Completely Confused

[EAGLES FAN]

Why is it that when I'm at the driving range by myself, 90% my drives and hits go straight but when I'm out on the golf course I hit everything (including the maintenance guy last week) but the fairway. I'm so annoyed. Am I more relaxed by myself and just nervous out on the course with other???

[bentur123]

i guesse that your the only one that can tell us if your nervous or not on the course. But i think it is alot easier to hit straight shots on the range and many peopel find this to be the case.

The main reasons i can think why this would happen is that as your repeating your swing over and over again at the range it helps to hit straigt as you can make minor adjustments for the swings that didnt go straight. Also alot of people tend to just it the ball straight down the range whereas on a course you very rarly aim down the tee it up in the middle of the tee box and hit down the middle of the fairway. This aiming to the left or right is harder to line up ( or i find it is) and this can lead to the ball not going straight

[Marinemike]

Do you pick out a target on the fairway? If you don't, that could be a reason. The whole fairway can't be your target. If you don't have something to aim at you a) won't be focused and b) won't ever hit a straight shot. Picking out a target and just focusing on lining up my body and club to hit the shot I wanted kept me focused enough on the right things to hit a very large percentage of fairways even if I didn't get to my target. YMMV.

[EAGLES FAN]

I guess I need to be picking out a target on the fairway. Instead of picking out a target, I'm more focused on just trying to hit any part of the fairway.

[Shindig]

  EAGLES FAN said:

Why is it that when I'm at the driving range by myself, 90% my drives and hits go straight but when I'm out on the golf course I hit everything (including the maintenance guy last week) but the fairway. I'm so annoyed. Am I more relaxed by myself and just nervous out on the course with other???

Two questions:

1. How's your routine on the range vs. on the course? Are there things you do on one but not the other? 2. Are you really hitting your drives straight on the range, or are you just looking at them when you hit them? I've seen people set up willy-nilly on the range and hit the ball in such a way that it doesn't curve, and they're looking at it when it flies, so it looks straight. But since they didn't really aim at anything, it feels like it's straight, but there's a difference between straight at a target and not curving. I used to think I hit it straight on the range, and had troubles on the course. Then I started picking targets at the range, and found out it wasn't really flying straight. I got into the habit of picking a target, and ended up hitting it reasonably straight on the range after a while, and was able to carry that to the course.

[c4m]

I'm kindof the same way but what gives me trouble is when the tee box or the fairway is at an angle and I have to set up at an angle. To help this I try to aim at different things when I hit at the range and not just hit straight at the middle the whole time

[flopdarock]

for me i think its in my head that on the range it doesnt count... im just trying to bomb balls past the 300 marker with every ball in the bucket...
on the course you know every stroke counts and arent as loose and relaxed as you are on the range...
this is exactly how i am when it comes to putting... ill sink 40 footers on the practice green but cant get a 3 footer to drop on the course

[zeg]

Also, is your first shot straight on the range? Remember on the course your first drive counts. On the range, you may hit a couple of wayward ones and then work things out and hit 10 in a row straight. If exactly the same thing happened on the course, your wayward shot would be the one that counted.

[HSip]

  Marinemike said:

Do you pick out a target on the fairway? If you don't, that could be a reason

That sounds right - will help if you only hit to targets on the range and then take that out to the course.

[wrx_junki]

  zeg said:

Also, is your first shot straight on the range? Remember on the course your first drive counts. On the range, you may hit a couple of wayward ones and then work things out and hit 10 in a row straight. If exactly the same thing happened on the course, your wayward shot would be the one that counted.

That's definitely true. At the range, you hit quite a few balls in a row and get into a groove.

[AmenCorner]

  EAGLES FAN said:

I guess I need to be picking out a target on the fairway. Instead of picking out a target, I'm more focused on just trying to hit any part of the fairway.

As Bob Rotella would say, sloppy targets produce sloppy swings.