Realized something at the range today

[soloredd]

So I went to the range today and took my 13-month old for the first time. Had him in his stroller and decided out of respect for others to use the farthest right hitting bay (it's off grass but they keep separators between the bays. On the right of me is a 40 foot net, protecting the instructional portion of the range. There are "greens" out in the range at different distances with flags, and for the most part I try for the 135 and 178 greens when at the range, working on alignment and club distances. Well, the hitting bays are arranged in an eclipse-like fashion so being on the far right I was at an angle hitting to 135 so I had to hit left of a normally straight shot. I must have shanked the first 6-7 balls into the big net. I decided to do some feet together half swings with my PW and made pure contact for 3 balls, re-aligned myself to the 135 green and hit some perfect draws that were right on the green. Started shanking again, went to my hybrid just to change it up, hit it straight but far from pure, went back to the PW hit some more good shots, eventually got frustrated and left.

What I am getting at is do any of you have some mental tips on how to work through this? I would get behind the ball, as is my routine on course, find a spot in front of the ball to align my club face with and then line by body up according to that. But my brain is telling me something different, I know I am not hitting straight out in front of the bay but to an angle. I believe in the backswing I am trying to compensate for this instead of making my true, normal swing, causing my club path to be all screwed up.

[saevel25]

If your hitting hozel rockets, thats because your brining the hozel into the hitting area. Which means that your hands are further away from your body at impact than they were at addres. Concentrate on keeping the hands closer, if you start hitting your thighs, then you know you are loosing your spine angle and your butt is moving closer to the ball through impact. If not, then you are just becomming disconnected in the downswing.

[ERdiesel]

If you're not already using alignment sticks or a club to help align you, try to use one. I find that when at the range, when i'm at an angle to the target, it kind of "screws" with my setup or swing path where either i'm too close or too far or something gets off kilter so that mishits are more likely. By using something to help with the alignment, i find that it provides a frame of reference that i otherwise lack and i see a noticeable difference in terms of ball striking. Hard to explain, but there's just something about aligning to a target at an angle, whereas your immediate points of reference (i.e. stall walls) might be straight. hope that makes sense.

[soloredd]

If you're not already using alignment sticks or a club to help align you, try to use one. I find that when at the range, when i'm at an angle to the target, it kind of "screws" with my setup or swing path where either i'm too close or too far or something gets off kilter so that mishits are more likely. By using something to help with the alignment, i find that it provides a frame of reference that i otherwise lack and i see a noticeable difference in terms of ball striking. Hard to explain, but there's just something about aligning to a target at an angle, whereas your immediate points of reference (i.e. stall walls) might be straight. hope that makes sense.

Thank you, that makes perfect sense to me and is what I was trying to explain. Yeah, I've been telling myself to pick up something to aid with alignment, I'll do that tomorrow. Today really messed with my head, I left the facility with that crappy feeling like I forgot how to swing a golf club. Argggh!