Golf Tips & Quips

On Monday I watched the latest episode of The Haney Project with Ray Romano. As you may know, Ray's goal is to break 80. He came close once finishing within one stroke of doing it after missing a three footer on the 18th hole of a charity event. Since then Ray has been on a quest to break into the 70's.

I have not taken any formal lessons to date. All that I have learned so far has been from watching The Golf Channel and numerous videos on YouTube. I have played sports all my life and I can hold my own in most sports that I try. I am a good "imitator", paying attention to fundamentals so for now the videos have been good. I want to see how far I can progress before I go to a "swing doctor" for a checkup.

The problem with that is when you develop a bad habit, you have no one to point it out to you. That is what happened to me. I started worrying about getting to steep on the back swing to avoid the "shanks" and I developed a takeaway that was way to shallow. As a result I would have to come over the top with a big loop to try to get it back on the proper plane.

This is the same problem Ray is having. My over the top loop was way worse than Ray's. I have been struggling to fix it for the three weeks but could not figure it out. I couldn't find any good videos that addressed my issue. They are probably out there, but nothing clicked with me until I saw this episode.

Haney wants Ray to reverse his loop. Instead of starting shallow and then coming over the top, start wide and then come back down on the inside. Simple enough, but it finally clicked. I took it out to my practice course and I could feel the difference. After taking about twenty swings to get used to it, and really exaggerating the move as Haney instructed, I finally began to hit some solid shots. The ball flight was straighter and I noticed that my divots were more towards the target rather than left of it as it used to be.

It still feels a little awkward but I feel that if I stick with it, the results will come. My goal at the beginning of the year was and still is to break 80 and to get down to a 12 handicap. To date I have gone as low as 81 and am a current 14.6 handicap. I am hoping that this will be a step in the right direction.

I would love to play a round of golf with Ray. He's a funny guy. We are at about the same level and have similar goals. Hey Ray. Have your people call my people and we can do this. Have a good one and always hit your target.



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