Play your own game, make your own swing.

[King Cobra II]

Over the course of this spring and summer I got much better at golf. I was flat out obsessed with golf. With the equipment, with my scores, with my swing. I took the swing thing a bit to far. I wanted the swing that every player had, who was better then me. I tried so many things that I ruined my high school season. I just lost it. Finally after two months of it, I got back what is mine, what is natural to me. And that is a big twist of the shoulders, a small bump of the hip, a huge divot, and a nice high slight left to right ball flight. This is what works for me. Why it works this way for me and not for others idk. Just like idk why some swings work for others and not for me. Anyways the point of the rant is to make you take a step back and realize what your strengths are, and what you need to improve on slowly, not all at once. Be happy with your own ability level and go from there.

[traviswise]

I have to agree. I find my worst rounds coming around when I start taking too much advice and not just swinging my natural swing.

[picrig]

I think, just like in most things, it's about finding the right balance. We all have our own natural swing tendencies. Some of these are harmless some of them need to be fixed. One key to improving is to identify the idiosyncrasies in your swing that detract from your ability to strike the ball well. For me, it's an upper body that dips on the right side on the downswing (led by a movement with my right shoulder) which ends up making me cast the club and cut across the ball. That's something I need to work on. Other things aren't so important.

In the end, though, when you get out there on the course, get the swing thoughts out of your mind and just hit the ball.

[Sandy Sammy]

Well i'm going through more swing changes than Tiger, Sergio, Vijay put together at the moment.

My handicap is all over the shop (I shot 100 one week then 120 , then 85 the next, and so on), that said i'm sure i'm making real progress, hitting the ball much better with a much better flight.

But trying to get over bad habits i've developed in the last 18 months or so (or always had in my natural swing) is tough.

One coach said 'there is a school of thought where you don't mess with the natural swing a person has', I didn't stay with him very long, about three lessons, I think my natural swing had that many problems it needed some serious messing with.

[Elvisliveson]

The full golf swing is the magician's assistant - it's just a distraction! Most average golfers need to iunderstand that the key to good golf is in the setup - grip, stance and alignment. Take the time to perfect those and then your body (and mental makeup) will dictate how you maneuver the club through the full range of motion.

[HR Golf]

I definitely agree with you on this one. I finally seem to be getting my swing worked out after a rough summer/fall. My swing was ok before, but not very consistent. I worked on it a lot and listened to a few tips and found something that worked for me 95% of the time. Then as I played with my new swing I decided I could make it better and hit further and maybe a little more accurately.
Wrong.

I started taking too much advice in and trying to correct everything about my swing and like you said, I just lost my swing. So now I've gotten back to the basics of my own personal swing.

It's good to take some major advice for the basics of the golf swing (keep your eye on the ball, swing all the way through, push your weight forward), but you can't expect to mimic Tiger's swing and then hit like Tiger.

[jmoc]

Gary McCord says you should look at your putter swing, it is a slow version of you "natural" swing, he says they should match up. I tend to agree, I putt going straight back and to the outside (not a lot, but noticable) and then approach the ball form the outside in, my face slightly closed, and the ball goes straight. I started messing with that to go more open to closed around the body and crashed my game, I was shooting 105 one day and 80 the next, I was a mess. I went back to my old putter and just naturally started putting the "old" way and that clicked something in my brain. I went back to the old swing and have been shooting better than I have in quite a while, shot 86 at the longest course in Wichita (and I am not long, 235-250 off the tee) in a 25 to 35 mph wind, reached par 5s in three, into the wind, that I'd never reached on a calm day. Have a look at you putter, just a thought..... jmoc

[Sherlockian]

I tend to agree. When I was learning to play back in the 1980s, I learned my swing from those of Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, and Seve. When I picked the game back up in the late 90s and 00s, I tried to mold a swing like the new guys. Guess what, it didn't work out. Since I have gotten back into golf, I have gone back to my "old school" swing and haven't looked back. I am proud to lift my left heel on the backswing, almost straighten my right leg, and let the clubhead go further than parallel.

[tm22721]

Like others I spent many frustrating years incorporating swing tips from disparate sources that didn't work.

Then I read Hogan's story of how he discovered the most repeatable swing in golf through countless hours of 'digging it from the dirt'. You will not find all of the details in his book 'Five Fundamentals' but if you scour the net you can glean enough clues to reconstruct it.

The moment when I first put it all together and felt the uninhibited energy and sheer violence of Hogan's swing was euphoric.

[Voiceontapex]

my brother has his own way of swinging, and it bothers the HELL out of me, i mean yea he hits his irons straight and sometimes has better shots than me, but the way he does it just urks me, especially his pitching when his arms dont move just his wrists, he lets the club pendulum from his wrist, gosh i hate that i and i say something every time but the shot does what he wants, so he gets all mad tells me to shut up and play my own game, which i guess hes right but MAN, haha

[HR Golf]

my brother has his own way of swinging, and it bothers the HELL out of me, i mean yea he hits his irons straight and sometimes has better shots than me, but the way he does it just urks me, especially his pitching when his arms dont move just his wrists, he lets the club pendulum from his wrist, gosh i hate that i and i say something every time but the shot does what he wants, so he gets all mad tells me to shut up and play my own game, which i guess hes right but MAN, haha

Haha I know what you mean. My brother has an awful swing (to me at least), it just doesn't look right and he doesn't bend his right arm in, it just annoys me. I've tried to correct him but he gets mad at me about it. He hits straight most of the time and sometimes outdrives me so it seems to work for him, but man his swing really gets to me.

But I guess that stems from the fact that when I started playing golf our dad signed me up for a million professional lessons and when my brother started playing he kind of picked it up on his own and opted out of lessons.