I caught the shanks!!

[clubhousehero]

I wish i never read this thread.

I am planning on playing a round tomorrow and now i'm going to bed with thoughts of sh*nks in my head.

[chrt396]

Last time I had the "Shanks" was in the mid 90's. I quit for 15 years and "Presto!" They are all gone!!!

[beachbreak]

This is one of the reasons why I am not a believer in reading a book and revamping your technique. For me, I'd rather tweak my basic, natural swing when things go wrong. I will usually try to fix a problem by feel, rather than by analyzing positions, etc.
What happens to me is I will read a how-to article or book, and subliminal things will stick in my mind, altering what I already do correctly...for me! It's the classic Harvey Pennick line of "If I tell you to take an aspirin, do you take the whole bottle"?

[beachbreak]

Just as a side note, I played this year with a guy in his 70's with two knee replacements. He had sn unorthodox swing, but he was consistant and knew where his shots were going, he was straight and short. He shot 38 on the front nine and 78 for 18 holes. He was what I would call a scorer, a player, always analyzing where he wanted to put the ball. I learned alot about course management from him by watching him play on that course. Doing thing the "correct way" meant nothing to him. He had his own way.

[squaddie]

I had shank problems off-and-on for the past three weeks as I went through some lessons to correct my swing fundamentals and shorten my backswing. After the instructor gave me some take-away drills to perform the shanks came my first practice session afterwards.

I found out what was wrong two days ago by video-taping my swing. I saw I was laying the club off too much at the top, casting my arms and the club behind my body, instead of bringing the arms up and slotting the club at the top of the swing, on plane. As a result my swing was too steep, the swing plane rotated too far rightwards and inside-to-out, causing the club face to travel down right of the ball.

The issue went away after the next lesson, then the shanks came on again after I watched the Arnold Palmer Invitational this past weekend. I had been watching a lot of swings in slow-motion of Sean O'Hair and others and I think I was unconsciously and incorrectly trying to mimic their swing-style.

By focusing on the take-away I had been trying to bring the club too far to the right of my body. The issue crept up again this afternoon after I hit a few shots with my 4-hybrid, then I started hitting the hosel. I slowed down my swing and focused on not veering the club too far to my right in the takeaway, and seemed to have the issue under control again. I had started the range session with my PW and 7-Iron, and because I was tired I think using the longer hybrid club triggered me back into the bad takeaway motion.

I also discovered this afternoon when my arms veer too far to the right in the backswing that my hip turn is more restricted and my left leg cannot turn in as much.

Anyhow, my point is if you start shanking consistently it may be worthwhile to stop and record your swing to see what you are doing wrong, since you probably don't even feel what's wrong.