What now?

[Chief Broom]

I've got a pretty decent swing. When everything comes together right I can hit the ball a fair distance where I want it to go, but the thing is I'm having trouble grooving consistancy. I've been spending a good bit of time at the range hitting balls and trying to groove the proper mechanics, but so far finding consistancy has elluded me. I think having a buddy video a range session would be a good idea to help give me a handle of where my misses (inconsistancies) are coming from and how best to combat them. I'm also considering lessons, but I haven't been able to find a teaching pro that I've got a lot of confidence will help me improve. The last thing I want to do is get some pro who thinks he knows better than me try to tear me down and rebuild my swing. If it's a pro who does know more then me then fine, but like I said I haven't met that person yet. That's what has kind of got me spooked. I make good contact with the ball and have a decent understanding of the mechanics of the game, so it's not like I'm some duffer who a pro can step in and make a dramatic difference with a few good tips. I've got a couple of nagging and repeating swing flaws that I can't seem to shake. Namely I have a bad habit of opening up the club face on impact, which leads to a fade at best and at worst a nasty slice. I also tend to hit my irons fat periodically. I can fix these errors if I work and concentrate at it, but out on the course either error can pop up on any given shot. This means I pretty much know what to do to not do these things, but I don't always do it. I'm trying to groove the right thing on the range but so far this hasn't worked to my satisfaction. A teaching pro will really need to know their stuff in order to help me find a way to fix my problems that is beyond what I know to do. I probably just need to bite the bullet and take some lessons, but like I said I have no idea where to start looking for the pro who can help me out. I could always drive up to Reynolds Plantation and go the full bore, top of the line route but that would easily set me back several thousand bucks! I honestly can't do that, so somebody please steer me in the right direction...

P.S. my slice isn't the result of an outside in swing path as much as me just getting lazy and leaving the club face open. If you ask me to intentionally hook a drive I can easily do so by snapping the club shut.

[Damien45]

Sounds like you are rushing things at times. One of the things I am doing to "grain my groove in" is slow, steady, partial swings. I try to be consistant with the swing amount before adding more rotation, ie: 1/2 to 3/4 swing. One of the things that helps me is a phrase used when I was in my firearms class "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast". Your body will start to remember with time, which is probably why you revert to the slice when you rush.

Hope that helps.

[flopdarock]

one of my brothers was in your shoes...
he's resistant to teaching pro's... he had taken sporadic lessons thru the years and nothing clicked for him... they didnt offer him things he didnt already know...
he remained a high handicap with a pretty swing when he was grooving... he would birdie par 5's and quadruple par 3's...
then he started taking hi tech golf lessons... he couldnt argue with technology... whereas before he'd just get frustrated at the pro's 'suggestions'... now to actually see his recorded flaws frame by frame... watching his ball flight... getting data on do's and dont's... he has dropped his handicap considerably

[ks8829]

Watch this video and practice your short game to focus on your impact zone with pitch shots of 30-50 yards for 2 weeks and your golf swing will improve along with your short game. If you over analysis this method you will not do it so think of it as a way to improve your short game and later see the improved results of your golf swing.

[Chief Broom]

I bit the bullet and set up some lessons. I called one of the better courses in my area and set it up with their pro. I was leary in doing this because last year I had a bad experience with lessons from a so called "pro" that I was dissatisfied with to the point of not bothering to take the last 3 of the 5 lessons I paid for in advance (boy did I feel stupid for doing that). I had my first lesson today and this guy seems pretty sharp (he's an actual PGA teaching pro). I like the way he is going about the lessons and we're using email to correspond and he'll be sending me his notes and lesson plans. The lesson went well and I'm pretty confident he'll be able to help me out. I think having another set of eyes on my swing helped. That and he knows what he's doing and knows what to tell me to help my swing. His tips for the first lesson where laughably simple, but they seemed to have the desired effect. Primarily he said my swing is coming from outside in (ha!) and he had me starting my back swing with the hands and wrists staying quite and pulling the club back on an outside path. I immediately started hitting my shots straighter. We spent about a 1/2 hour together and then he left me alone to finish off the second bucket of balls. I even pulled out my driver and using the same techniques I was hitting drives with much less of a fade/slice bias. I would still occasionally fade the ball (sometimes strongly up to 30yds right of my target) but much less than I have been doing (50-70yds right and sometimes more!). I felt more in control of my swing than I have in quite some time. I'm going to continue working on what he gave me this weekend and then get with him the first of the week for my next lesson. Wish me luck...

[Dub]

Sounds like you made some huge progress in one tune-up lesson.

I can relate really well to how you described your frustrations. I share some of those exact same aggravations.

I set up to the ball a good bit closed and bring it around. I do this to eliminate the painful torque in my right knee. It looks weird but it's mostly effective. The downside is it puts me in an outside-in swing path. All sorts of nast things can happen if my timing is off.

The other thing that's driving me nuts right now is not maintaining my height throughout the swing. I'll dip and stand up a small amount....thinning or chunking the shot. I suppose that's why I'm loving the hybrid....so forgiving with vertical misses.


Who did you go see???


I've heard some really good things about the pro over at the Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken. A couple of guys I work with have seen him...said he made an immediate improvement in their games and was very reasonably priced. They said he was simple to understand and didn't try to tear down their swings and rebuilt it....just game them some things to work towards.


Good luck with your game.

We've got to get together sometime and play. I'm playing mostly at G.Lakes but my golf has been slowed way down lately due to crazy work schedule and aggravating knee problems....but we can shoot for something in the future.