Joe Holdridge - Joe’s Professional Golf Lab

JoeHoldridge Bio: Joe began his career in Monterey Bay, CA, where he worked as a professional for the Pebble Beach Company. He started out as an assistant at Pebble Beach before moving to Del Monte, then Spyglass Hill. He returned to Del Monte as head pro in 1992. Two years later, after having vacationed in the area several times and falling for the place, Joe brought his family to Bellingham. In his 16 years here, he has worked as the head pro at Shuksan and Sudden Valley and as the Director of Instruction at  Lake Padden. He set up Joe’s Professional Golf Lab and Indoor Golf Center in 2006.

Teaching Philosophy:
‘You have to work with what each student has,’ says Joe. ‘Don't try to overhaul the entire swing because most people don't have eight hours a day to devote to practice. I take a person's strengths and focus on those, utilizing ball flight laws to try to optimize each student’s swing path, club face angle and quality of strike.’

Contact:
(360) 752-3337

Basic Rate:
$60/45 minutes


Weight Moves to Instep

Letting your weight move to the outside of your right foot (right handers) as you draw the club back and swing to the top is a dangerous move in any conditions. Do it in Bellingham during the winter or spring when the fairways tend to be pretty damp and you are asking to hit the ball fat… very fat.

JoeHoldridgeSlide1 JoeHoldridgePerfect1 JoeHoldridgeSlide2 JoeHoldridgePerfect2 Stack and tilters may disagree, but your weight must gradually move on to your right (back) foot as you draw the club back and take it to the top. As the clubhead reaches the end of the backswing, you should ideally have the feeling you are pushing down into the ground through the inside of that back foot.

It may seem excessively technical, but exactly which part of the foot you push down on is very important. Let it slide all the way to the right edge (Images 1 & 3), and it would be a fluke were you to hit the ball solidly. A few things happen when you allow your weight to move back that far; 1) It tends to indicate a big lateral shift off the ball, meaning your head moves further behind the ball than it should which prevents a consistently solid strike, 2) Your shoulder turn is limited, meaning you can’t store up as much power in your backswing as you could, and 3) You can’t push off your right foot powerfully, meaning a further loss of power as you move into the downswing.

Power loss and inconsistent strikes are not what you want, obviously. In fact, by shifting off the ball so far, your downswing is likely to bottom out a couple of inches behind the ball. In damp conditions, such as those we experience all winter and much of the spring here in Bellingham, that means you are likely to lay a big, fat, wet divot on top of the ball.

Weight anchored on the instep of the right foot (Images 2 & 4) indicates a good coil and a powerful turn, rather than a sloppy, powerless slide off the ball. Your head remains steady which promotes better, ‘ball-first’ contact, and you can push off the inside of that back foot into your downswing ensuring your weight moves on to your left side as you move through the hitting area. 

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