How I re-built my swing and gained accuracy.

[jonanthans]

Just my opinion, but I think accuracy is the single most important aspect of your golf game. I would prefer to hit a 7 iron 150 yards with 10 yards either side of my target than to be able to hit it 175 yards but 40 yards off my target. There are a few older guys at our local course who pay for their rounds of golf by beating the pants off the younger, long hitting guys.

[Baraethon]

Yah... I can't even get it 150.

With a 5 iron.

[Petden]

Yah... I can't even get it 150.

Well, that might be becuase you aren't getting solid contact, slow it down, and see how it works, if you play worse then go to your original setup.

[Baraethon]

It isn't really a contact issue, it is more the fact that I can barely get above 70 mph consistently.

[hamletsdead]

Being an obsessive-compulsive, I cut out of work early, headed to the range, grabbed my 7-iron out of the car and hit three big buckets using what I usually consider my chipping/pitching 1/2-swing (i.e., arms horizontal to the ground, club pointing straight up -- your basic "L"). Aside from the shots I muffed trying to swing too hard, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this method worked great! I was consistently hitting my 7-iron 130-140 yards (a bit shorter than usual) but my accuracy was way up and when I hit crisply down on the ball it just rocketed right off on a beeline to whatever flag I'd picked out. Whenever I lost the rhythm I went back to 1/4 swings to groove it into my mind.

My only real problem was trying to keep my swing easy; it's hard to try to swing smoothly when trying to put a 7-iron out 150 -- somehow it seems counterintuitive to take the same kind of "pitching from 70 yards out" swing when you're trying to send the ball twice as far.

A related problem (at least for me) is that I'm not used to taking divots and rarely do -- usually only with my pitching wedge -- so it was weird for me to see myself transformed into a digger in about 2 hours' practice. If you don't take a divot hitting down with your chipping stroke, I don't know how this method would work (or if it would). I was taking full-on dollar bills at least 1/2 an inch deep (or deeper).

The swing feels weird, and my follow through is sort of foreshortened (maybe because the lies are tight and I was digging so deep into the clay), but I can get used to it if I'm pin high.

[jonanthans]

When you are hitting down on the ball and following through, you are going to take divots. My divots are usually 3-4 inches long, 1" inch deep and about as wide as my club face (ping s59's). Use your divots to analyze your swing. By looking at your divot, you can tell exactly what your swing plane is, whether you are coming outside-in or inside-out, and if you are coming in too steep or too shallow..

When I go to the range, I usually hit 2 large bags of balls, starting with my lob wedge and working down. On the 90 yard flag, I can usually hit the flagstick 2-3 times out of the first 35-40 balls. I use my 5-iron laid down in line with my target and rest my toes against it to ensure proper alignment, and then I simply concentrate on my tempo and hitting down on the ball. If I am not within a few yards either way of my target, I guarantee you I can look down at my divot and tell you exactly what the problem was.

[juanrjackson]

Jonanthans,

What ball position do you do? middle of stance?

[Chief Broom]

I chip everything from my 5 iron though my wedges. Seriously. I rarely use more than a 70% effort on my swings. I approach every iron shot setup exactly like i'm going to hit a 40 yard chip, and then I swing about 65-70%, nice, easy and smooth, and hit down on the ball...

Wow, I rep'ed you for this thread. Great stuff here!

The funny thing is I have been incorporating pretty much what you've outlined here with my driver for about a month with great success. So I decided to give this approach a try with my irons, which I've really been struggling with lately. What I figured out a while back with my driver (I'm a chronic slicer off the tee) was that trying to kill the ball was leading me to over swing. So I dialed way back on the power and attempted to simplify the swing as much as possible. That took the form of minimizing all wrist action/cock in the backswing, especially at the top. This has worked out really well for me and I'm consistantly driving in the fairway at distances I'm very happy with (my last round averaged 242yds with the driver and that was with three miss hits that went 150, 200, and 202yds). So after reading this thread I figured I'd give this a try with the irons. I was a little unsure how to apply it because when I chip I don't break my wrists at all. I knew I couldn't do that and get any real distance out of my longer irons. Warming up this morning I used my LW and set up as usual (for a long wedge shot) but started adding more power to my usual chip stroke. What happened is that while I didn't cock my wrists at all they would naturally turn over going back and coming back through in the swing. Around the practice green the technique seemed to work and I figured I'd give it a whirl over 9 holes. I started on a 135yd par 3 that I usually hit a GW. I figured I'd need more club so I used my PW. I hit about a 70% shot using this chipping stroke. Unfortunately I pulled the shot, but surprisingly the ball took off like a rocket and had plenty of carry/height and was pin high in a left side bunker! I continued with this approach to my iron play and ended up tieing my record over those 9 holes. Just to show how effective this was I triple bogeyed the first hole, doubled another, and bogeyed one more. Add to that 5 pars and one birdy and I shot a 40. Had I been able to minimize those two blowup holes I easily could have shot 2 or 3 strokes lower! I'm definitely going to continue working on this technique. I believe it is a very fundamentally sound approach to hitting pure shots that are much easier to control than using a "full" swing. So far it looks like I might end up losing as much as 10 yards per club, but I found on a few shots, especially my 3h that my distance didn't suffer at all. It'll take time to dial in all of my irons and wedges, but I'm pretty excited about the prospects. I'm not yet throwing darts, but I think this just might be the approach my game has been needing to take me to the next level. Thanks again!

[juanrjackson]

So you are not cocking your wrists?

[Chief Broom]

So you are not cocking your wrists?

No, not intentionally. My wrists actually do cock some, but it's probably just mainly the natural wrist cock you have at address. I'm sort of trying not to cock them any more than that. Like I said I've been doing that with my driver lately and it's really helped a lot. I also figured that my backswing would be artifically shortened by using this process but in actuality I was going back almost to parallel (I practiced some with the sun behind me so I could see my shadow, since I did this around 8AM with the sun fairly low in the sky I had a nice view of my silhouette on the ground in front of me).

[jonanthans]

Jonanthans,

I play Driver even with my left foot big toe, everything else I play from the left side of my belt buckle(woods, hybrids) to the middle of my belt buckle (5-9 iron) and end up on the right side of my belt buckle (wedges). The only shot I hit with a sweep is my driver, everything else including my woods I hit down on. btw, I am removing my woods and replacing then with hybrids, havent settled on a specific one yet, I do love my Ping hybrid I now carry, so that may be what the other 2 end up being.

[jonanthans]

Wow, I rep'ed you for this thread. Great stuff here!

Your very welcome, you sound as excited as I have been! I have actually lowered my handicap to 7.3 in the past month, have yet to update it on here. Once I quit worrying about my distance and started putting all my focus on just the contact and tempo of my swing, the results are amazing! I have been hitting the range every day for the past month, when you start hitting the ball wherever you please this game gets even more addictive than it already is, lol. I hope this continues to work for you!