Anthony Trick had never played golf before — had never even picked up a golf club before. But once he got out of the military, he was looking for a new hobby to take seriously. He was strong and athletic guy, but didn’t know where to start.
1. Learning the fundamentals
The first step for Anthony — and any golfer picking up the game — was to get a good grounding in the fundamentals: Grip, posture, stance and alignment. When he walked into his local GOLFTEC in Massachusetts for his initial swing evaluation, that was where everything started.
Good fundamentals are so important, because if you don’t get them right early, your swing will start compensating around them. That can be a big problem, because these early days are your golf swing’s formative years. If you get off on the wrong foot, it’ll take a lot of hard work to come back.
2. Learning the ‘sequence’
But for as important as good fundamentals are, they can only take you so far. Anthony had a tendency to come over the top and hit slices. This is a common mistake among golfers who played baseball in high school: They lunge forward with their upper body, often because they don’t have enough shoulder tilt on the backswing, which throws off their golf swing sequence.
Anthony and his coach Ae Cahill worked on keeping his weight forward on the downswing with his arms extended towards the target. That would tilt his upper body back, putting his spine in extension and helping him swing from in-to-out. He’d practice that position by hitting full shots with an abbreviated finish, ending with his arms pointing towards his target.
Committing to lessons and a lot of hard work meant that by two years later, Anthony had got all the way to low single digits and made his first hole-in-one. He’s hitting draws now, and he’s got his eyes on an even bigger prize.
“He’s come such a long way from never holding a golf club,” his GOLFTEC Coach, Ae Cahill, said. “He’s a 4 index and wants to be scratch golfer.”
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