Lesson of the Week: Don Tutt

Don is now almost fully recovered from being sick for a while, and thought it would be a good time to come out to see me since he had joined the website and loved the content. He thought he might have lost some strength since he was not hitting the ball with much force, but I saw right away that his pivot was aggressive and that he had the ability to move the club fast enough to hit the ball a long way. I figured there was a serious technique issue involved, and I could pretty much pick out the throwaway move with the hands and wrists even without the camera. That said, if I tried to give a lesson to someone like this without the use of the slow motion we might work on the right thing in general, but in no way would I be able to see enough detail to decide exactly how to proceed. I might have gotten away with it in this lesson, because we spent most of our time trying to get the feel of proper sequence, where the body pulls on a passive left arm, and the “catch” of the weight of the clubhead against the hands. As you will see, Don gets the idea in the end, although it did take a good hour and a half at least to get him to hit a ball without pushing the clubhead and expanding his wrist angles in transition. Once he got the feeling of moving in two directions at the same time (interrupting his backswing with the forward movement of the lower body) his swing changed dramatically. This is a very encouraging sign, since I have had many instances where I haven’t been able to get students to make that change without far more time and effort. I put lag right up there with the most difficult things to teach, as it is an athletic movement and people who don’t have it usually don’t have the kind of ability needed to hit a golf ball well. Sometimes the problem is more conceptual, as in Don’s case, and once he has an understanding and the basic feel of the movement he can get it accomplished. As I said, this is a great sign for Don, and I think he is going to do much better in the near future.
 

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