — which is one of the biggest benefits of GOLFTEC.

2. Narrow the stance

Instead of simply moving the ball position back in my stance, my instructor suggested I adjust the width of my stance instead. As a taller player, it’s easy for me to crouch over the ball. In an effort to fix that flaw, though, my stance has become far too wide over the years.

A proper stance with a mid iron features the feet at (roughly) shoulder-width apart. As you can see in the screenshot above, though, my right foot was outside my right shoulder.

This excessively wide stance might not seem like a huge deal, but in reality it was causing several issues. One of the most obvious was throwing off my alignment. With that foot so far back, I was having to close my shoulders at address to compensate. And by doing this, I was starting my swing off without all my lines pointing at the target. It’s tough to play consistent golf when you can’t get your alignment correct before you even take the club back.

3. Stop the sway

A little bit of sway during the golf swing is not typically a problem, but I was overdoing it. Another issue with my trail foot being too wide was it causing me to sway off the ball instead of turning into my trail heel.

If you look at a Tour player’s swing, their hips are on average moved toward the target about .3 inches when they reach the top of the backswing. On my swing, that number was 1.1 inches away from the target. This might not seem like much, but it was resulting in some contact issues.

On the downswing, I was actually getting back into positions that were within the levels of Tour average, but I had to make more compensations than necessary to do so. This is acceptable when I time everything right, but if something is slightly off, it results in contact issues that have plagued my game for years.

Takeaways

There are probably 10 more points I could bring up about what I learned in my swing evaluation, but the above covers the basics of what I will be focusing on moving forward — and that was after just an hour of instruction time. It might seem like information overload to some, but trust me when I say that GOLFTEC has a way of simplifying even the most complex elements of the golf swing.

If you’re someone who is a visual learner, there may be no better instruction option than GOLFTEC. Being able to see your swing on video in real-time is an invaluable asset in your quest for improvement, and having the ability to compare yourself to Tour pros is a sweet feature as well.

Golf instruction can be an intimidating space to get into — especially if you’ve never taken lessons before. But GOLFTEC eliminates that barrier to entry. If you’re looking for a quick diagnosis of your swing for the season ahead, or want to take it a step further and get regular lessons, I’d recommend you give GOLFTEC a try.