Mark E. Wallace

I agree with that first answer. Your practice on the range isn't just about hitting the ball and watching where it goes. It's about visualizing the shot, approaching the ball, setting up to it (including alignment, of course), etc.... Practice the whole deal until it's routine. Heck...I've had such bad alignment issues that I actually keep an old beater 7-iron in my living room and practice my alignment using the tiles in my living room. They're nearly perfectly parallel. As geeky as it sounds, it works for me.

The question made perfect sense to me I don't know what you guys are complaining about let's just all chill out and talk about golf isn't that why we're here in the first place?

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I have the same issue, but I don't really think too much of it, for two reasons. 1) Performance on the course matters most, and 2) Despite the occasional range woes, my practice pays off on the course. I consistently get better through practice. Were that not the case, the range issues would bug me. - Mark

I often have the same issue. Whenever I do, I try to go back to this video for a reminder on how to start the downswing. This guy had some success on the tour a few years back. YMMV, but this works for me as long as I get myself to do it. - Mark

Don't aim your shot. Set your body and club face (per the recommendations in this thread) and then put a good sound swing on the ball. If you set up correctly and still don't get the desired results, it's most likely not your aim/setup; it's your swing. - Mark

Call it a state of mind, I guess. I have a similar but different story. I got started in golf back in October `08, when a colleague of mine encouraged me to buy some Callaway X-22 knockoffs while we were on business together in China. I knew they were fakes but was okay with that because (1) I was just getting started, wasn't sure I'd like it, and didn't want to spend much in case I ended up abandoning the game, and (2) several of our other colleagues had purchased clubs from the same shop in China and had nothing but good things to say about them. I got a great price for good (not great, but pretty darned good) knockoffs, and I was happy with the idea that I could get started on the cheap and then bail out if I didn't like it without being out much cash. After about six months of play and lessons, my coach felt that I would be better off moving away from those clubs; not because they were fakes or crappy clubs, but because he felt that steel shafts were more suited to my swing than the graphites that I had bought in China. By this time, my game and enjoyment had progressed to the point where I was shooting in the mid-80's to low-90's and was on the range or playing several times per week. Commitment was no longer a factor, and I had moved beyond those original clubs, so I bought some legit TM Tour Burner irons and woods last month. Anyhow...the point is that, unlike the OP, my head wasn't at all messed up with the idea of using fakes. To the contrary, I was thrilled to be able to play with good quality clubs for little money and know that they weren't at all hampering my game's future. I left them because of the graphite shafts. Otherwise, had those original clubs had steel shafts, I would probably still be playing them. Yes, I'm aware of the issues surrounding fakes, but their availability made golf easily accessible for me and thus brought me in as a committed golfer who has contributed plenty of money to U.S. golf in the last seven months and most likely will for many years to come. Cheers, - Mark

Personally, I think AK was just trying to put on some fake humility there. When you play at as high a level as AK plays, you know how to execute your shot and fix it if you're off a bit. - Mark

Yes, but the original assertion from HytrewQasdfg was that the divot should start 4 inches after the ball, not that it should bottom-out 4 inches after. So DavidFehertysBike 's "lol" in response was correct after all, since it was an "lol" at the idea of having the divot start 4 inches after the ball. - Mark

That could have been a misinterpretation of Clampett's recommendation to have the swing bottom roughly 4-5 inches in front of the ball. The divot itself definitely shouldn't start 4 inches in front of the ball though.