Better ball contact with no Weight shift

[jfrain2004]

My last round was riddled with bad ball striking ( with the occasional screamer when things clicked )
It semed as though the club was bottoming out any where from 2" behind to 2" in front of the ball. So I made a conscious effort to have little or no weight shift and the result was staggering. Granted I lost up to 10% distance over the good shots I was hitting when I was shifting my weight but having little or no weight shift now I feel a lot closer to the holy grail of a golf swing .... CONSISTENCY. I can stand over a ball with an 8 iron 120 yrds out and feel almost certain I will hit a crisp shot and have a decent chance at 1 putting. Same with any other club. Contact is so much better I can now actually worry about getting my exact distance to the pin where as before it didn't matter a whole lot cause I was not going to get a solid strike on the ball so it could go 100 or 150 depending on the gravitational pull of the moon.
I appreciate that the Pro's have a weight shift going on big time but they have a finely tuned swing that's ingrained into them over years of practice.
For someone trying to hold their own and break 80 on a regular basis this feels like the way for me. Any opinions?

[saevel25]

your original swing, did you feel like you were really moving to the left and right. Because what might have been happening is that you were over exagerating the weight shift. I can't remember who, but he did a lessons from the Pro's show at st. Andrews, and he said that you want to keep your weight on the inside of your ankles. you can make a good weight shift, but just keep it in control.

[iacas]

  jfrain2004 said:

I appreciate that the Pro's have a weight shift going on big time but they have a finely tuned swing that's ingrained into them over years of practice.

A pro's weight shift does not involve sliding back and then through. Pros shift their weight largely via rotation about fairly fixed centers - their heads don't move back like an amateur's often will. Pros shift their weight because their chest and arms move right, then they shift virtually all of their weight forward through impact.

You were probably still shifting weight on the backswing (even Stack and Tilt golfers shift weight right on the backswing), but you were probably simply staying more centered. Learn to do that AND push forward and the distance will come back AND you'll be more consistent at striking the ball first.

[jfrain2004]

yea, my old swing I always felt like I was sliding right and then left through the ball. Now I'm just trying to feel as if I'm purely rotating about my spine. lol, like everything else the effect might soon wear off when some other fault creeps in but it sure feels good for now smacking that ball every time. ( Plus getting some proper backspin and ball stopping on the green with just a few feet of roll ) :)

[madcityscott]

Take a look at Jim Hardy's one-plane swing. Weight stays centered on the backswing, with a shift to the front at the start of the downswing. It might be you're a more natural one-planer.

[trumps4]

When my contact starts trending on the heavy side I usually find that staying more centered (ie. less weight shift) on the backswing improves it. For me, it then becomes a matter of flat left wrist at impact and forward swing bottom.