Driving Range 3.1.10

Yay! I am very happy with my swing.

Oh driver.... I was hitting it well and I had a consistent miss. On my good drives, I was able to hit it about 150 yards (carry), which meant I could probably hit it a few yards farther! *leaps for joy* I am more comfortable with my set up. I didn't really have to fight placing the club on the ground. I actually forgot about fighting the urge and focused more on my shoulder turn and set up. I am still figuring out how far I should be from the ball and where to place it. Right now I have it where I am about half an inch away from the edge of the cross (located on the mat). This is about right since I am slowly hitting it near the center and not heeling the driver. I am still figuring out where to place the ball. Right now I am experimenting on having it where my armpit is. After these changes, my ball flight is a lot higher, but it's going farther. No more 70 yard driver shots. yay!

I practiced hitting my irons using the hit the tee drill, except I couldn't hit the tee. However, I was able to drive through the ball. Which is the point of the drill, so I guess I learned from it. I can now hit my 7i and it had a beautiful ball flight. It was nice and high and it went about 110-120 yards. I could even replicate it several times!
Here are my distances by the end of the night:

6i- 125 yards, kida low ball flight
7i- 115 yards, nice high ball flight
8i- 100 yards, high ball flight
9i- 88 yards
PW- 80 yards
AW- 70 yards, very high ball flight, slight hook
SW- 65 yards

I am getting closer to my goal of hitting my irons higher. That's what I was working on, and now I need to work on gaining distance and getting equal gaps between the clubs. I need to be aggressive in my downswing. I kinda lost it while focusing on eliminating the sway. It's slowly coming back and that's a good thing. I learned that I can't rush the backswing. I gotta have a nice, easy and controlled shortened takeback and then I can swing aggressively on the downswing. I also tweaked my ball positioning. I could never do because my sway would cause my the club to bottom out at the wrong place. I have to put my wedges a little behind middle, 8 and 9 middle, 7 and 6 slightly in front of middle and my woods a ball ahead of middle.

At the end of the range session, I practiced my pitches. I showed Anthony how I thought a pitch should be hit and he said I don't accelerate my hands through the ball. So I had to practice accelerating through the ball and rolling through my ankles. After a few tries, I got and then he showed me how to use my tempo to control the distance of the ball. He also showed me how to get the ball to land softly by slowing down my tempo.

Overall, today was a very good range session. I am scared that my next session won't be as good because that is what usually happens. But I gotta work on my consistency and forget about that pattern. I learned how to experiment a little to figure out what works. Tempo is important and I really want to get back into the bunkers to work on my tempo.