Sir Nick

In 1983 Nick Faldo won the European Tour Order of Merit, just six years after turning pro. Things were looking good, or so you would think. But his collapses at the 83 Open and 84 Masters, led Sir Nick to go back to the drawing board with his swing. Working with Leadbetter he completely remodelled it and returned to form in 1987 and the rest as they say is history.

Now I am not comparing myself to Sir Nick but I do take heart from his story. I had another lesson today and in came another raft of necessary improvements. My teaching pro is pleased with the work that I have put in. He feels that the change in shots reflects the level of work I have put in to adopt the swing changes he gave me last time. He also asked me to be patient. Though it feels as if I am making no progress, I can understand what he means.

The golf swing is a complicated process. What we are doing is gradually layering actions that will hopefully combine in the end to form a fluid, rhythmic, repeatable motion. Recently, I have worked on my hand speed through the swing and now my hands and arms are working faster than my hips. This is the reason that my bad shot is now a pull hook. My pro wants me to:

• improve my posture (I am a little too bent over at the moment)
• work on increasing the speed of my hip turn
• work on a balance between my hip, arm and hand speed so they are working in harmony to deliver the clubhead square to the ball

I was going to post a video this month but as there are a number of faults to work on I hope you'll excuse a slight delay. It feels a little bit like two steps back but as my practice time is now being confined to the range it is quite timely to have a range of swing changes to bed in. What is promising is that my pro staunchly believes my ability belies my handicap and I hope that once it clicks my performances on course will dramatically improve.

You may be confused that my outlook is to have fun and play lots of golf, yet I am still concerned with technique. I suppose I still want to be as good as I can be at this game, just without the pressure of having to do it in competition. It's so much more fun smashing a great drive, hitting a laser like iron approach, or deftly chipping in than out of bounds, missed approaches, lost balls and blading through greens.

I take solace from Sir Nick because he wanted to groove a repeatable swing, which is also my ambition. He was at the top of the European Tour and was a professional golfer. He had regular tuition and unlimited opportunity to practice. It took him four years to get it together. I play in my spare time, lack his natural talent, work full time and have family commitments to balance. I may have lower aspirations but I should also have lower expectations on how long it will take me to get there.