Should I start slow?

[slinkee]

I've been golfing for 4 months and suffered a horrible slice until recently. Today I tried something different and that was instead of still trying to rip the ball 300 yards every time, (did it once, have no idea how with my horrible swing back then) I figured if I really want to improve I'll slow my club head speed way way down and just try and drop it 200 yards or so.

My thought process in this is that if I can stay straight and hit fairways, who cares if they only go 180-230 yards with the driver, they're in the fairway and not slicing 50 yards off of it.

Should I keep this routine for a few months and slowly try to increase club head speed over time for the extra distance? Or should I stay trying to swing fast so that rhythm of speed starts to be ingrained in my mind, and try and work out the flaws with the faster swing? My club head speed was clocked at and average of ~90MPH about 3 weeks ago. Today I felt I was dropping as low as 75-80 but hey, I hit 4/9 fairways and the other 4 (1 par 3 on front 9) were 1-2 yards off in the rough but pretty good lies.

Now if I didn't 3 putt everything .... ;)

[Bignose]

Well, slinkee, you already know the answer to this. What good is it performing poor mechanics as fast and as hard as you can? You the results -- banana ball. Learn to do the mechanics of the swing correctly, then you can learn to speed them up.

[meenman]

It's funny because I always start each round with a much slower swing than I end up with - its a little bit of confidence building as I go and a bit of the beers kicking in.

[slinkee]

  Bignose said:

Well, slinkee, you already know the answer to this. What good is it performing poor mechanics as fast and as hard as you can? You the results -- banana ball. Learn to do the mechanics of the swing correctly, then you can learn to speed them up.

I thought so :) It just makes me feel better when I hear somebody agree with me haha.

[marpr]

  slinkee said:

I've been golfing for 4 months and suffered a horrible slice until recently. Today I tried something different and that was instead of still trying to rip the ball 300 yards every time, (did it once, have no idea how with my horrible swing back then) I figured if I really want to improve I'll slow my club head speed way way down and just try and drop it 200 yards or so.

congrats.

[Shindig]

  slinkee said:

I've been golfing for 4 months and suffered a horrible slice until recently. Today I tried something different and that was instead of still trying to rip the ball 300 yards every time, (did it once, have no idea how with my horrible swing back then) I figured if I really want to improve I'll slow my club head speed way way down and just try and drop it 200 yards or so.

Hey, I discovered the same thing a while ago. When you don't care about distance, you get accuracy and distance. It's a nice trade-off My problem is that my course puts the long holes at the end, so I'm tempted to swing out of my shoes on the last few tees. Needless to say, my accuracy drops at this point. I say go with your new-found accuracy! And you'll be surprised at the distance you end up with.

[Dent]

Definatly, start off slow and then work your way up.

[obsessedgolfer]

my golf coach told me to place a club pointin stright in front of the tee and one in the back and to try to swing inside both of the clubs now i took my 25yard slice into a 5 yard draw

[slinkee]

  obsessedgolfer said:

my golf coach told me to place a club pointin stright in front of the tee and one in the back and to try to swing inside both of the clubs now i took my 25yard slice into a 5 yard draw

Yeah I actually did that the other day at the driving range. Oddly for me, I had an inside-out swing AND and open face at impact so not only was I slicing it, the ball was already starting out to the right! This really helped me straighten out my swing, well, as much as you can for a new golfer like myself

[TGMTeacher]

  slinkee said:

I've been golfing for 4 months and suffered a horrible slice until recently. Today I tried something different and that was instead of still trying to rip the ball 300 yards every time, (did it once, have no idea how with my horrible swing back then) I figured if I really want to improve I'll slow my club head speed way way down and just try and drop it 200 yards or so.

By slowing down you're avoiding

over-acceleration . Over-acceleration is when your hands reach maximum speed before impact. Once they reach maximum speed the clubhead over-takes them and you flail through the ball with a bent lead wrist. When the lead wrist bends the clubhead prematurely swings up, forward and in past your hands. This "in" component is what causes the clubhead to swing outside-in across your target line producing that slice. Have you ever seen the little ducks on the belt at the shooting gallery? The belt moves at a constant speed around the pulleys but when the ducks get to the end of the run and flip around the pulley they seems to do so with acceleration. The reason is because the ducks have to go through a greater degree of arc in the same amount of time as the belt so they have to accelerate to keep up. We can apply this simple principle to the golf swing; Your hands are the belt, they move at a constant speed but because the club has to go through a greater degree of arc and has to keep up it must do so by accelerating. To some it up your goal is not to swing slower but to swing with a constant hand speed. From the shortest putt to the longest drive swing your hands with a constant speed. Law and principle make the swing so much easier.