Staying connected

[Woodtek]

I"ve been playing on my opti shot this winter and praticing "staying connected". The opti shot really has helped as it showed me the wisdom of staying connected. I've played three rounds in the last two weeks and i must say that when I remember to stay connected my shots pretty much go where I want them to with my irons and today with my driver. Thr trouble is remembering, but I figure if I do it enough I won't have to think about it.

[grandaddy510]

when you say staying connected, are you referring to the feeling of your left bicep in your chest and right elbow close to your body (for righty)? i've really been trying to work on this lately as i noticed on film i was pretty bad coming over the top. it has been working out pretty good, my irons are getting a lot straighter, except that now sometimes with my 4W and 3H i'm hitting some pretty bad hooks, when before i couldn't even hit a draw to save my life. that's the beauty of golf i guess

[Woodtek]

Thats exactely the feeling. I was a wide open arm swinger and definitely had an over the top move. A lot of times my body would get way ahead of my arms and slice city. Another thing I tried was a slow replica of my swing trying to maintian a good postition back and through and I noticed the face of my club was open at the inpact zone so I closed the face a little more at setup and it seemed to work. I do have some arthitis issues in my lower back and right shoulder so that could be why. It worked that day though, I'm going to play today and see if it was a one time thing.

[chilly]

I've been working on this as well, and it definitely has helped my game off the tee. Still haven't figured out how to stay connected on the shorter/steeper clubs, but I'll keep working on it.

[Woodtek]

Well I tried it again with mixed results. They finally had the real greens in play so I decided to keep score. The wind was blowing about 20sh. My drives were right and left, mostly left but not too far off the fairway. my irons were short and about the same pattern and my wedges were ok. Mt putting was on fire though and somehow I found myself +5 after twelve, unkown territory for me. next par 4, boom lost two drives in a row on the same hole into the woods, one right one left. After that it all went to H...
and I stopped keeping score. Chunk, blade, missed 3 ' rs you name it. I'm sure I was no better than my usual at the end. I thought about it last night and I think it was my own cockiness that got me. When I was driving well the other day i was also only going back 3/4. I have a fairly large chest and fairly large, short arms and I had read about different swings for different body syles. Yesterday I think I was reaching too far back looking for "more" which in turn caused me to lose contact at the top and ended up resulting in no control at all. I also think that I started trying to slow down my swing with my irons when it went bad and ended up decelerating on the downswing resulting in chunk city. Oh well, back to the opti shot.

[Fatphil]

  Woodtek said:

Thr trouble is remembering, but I figure if I do it enough I won't have to think about it.

ha ha the great myth of golf, it's not an athletic sport. There is technique to the golf swing but what you are talking about is the same sports move a pitcher must coordinate or throwing a football or taking a slap shot. All require moving the body together. And a 50 year old 20 hdcper will not have the same muscle control as a 18 yr old pitcher. What helps is get to the gym a few times a week and do a lot of stretching exercises (think VJ Singh) and then like you say remembering to rotate and turn...not easy.

[Woodtek]

Amen to the 50 yo muscle control. I used to pitch baseball when I was young and fast pitch softball until 35. If I tried to do either right now my arm would end up in a sling.