Had a lesson with Franco today at the Golf Club in Bubikon to try and address my hooking tendencies. Very good, to the point practical advice from Franco. Take-aways:

• Hinge - and make sure that there is a clear 'bump' showing on the left hand (i.e. turn the left hand so that the club is square, not closed, as checked at halfway-point, clubhead somewhere just above ear level)
• With the driver especially, make sure that setup is - ball inside left, grip NOT ahead of ball, basically neutral, pointing to center of body - grip neutral
• Keep weight behind the ball
• Start turn using shoulders, not arms; show back to the target
  

The scrambe in Winterberg revealed that the weakest part of my game are the long irons and the driver. So, at my lesson today we worked on that. There is so much I could change through that I'll have to work it through slowly. Main points to take away from this lesson:

• Two part take-way with the driver. Turn - then up. Right elbow pointing downwards on the top of the swing.
  
• Open up through the downswing
  
• With everything, shoulders, hips,...

Biggest enemy is my lateral hip movement. Turn, turn! One piece take-away, hips + shoulders + arms.
Stop 'milking' - keep the hands on the club at all times. Seems to happen right at or after take-away, and on the top of my swing.

Since the drive was the one thing that kind of let me down at Friday's tornament in Erlen I asked Brian to spend some time on this part of the game.

I can tell you right now that it wasn't pretty; the driver is the most difficult club to hit, and swinging it revealed many of my weaknesses.

First off, I still have the tendency to open up my hands and open the club way up. I'm also keeping to a very flat plain, which is no good, I'll have to work on getting more height on the back swing. For now I'll be working on a two-part take-away, first turn and around to club parallell to the ground (keep the hands straight, no turning away and out) -should have room at this stage, and then up (reach for the sky). Then just whack it - I've also been trying to control the club coming through, which resulted in far too slow an attack. So - just whack it may just be the right thought.

My lesson today incorporated use of some pretty fancy video equipment. Using the video system, Brian showed me the weak points in my swing, and managed to point out some positive things as well, phew...

This is a great tool to get visual feedback on your swing. The movements can be slowed down on the screen, so that you can really see what you're doing when.

I'm too far away from the ball now, hands to far out, need to bring this in with hands hanging down freely. Clearly an over-compensation based on previous findings, this should not be too hard to get right.

I've got a very obvious issue with the position of my hands right after takeaway. I've been trying to work on that early hinge, but the current state of things isn't pretty. My hands are all over the place, and I now tend to close the club face before impact. Using the equipment, Brian showed me the slot in which I want to move - but getting the feel for this is going to take some work.

Back to the driving range for my second lesson with Brian. It's freezing cold at the moment, typical April weather here, just a couple of degrees above zero. I did manage to go out e few times after my previous lesson to try and put into practice what I learned the first time around. Implementing Brian's suggested swing changes is not an easy thing to do, unlearning the errors that have slipped into my swing is a very counter-intuitive process, and will take some time yet.

Take aways from this lesson:

• The early hinge is coming along. Note that this is only to be applied to the short and middle irons, on the long irons and woods the arc taken is flatter, and hinging is not so pronounced early on, more gradual.