Taking My Lessons to the Virtual Course
April 22, 2025
With Red Hawk Ridge on the original agenda, Lucas and I had to pivot yesterday when the forecast came in looking less than ideal — winds of 15–20 mph with gusts up to 35. That’s a tough sell for a round in Castle Rock, so we headed over to Southridge Rec Center and booked three hours on the golf simulator instead.
We ended up playing two full 18-hole rounds: a course in Georgia (the name escapes me now) followed by the iconic Torrey Pines. Thirty-six holes later, I’ll be honest — I was wiped out.
Putting the Lesson to Work
I took a lesson the day before, and I was determined to actually apply what I’d learned rather than just fall back into old habits. A couple of key things I’m trying to lock in:
As mentioned before, the big focus right now is the hip turn on my backswing. The lesson was about initiating the backswing with my hips — but here’s the thing I kept reminding myself: I still have to turn my shoulders. It’s not one or the other. When I neglected the shoulder turn, everything fell apart. Once I got both working together — hips leading, shoulders following through — I was making solid contact and hitting the ball well.
What Worked, What Didn’t
The hip-and-shoulder combo, when I remembered it, was genuinely clicking. For most of the day I played decent golf.
The driver, though? Not my friend today. It’s been sharp lately, so the regression was noticeable. I’m not too worried — there’s that old saying that lessons can make you worse before they make you better, and I think that’s exactly what’s happening as I rewire some ingrained habits.
I also spent some time experimenting with wrist hinge and release. Spoiler: it did not go well. I was pushing shots way out to the right, which tells me I’m not rotating through the ball on the follow-through. That’s clearly something to keep working on rather than force right now. When working on golf improvement you sometimes have to get worse before you get better. I tried to remember that when shots went bad.
Chipping and the the wedge short game were on and off once again. A nice thing about a simulator, you can actually see the club face hit the ball. Completely hozzled a couple of chips but was able to fix it. Interestingly, I thought I was hitting those off the toe until I saw the video of the contact. Know exactly what is going wrong really helps. What was I doing wrong, a little too much in to out on my back swing causing me to hit the hozzle. A straight back swing fixes that.
The Scorecard
Despite the swing experiments, I held it together reasonably well — shot 91 on the first course and 87 at Torrey Pines. A few mulligans snuck in (I know, I know), but frustration got the better of me a time or two. Something else to work on. As a reminder, simulator golf is a lot easier that real golf. We turned off putt and let the computer decide. Doubt I would have putted as well as the computer thought i would.
Overall, a solid day in the simulator and a good opportunity to ingrain some new swing thoughts before we get back out on a real course. Next time, Red Hawk Ridge — hopefully with a little less wind.