I had my first golf lesson on Saturday. It was fun, and I wasn’t starting out as terrible as I had imagined. We started out working on swing mechanics without a ball present, but once we moved up to using a ball, only once did I swing and completely miss the ball. Every other swing made contact; it was just the quality of the hit that changed. There were a few rollers and a few “D’oh!” moments, but for the most part, I got some good hits.

My right biceps is still sore from Saturday, too. I need to stretch out before-hand next time more. Bob showed me some stretching exercises to do, I just didn’t take the time to actually do them so they could stretch me out. I’ll know better next time.

The clubs I have are a mixture of ancient and not-quite-so-ancient. The two woods I have are from a set my parents gave me back in the mid-eighties. The irons are some that my wife bought from a neighbor’s yard sale a few years ago. Bob said that the irons (Ram) were quite good, but the woods were “going to put you [me] at a disadvantage.” The problem, he said, was that the faces on them were so small that you get no margin for error. He said that modern woods are three to four times as large, and he would recommend getting something else. We did hit some with the driver, but he was right about margin for error. So yesterday I went to my local Play It Again Sports store and picked up a new 1 and 3 “wood” that had enormous faces and heads that are far, far larger than my old ones. I’ll give them a try tonight. And I put “wood” in quotes because there’s not a scrap of anything resembling wood on them. It’s all aluminum and carbon and such. Or something. I don’t know what they really are made of, but it’s definitely not wood.

I’ve got a second lesson scheduled for this Saturday and I need to practice some this week. I’m going to try to get to the driving range tonight and at least one more time before Saturday.