I took my kid to golf lessons today with his mom at the Hank Haney golf school, with 4 full holes, a putting green, a bunker, and a driving range. He goes regularly, and is getting pretty darn good. As I'm standing there talking to his mom and watching him work through chipping and 7-iron drills I decided it could be amusing to give it a go, and after his hour-long lesson the instructor leaves us a bucket of balls to work on what he had just gone over. So I took the kid's little 7-iron and embarrassed myself on the first few balls. There's a huge pond with a floating platform close to shore, and one of the drills is to land a ball on it. I couldn't do it for the life of me. I sliced one off to the right and then sent a couple more wildly into the water.
So I said to heck with it and decided to pound a few. So I took this little club, put a ball down, and completely smashed it almost 200 yards (approximate, according to the instructor). Over the pond, across the course beyond, and into the trees that line the river past the property. He looked at me and said "Woah, hold on a sec. Try a few more." Pounded almost every single one of them into the tree line, with one landing on the course itself.
Then he took me over to the range and gave me a full sized 7 iron and 9 iron. We worked on my stance a bit, fixed my grip, and got to work. I smashed the holy shit out of those balls. No driver, just the two irons. It was amazing. I thought I'd embarrass the crap out of myself, and fully expected to do so. The farthest ball I hit landed around 250 yards. The guy told me to buy some clubs pronto and get my ass up there for lessons.
This place offers a 5-week clinic package for $200 that includes a 1.5 hour lesson each week and 3 custom made clubs: a 5-iron, 8-iron, and putter. I think I'm going to give it a go.