PGA Club Professional

John Dwyer

Ashbourne Golf Club’s resident PGA golf professional is John Dwyer. He joined us in March 1999 and has built up a fine reputation as a player, teacher and retailer in that time. A winner of the PGA Irish region order of merit in 2001 and a member of both the 2000 and 2003 PGA cup teams, John is a regular winner on the domestic circuit and has competed in all 4 rounds of the 2005 Irish and European Opens. In 2007, John won the Glenmuir Club Professional Championship.  His simple uncomplicated approach to teaching golf results in him being very popular with all categories of handicap golfers.

Golf Lesson Prices:

1 lesson (30min) €35.00

3 lessons €100.00

4 lessons €120.00

6 lessons €175.00

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TIP OF THE MONTH

Get your knee in the RIGHT position

Or ball-striking, direction and power can all be adversely affected…

This is a fault that I see regularly in my own coaching at Ashbourne GC which relates to the right knee.

After a good sound set-up, the right knee must stay solid in the backswing – this is a key area that you will observe in any good player’s technique.  It affects all of the following: quality of strike, direction and power of the shot.

STRIKE: If the right knee is out of position, this restircts your ability to return to the proper position at impact on a consistent basis.  The right knee remaining solid creates a spring like effect to allow the body to unwind back to the correct position.

DIRECTION: The right knee being unstable upsets the movement of the hips and shoulders during the backswing.  If it collapses (picture 3) it allows the upper body to sway off the ball and if it straightens (picture 4), it tends to force the weight onto your left side (reverse pivot) in the backswing.

Both faults generally lead to the dreaded sliced shot, particularly with straight-faced clubs.  You can see in picture 3 that it creates an out-to-in swing and in picture 4 it encourages your body to get ahead of the ball at impact, which can leave the clubface open.

POWER: You have probably heard that the upper body turns against the lower body in the backswing to generate all the power.  What this means is that the right hip and shoulder turn against the right knee and foot to create a coil-like effect that allows the body to unwind properly with power on the downswing.

Once the knee gives way, a lot of the power is lost and now all the energy is wasted in the body trying to get back to a decent impact position.

As you can see from pictures 1 & 2 the right knee remains in the same position from set up through to the top of your backswing.  This is called a ‘fully loaded position’ and you are now ready to let everything unwind.  The general feeling when practicing this is a feeling of restriction – this is actually your coil building up properly – whereas previously if the knee was not being supportive the feeling would have been to ‘free’ or ‘loose’

PRACTICE DRILL: The best drill to give you the exact feeling for this is to hit 50 yard wedge shots. Stand on something like your nine iron head face down with the club at the outside of your right foot.  Do not attempt to hit full shots as you can do yourself an injury.

As always, consult your local PGA Professional to help you get the most out of your game.

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Pro Shop

As a retailer, John has built up a very successful business since moving into the large pro-shop that has been provided by Ashbourne golf club. A professional custom fitting service along with competetive prices has resulted in John gaining a great reputation in the local and surrounding areas. Ping, Mizuno, Titleist and recently Taylor Made have all requested him to be a custom fit agent.

His policy is that all clubs should be bought on a “try before you buy” basis and insists on giving his personal attention before purchasing which he is all too happy to do. The pro-shop is arguably the largest in the country which allows visitors freedom to brouse this well stocked shop and he is ably assisted by his two PGA assistant professionals. Always a bargain to be had here. Tel: +353 (0)1 835900