Lesson Time

Raymie Burns, SC PGA Professional

With 2 months worth of momentum & a spanky new handicap I had high hopes for this month. As delighted as I am to have dropped so many shots so quickly there was only one thing that would please at this stage & that's to get my handicap even lower. Finally I have a respectable handicap, but I have high standards, so I'm not planning on settling here. Time for a fresh angle to lose a few more shots.

I booked a lesson with the South County Pro, Raymie Burns. Raymie had a hell of a reputation to live up to, from what I'm told he was a great striker of the ball back in his playing days & was regarded by many as a huge natural talent.

On 1st May I arrived at the course for my 30 min lesson. First thing that struck me about Raymie is that he's very technical. This was great news for me, this I could work with. He asked me what I was looking out of the lesson, what I wanted to improve on. I'm not sure he was expecting the answer I gave him, "I want a swing like the ones you see on tv", quickly followed by "I'm happy to start from scratch, I just want to do it right". As he smirked, we got to work.
 
He got me to hit a couple of balls with my 7 iron. From the first swing he identified areas to improve. We worked on the basics - address, grip, hands position, wide arc, hip turn etc. Some of these areas were decent, some had a lot of room for improvement, but he did exactly what I asked, taught me a good technical swing from scratch. Now I think I had an ok swing before this lesson, & there were a lot of overlaps between the old & new swing, but at the same time there were fundamental differences, which would take a bit of bedding in. As it happens I was already on the time sheet to play straight after my lesson, so whilst I was nervous I might be a lot less consistent than normal, I was keen to get hitting a few balls.

Rob & I played with Chris that afternoon, another lady member at South County. I hadn't really met Chris before, but I knew who she was as she was a past captain. I knew she was a good golfer as I'd already seen her handicap on HowDidIDo.com, so time to test this swing. We chatted on our way to the first tee, where I told her about my lesson. She told me that the first few holes would probably not be as good as expected, as lessons often make changes that take a while to come good. She was right! The first few holes had highs & lows but by the back 9 I'd got some consistency back & I even managed to par the par 5 13th, a hole which until then had tormented me. It was good playing with Chris, it was a very enjoyable afternoon & she's a great golfer. Her long game in particular is very impressive, it definitely gave me food for thought.