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Ella’s story Session 1 Last year’s Ryder Cup was pretty gripping and I’ve always loved golf commentators (“Now that looks like a birdie…” – what?!), but when it comes to playing, I have no clue. Crazy golf is fun and frustrating in equal measure and I’ve attempted a par 3 course once or twice (with terrible results) but really, to me, it’s just a metal pole that you whack a ball with and hope for the best. We quickly learnt there’s a lot more technique to it than that. For one, our coach Alan Fletcher told us, we shouldn’t be worrying about hitting the
CB Magazine 01/2013
ball, we should be aiming to hit the ground with our strokes. And there’s a knack for holding the club correctly, positioning your feet, swooping your arms and pointing everything in the right direction. Apparently, if you manage to fit all those cogs together you’re practically a pro! Safe to say I wasn’t quite there, even after knocking 100 balls about at the driving range. I’d manage one decent shot that had the perfect soft click/thwack when I hit the ball, and then seven or eight rubbish swings! Consistency was definitely not my forte. Maybe I just need more practice. Session 2 For our second lesson Alan took us through the stances we’d need if we were going to produce a fluid swing and a shot that
With golf set to join the Olympics for Rio 2016, Ella Walker and Lydia Fallon went along to Total Golf Academy in Melbourn to see what all the fuss is about – and practise their swing
had some power to it – golf is so much more mathematical than you’d think. Trying to remember what we learnt in the first session and add a competent back swing, a proper follow through and a smart golfing pose to it was much trickier than expected. A lot of it was to do with keeping your arm long and straight and not trying to hook round the ball and whip it into the air – if you hit it with the right part of the club, it is meant to do that naturally (easier said than done). It was more fun to be smacking the ball though, unlike in the first session. I wasn’t great at aiming straight but did manage to get the ball to arc up and felt I looked a little bit more like I knew what I was doing. The only problem with going for power (and not owning a golf glove) is getting blisters all over your hands! There is a real art to golf, and I – surprising even myself – am quite keen to learn more.