Some Reflections

3-23-09:
I felt like my last trip to the range was a milestone but ended my last entry w/out being able to clearly explain why.

After ruminating about it over the weekend I'm left with the thought that instead of trying to improve my swing in general, I've discovered two things to work on.

Enough progress has been made that I can now narrow my focus.

I've gone from trying to find my golf swing to trying to improve just two aspects of my swing.

And "improve" is probably not the correct word.
I don't need to improve keeping my eye on the ball, I just need to do it.

And I don't need to improve starting my golf swing with my legs, again, I just need to do it.

When I do both of the above I hit the ball straight, when I don't I slice.

Neither of these things would seem to be that difficult, but I do have a problem doing them both consistently.

I think that one of the reasons for this is that I swing too hard. So I'm going to add slowing down my swing to my list of things to work on.

BTW, I saw a program on the golf channel over the weekend that had Hank Haney trying to improve Charles Barkley's swing.
At the end of the episode, Barkley's swing had improved - but, it seemed to me that he had adopted a "no backswing" backswing.

Not a classic NBS, but he just brought the club straight up, not back or around. And he was able to hit an effective shot from this position by making a "normal" downswing.