Consistency. How did you get it?

When I'm on I can hit a nice ball, good shape, decent distance. My biggest problem is consistency. I realize this is a lot of peoples problem, but the factor is to what degree.

Example: I'm at the range today, first 10 balls hit decently but they were hooking. Not horribly, but enough that if I was on a course I would be hitting out of the bunker at best. I started to get into the flow and hitting well and then started topping the ball for a bit. Worked that out a then continued.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I haven't found my "magic move" yet. I wonder sometimes if it's that I'm just not trusting my swing enough......

Did any of you fairly consistent hitters have a defining moment when you could start hitting consistently, or was it just consistent practice (something the weather has stopped me from doing lately)?

If any of us could tell you that..we wouldnt be posting here...haha. But ive found that ballstriking consistancy will come and go, no matter how good you may be. I dont think there is a "magic mechanical move" that will make anyone a consistant ballstriker, its more of a feeling you get from time to time. One thing you can always be consistant in though is short game and putting. My saviors.

Pitching, chipping, putting are easy mechanical motions that dont require much thought at all, so i find they are the easiest to repeat and to be consistant. Ive had days where i was hackin drivers and 7 irons everywhere but still shot in the mid 70's because of the short stuff. So what im talking about here isnt so much consistant ballstriking, but consistant scoring. A nice short game is a great security blanket to lean on when you need it.

For me, one of the keys to consistentcy is to keep doing the same thing, whether it's working that particular day or not. I often see people make radical changes round to round to address the issue of the day. When I am having an issue I make only subtle changes such as changing my aim points or going to only one shot shape. I do not change my swing or approach. I have enough confidence in what I do to stick with it. If I am going to make a change, I do so on range and then stick with that change for a while, even if it doesn't seem to be working. As most golfers know, changes require time, practice and effort to 'take hold'.

I think that's what I fall down on. I don't make radical changes, but it think I need to trust my swing more and let it work out with very small changes.

DFB, That was good advice on the short game. I'm starting to put more effort into that again. I use to practice it a lot but stopped when I put a lot attention on my driver. I'm in the middle of reading The Art of the Short Game, and it's really helping.

Personally, after starting to work with a pro I have found that I am making more consistant contact with the sweet spot of the club. I used to get ball marks all over the face of the club when I practiced. (Indoor dome leaves some wax from the netting on the balls so you don't need impact tape)

He helped me make a swing modification to get me on a steeper swing plane and then drop into the slot so I swing from the inside out. Previously I had a flatter swing plane and was coming over the top on an outside in path. The ball marks on my club are in a tight little cluster now.

During my first lesson with the pro he mentioned that I had a pretty good set-up and grip and kept spine angle fairly consistant through my swing so the inside out change made a huge difference for me.

Nice thing about doing this over the winter is that once spring roles arround I don't have to worry about taking mechanics onto the course and I can just be target oriented and trust my swing. I believe this approach will make me a more consistant ball striker.

-E

I read the Stan Utley book, too. I loved it and picked a few key fundementals from it. He really knows what he is talking about. I pretty much picked and choosed what was useful to what i felt comfortable with from the book, but his advice on the sand game i use verbatim to this day.

I think its just something that comes with time and practice. Im still not as consistent as Id like to be, but Im a lot better than I was.

This is my problem too. Sometimes when I go to the range I hit perfect, but the next day I go to the course I can't make anything right. And there are sometimes that I go to the range and hit all the balls wrong and in the course I hit pretty decent.

Greetings!

The simple and easy answer is practice, practice practice. That is a big part of it but you have to practice with a purpose. When I hit balls at the range I'm there for nearly two hours. I go through my entire preshot routine with every ball and I also work on a number of drills. I know in today's world it is tough to get away but if you only have a half hour to practice at the range, get a small bucket, take your time and make every shot count. I think that would be more productive than banging a large bucket down range in 30 minutes or less. The key is to not just practice but to leave the range feeling like you had a "Successful Practice"!

