What Are You Working On?

[mojoe]

Quite a few things, but most of all my tempo. I was much too fast on my backswing which lead to all sorts of problems. I found by slowing down it helped my balance and ball striking, which all lead to more consistency. I also am making a real effort to hit more fairways. I am sick and tired of scrambling. Last round I was in the fairway 75% of the time simply by slowing down. It makes for a more enjoyable round.

[jambalaya]

One major thought in my recent changes is to be a lot looser, less mechanical in my swing. I had become too position oriented in my back swing. I am so suprised how good of contact I am making with the ball after becoming more free-swinging. I am hitting far fewer fat shots. I hate fat shots. I am thinning the ball more but at least a thinned shot advances. My biggest problem is the driver. When I don't get it right I get big push slice. See ya ball! I think I can work it out though.

[Zeph]

Jotted down a few things while I was waiting for something at work today:

• Shallow out the swing. From most shallow with driver to steep for wedges. I'm hitting all the clubs steep. Hit 7i to wedges great, but 6i and down not so much
• Prevent too much lateral movement with the torso and hips
• Don't rush to the ball, almost feel like you hold back with the upper body
• Hips turn first
• Tee it high with the driver to help hitting it shallow and on the way up
• Hips turn more, slide less
• Swing with a weighted rope to get the feeling of lag in the swing, try to move it over to the clubs. Use a lag box to prevent pre-release

[iacas]

I should put my two things in here, duh...

1) Takeaway - Hands/arms in, clubhead stays out, toe along spine angle (not toe up). I'm still looking for the perfect swing thought or "feel though" here, but it seems to be a combination of using my left shoulder more and getting the appropriate timing with my wrist hinge.

2) Hip Slide - You may think I'm trying to reduce my hip slide, but it's just the opposite. I'm trying to increase my hip slide. That old "swing in a barrel" thing is bunk. It really helps when I do #1 and makes doing this much easier.

[golfbarefoot]

smooth transition to downswing started by hips & staying positive and focused shot by shot

[Guest]

I'm hitting the ball pretty straight, but my distance is pretty low compared to the guys that I play with. I'm currently working on club head speed. I just bought a weighted club that seems to be helping. Wish me luck.

[Cooker]

-Putting, Putting, Putting
-Sequence of actions in my swing (Starting Downswing with hips)
-Shots inside 120 yards

[Beantown Beancounter]

took a couple lessons when I was with my dad at TPC Scottsdale. Things I need to work on to finally get into double digit scoring...

- Stronger grip to stop pushed/blocked shots
- Posture and secondary spine angle
- Turning my clubface during downswing, especially with driver
- sand play
- putting
- course management (I need to start to play to my strengths rather than always trying to go for it...example I played yesterday and consistently tried to hit out of the rough with my fairway woods costing me strokes when I eventually ended up using my hybrid or long irons to get back on to the short stuff...

I think if I implement these techniques I will be well on my way to breaking a hundo.

[harpua728]

hitting irons pure

[Leftygolfer]

I am working on taking the club straight back on the take away. I have ALWAYS had the tendancy to take it way to much to the inside and then come over the top. I hench pull alot of shots, pull hook, and lose control. I am doing it by taking half swings and really feeling the club outside the hands and then dropping it inside hitting little punches then working up to full swings. When I take it to the inside I am a terrible player. I can't hit anything but a hook and mishit everything off the toe.

[timthetortoise]

Things I'm working on

• More consistency with irons - figured out that the ball position in my stance has been causing a lot of bad shots, so need to get a good setup routine to stick with before every shot. Patience is a subset of what I need to work on, I suppose
• More accurate distance with wedges - within 80-50 yards tends to kill me in terms of getting the right distance. Usually sits on the fringe or far out from the hole, or is way over the green. Probably should start learning my lob wedge for closer shots on small greens
• 85 or better - Getting close to this goal, but of course it pretty much depends on the day
• Staying under 90 on at least 10 rounds - Got a lot of rounds to reach this. Goes along with my 10 good shots per round goal.

Tomorrow: hoping that all my iron practice and posture work has paid off. We'll see!

[powerfader]

.Softening my grip at impact, I've got this awful tendency to clench at the moment of truth.
.maintaining the flex in my left knee, this feels like it could be the key to consistant ball striking.
.cementing my new set-up so I don't fall back into the habit of crowding the ball.
.Trying to stop my inevitable disaster hole derailing my entire round.

[GoodLife]

Swing plane, swing plane, and swing plane. I tend to take the club a little inside on my backswing which leads to hooks and skulled miss-hits on my downswing. Since I have been working on it I have been trapping the ball really well but I am also hitting some fat and pushing some of my drives. I guess I am going to have to suck-it-up and go to the range more..

[Flatswinger]

What am I not working on?
• This month I've been concentrating on chipping -- tons of repetition. Seeing how many up & downs the tour players have to make made me realize that lack of a good chipping game has really hurt my scoring. The goal is to be consistently near the hole after a chip. Even no further than 6 feet if it happened nearly EVERY time would be an improvement. I am going about it by supplying power only with my shoulders. The only time I seem to hit a chip fat is when I fail to do this. In hitting so many balls with so many different clubs it's amazing how many different shots you can come up with.
• On the full swing I have gone back to the way I used to play as a kid after an experiment with Homer Kelly's Golfing Machine technique, several re-readings of Hogan's Five Lessons and a few of Sam Snead's swing thoughts thrown in. I literally played 3 successive rounds with 3 completely different swings at one point, hoping that one would emerge: I shot exactly 81 on all three rounds & didn't learn much. So now it's AJ Bonar's hands hand-eye coordinated swing: open the face going back & close it up quick as you try to pound the ball into the ground [irons]. Square-to-square has been killing me for decades, & although AJ's method seemed kind of kooky, it's the one that works best for me, though I can't think of one good reason it should.

Golf is a contrary game.

[EightBlue]

this month 2 things:

1) being smooth through transition and feeling connected through my entire swing

2) distance control on my 35-65 yard pitches

[Cooker]

1. Putting (Always)
2. Sand Shots

[bunkerputt]

I am working on taking the club straight back on the take away. I have ALWAYS had the tendancy to take it way to much to the inside and then come over the top. I hench pull alot of shots, pull hook, and lose control. I am doing it by taking half swings and really feeling the club outside the hands and then dropping it inside hitting little punches then working up to full swings. When I take it to the inside I am a terrible player. I can't hit anything but a hook and mishit everything off the toe.

Those are exactly my tendencies and also what I'm working on. I also tend to have too long of an arm swing for my shoulder turn which gets me out of sync coming down. I tend to either get the club trapped and flip it, or come OTT to compensate. So I'm trying to make as big of a shoulder turn as possible while shortening up my arm swing a bit. That, combined with a slight pause to allow my arms to drop in the slot before I really turn through gets me striking the ball well with a lot of power. When I get my arms in the right place, I can turn through as hard as I want and still hit the ball well. Today at the range, I hit the first few 5-irons out of sync and slightly off the toe around 170 yards. When I get into the slot, they carry 205, with a visually shocking difference in ball speed and impact sound. And at a much nicer, mid-range trajectory, instead of the high and spinny one that gets lost in the clouds.

I've also taken to doing a drill where I look at the ball with my lead eye only as I'm doing my backswing plane practice waggle. This gets me thinking about coming from the inside and hitting down on the ball with every single club up through 3 wood.

[IPgolfer]

at this point of the season i am working on my drives because most of the time i can get my drive straight but every now and then i have a few holes that i just cant get it right so im working on keeping it a little more consistent.