Whirlwind Clinic

Last Saturday I attended a golf clinic at Whirlwind. It was two hours and cost a mere $25 so it was a no-brainer. There were 3 stations: full swing, chipping, and sand trap.

Here's what I learned from each station:

1) full swing

• Drill - place a ball a little to the right of my target line and a few feet in front of me and swing out towards this ball. This stops me from pulling my irons.
• Stand Taller - I tend to hunch over the ball
• Wider Stance - With a narrow stance, my weight gets over the right side of my right foot a little too much.
• The Barkley Drill - Charles Barkley does a drill with Hank Haney on the Golf Channel show "The Haney Project" that the instructor said would work for me as well.

2) Chipping

• Put feet close together
• Left foot a few inches back
• Open left foot a little
• Ball position on back foot
• Putting stroke
• Drill - This drill helps your feel. Chip the first ball a short distance on the green. Chip the second a little further than the first...the third a little further and so on. Try to keep chipping a little further each time and see how many you can do before going off the back of the green.

3) Sand

• Place ball in middle of stance.
• Open to the target
• Club face at the target
• Swing along body
• Drill - Make a footprint in the sand. Swing in the sand and take out only the footprint. Not more...not less.
• For a short, high shot (ball in front of bunker near the green) place the ball back in stance to force a steeper swing.