I had my first golf lesson today. My instructor is from Korea and his name is Ivan. I initially started receiving instruction from my co-worker Jay on the driving range. I heard he was a pretty good golfer (72) so I asked him if he didn’t mind teaching me how to hit the ball properly and teach me the game. A month later, I finally had my first lesson with Ivan, and he realized that he didn’t have to start from “ground zero” with me.
Ivan told me that my first lesson would be boring because all we would be working on is how to properly hold the golf club, the proper way to stand and swinging of the club. He started me with the 8 club. The first order of business was, Ivan watched me hit a few balls while he took pictures. He then loaded the pictures to a computer program. With this program, my picture and golf actions were matched against a professional model. My instructor was busy studying my form by making lines and measuring degrees against my form and the professional model. Once this analysis was completed, my instructor told me, through his interpreter, that he did not care right now if I can hit the ball or not. He said my form is more important and that is what we would work on. He said, that it was more important to start off doing what was right in order to end up with a good result; proper hitting of the ball.
Everything Ivan taught me and demonstrated was a repetition of what Jay had showed me and made more sense and came together at my first lesson. My instruction went on for an hour and then he checked on me periodically while I hit balls on my own for another hour. When I did hit the ball straight and at least 100 yards, he would yell, “LPGA!” Ivan recently won first place in a golf tournament here! He is the best of the best here in Riyadh and I am fortunate to have him as my instructor.
All the best,
GMarie