7 Minute Miles

Golf Lessons with Dee


Last week I broke down and decided it was time for golf lessons. My handicap index moved from 13.7 last fall to 17.0 currently, so it was time to do something. Instead of throwing new equipment at the problem, I decided to contact my old friend Gerald McCullagh and he referred me to Dee Forsberg-Voss at the University of Minnesota.

Dee participated in the Women’s Tapemark last fall and was teaching out of Braemar before joining Gerald this year. Along with Fred Habermel and U of M assistant golf coach Andrew Tank, they have founded the Golf Institute of Minnesota, located at the U of M Les Bolstad practice center.

My one-hour lesson started at 9:30am last Thursday by discussing my goals and going over my equipment. The clubs in my bag passed inspection, with the exception of my driver. Dee said I could buy a used 3-year-old driver for around $100 that would be better than my old Titleist 975D. I really love that club, but it’s probably time to retire it soon.

Next, we talked about my goals. Aside from the obvious goal of a lower handicap, I mentioned there are two things I noticed about the pros I saw at Winged Foot that I don’t do: 1) deadly with wedges and 2) they always take divots with their irons. Wedges have always been my least accurate clubs and I’ve never taken the “good” kind of divot. I spent a lot of time watching Ernie Els practice at the Open and he has the swing I most want to emulate: silky smooth, perfect rhythm, seemed almost like slow motion, yet powerful and always finishing into the same slot position behind his head.

Dee thought my grip was fine (if a little strong), so she started by teaching me a new pre-shot routine for irons that helps with alignment, ball position and posture. I used a sand wedge for almost the entire lesson, which was great, as I’ve always hated hitting that club. We used a large mirror and a round, PVC swing guide to help give me visual feedback (the video camera was in use). The other drill we did covered follow-through position (with visions of Ernie and Annika). I now know where I should be and how it feels, but I need to practice this more. It also stretched some muscles I usually don’t feel, so I’ll need to fix that.

I’ve played two rounds since then–Southview the following day and Prestick today. I hit the range at Southview before that round and everything felt wrong. I skulled shot after shot and was getting a little worried. The actual round was OK (I shot 95), but I had a quadruple-bogey 7 on a par 3 and left a lot of easy strokes on the course. Today’s round was better (92 from the tips) and I had a number of solid iron shots. I’m having a great year off the tee so far (knock on wood) and that continued today. Putting was also OK, so all I need now if to find a solution to chipping around the green and I’ll be all set. Dee and I talked about that, but I need to practice her suggestions more off the course before I change my on-course routine–trying to mix and match is just costing me strokes now…DK

Originally published by DK on July 3, 2006 at 1:20 am in Golf


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