Snow Practice Makes Perfect

Snow's good for nothing. Unless you're a skier or a kid who hates school, it just creates a mess, and makes every aspect of daily life a little harder. At least that's what I thought until Saturday, when I took a break from cleaning frozen slush off the SUV to whack a few ice-balls with my 5 iron.

First thing I noticed, the club was really, really clean after a half-dozen whacks.

The next thing I noticed was that my club-head left a perfect representation of the club-head path in the snow. While I was swinging, the club head carved a perfect groove in the snow right at the bottom of my swing. I moved to a part of the snow drift that was about 6" deep, and after two whacks, could see an even better representation of the club head path. I learned some interesting things: First, my club head bottomed out right of center - not bad if I was using a driver, but these shots would have been fat for an iron; I learned that my clubhead path is slightly inside out, which explains why my usual miss is a push.

Even better, I found that the groove left in the snow gave me an excellent way to practice "grooving" my swing. Once I established a good snow-groove, and I did this by keeping the clubhead outside my hands a little more until I achieved a groove that was more circular with an in-out-in path, I practiced this snow-grooved swing by repeatedly swinging the club through this snow-groove. If the club-head strayed and hit the walls of the groove, I changed spots and made another perfect groove.

No, it's not nearly as good as a day on the links, but a half-hour or so of snow-grooving got me up off the couch, helped me exercise my golf-muscles, and gave me a good feel for swinging the club on a better plane. (...and it left the clubs looking sparkling-clean to boot!)

GF