Sometimes changing your mental aproach to golf can help you take a big step forward. One of the best tips I ever had was from a younger college player I use to practice with years ago. We shared ideas and tips with one another and the best one he gave me was this: Golf is not about hitting perfect shots, it is about minimizing your misses. Narrowing those misses down until your worst drives may just miss the fairway or your worst pitches are still within 10 feet. All these things take practice but when you aproach it that you don't have to hit every shot perfect it helps take some of the pressure off your game and give you a chance to focus and consistantly perform the task at hand.

Another key peice of consistancy is "Confidence". We normally build up our confidence by successfully completing a task. The more times you successfully complete the task(ie...get up and down from the bunker) the more confidence we will build in our games.

So, "Successful Practice" builds "Confidence" and creates "Consistant Play"!

Most of this stuff is Psychology 101, but it really does apply!

Good Luck!

watch this video

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-...ect-golf-swing

I think that will help, I will try it, thanks Parker0065.

Greetings!

I get more cosistent when I am not controlling anything. Basically, I push the club back with my left hand, and pull back down with my left hip. That's all I do.

For me it's down to a couple basics. Once I developed a repeatable routine that i know works (sometimes , hah) I've come to realise a couple things. Ussually if I'm not consistent it's becasue I"m off balance and/or didn't stretch & warm up properly. Most of hte time if I hit a bad shot and do some stretches etc.. before the next swing and make sur ei'm balanced i'm back in slot afterwards. Best of luck, everybody needs a little (especially Greg Norman)

You get consistency by being consistent in your backswing. That's all there is to it. You need to learn the correct setup (grip, posture, balance, foot position and ball position) to allow a proper backswing and then make a proper backswing where the club stays out along the target line and the shoulders complete the turn, so that the body is turning the club from the ball and maximizing and saving the coil at the top. When you look at the photos of any good touring pro, their backswing is textbook and repeating. You cannot play golf with an armsy steep, nocoil, limp lifting move from the ball to the top. You can do it at the range because you can figure out the compensating moves to hit the ball for that day but those compensating moves do not repeat on the course or under any pressure.

A good drill is to set up with a club, any club, and take a used shaft and stick it in the ground at the same incline next to the club. Now move left of the shaft on the same line so that you club's hosel is in line with the shaft at parallel to the ground. Now make backswings so that you do not hit the shaft. This makes you set the club properly at three o'clock so the club is butt to target and toe up, then you turn the shoulders to complete the backswing, arms do nothing but hold the club in the final shoulder turn to the top. This prevents the fatal flaws of turning the shoulders too soon in the backswing resulting in a final arm with no coil and taking the club inside at the bottom (same result). The downswing is simply swing down and you can it well without hitting the shaft. Eventually, you can hit balls with this shaft in the ground and swing around it. Any miss sequence and you hit the shaft.

Two notes In a good setup and spine angle your eyes should be slightly beyond or over the ball. To see the ball we should need to strain our eyes down. We tend therefore, to drop our heads, to avoid the strain and now our head is too low and we cannot make a full shoulder turn back.

Also, the first move back sets the whole backswing. We need to move the clubhead straight back two inches or so with hip turn (this gets the body turning not sway)if he move back is blocked by the club and grass, such that, the first move in the backswing for most is a "lifting action" which starts the arms folding improperly, left arm breaks and right elbow rises up all the way to the top. Work on taking the club straight back not up, by having most of the club weight in your hands, not on the ground.

I just learned consistency through constantly swinging the club. I'd just jump to the hitting net every once in a while, hitting maybe 200 balls a day or so in 15-30 min periods spread out. Once I built a comfortable swing, all I had to do was keep swinging and repeating it. The more I swung, the more consistent I became. I also noticed my eyes started getting faster, as in the ability to watch the strike happen. Practice definitley trains you very well and consistency will happen by repeating the same motion. Practice one motion, swing one motion. I don't know how else to explain how I learned to hit that ball. Find what works, and keep doing it. When you deviate, stop, reset, start slow and rebuild back to what worked.

When I hit a bad shot I try to figure out why the ball did what it did and know what I can do during a round to compensate for the mistake. I have 2 golf swings that I can rely on because everyday your swing is a different.

The answer is in the dirt because the most consistent ball striker of all time was Ben Hogan and he took the secret to his grave.

??? After reading

5 Lessons I am certain his "secret" was practice. Lots and lots of practice.