Click

[Lbob]

This year things finally "clicked" for me on my full swing. I'm now hitting the ball much more consistently and as result my shots are straighter and even longer. Interestingly it happened that things came together very quickly in a span of about 2 weeks. It was a result of three factors:

1) A very good lesson from my teaching pro. He took me from "grounders" to breaking 80 in four years. The lesson involved starting my downswing. I had been getting to a good position on the backswing, but was doing something funky when I started the club back. He showed me how to start the downswing with my body. This helped me get my weight moving forward and more on my front foot. Now I feel like I'm hitting down on the ball as opposed to swinging up.

2) The slot drill that I got from the Golf Digest web site was a great learning device and let me see exactly what it meant to be "in the slot." This helped in two ways. It eleminated casting and over the top swings which had plagued me, and it helped me make more consistent contact. I use this on the course now instead of practice swings.

3) I finally realize that I don't have to swing hard to hit the ball far. I don't know exactly how/why this occurred. Just one day at the range I decided to just swing about 75% and make good contact. Suddenly I was hitting the ball better and farther than ever. I'm pretty tall (6'4") and I guess I need a little time to let speed develop and to get my weight forward.

As a result I started getting 20 yards more on my drives and am about a club longer on my irons. It's like my body is saying "Ohhh, so that's what you want me to do. OK no problemo." My pro says that he's seen this "click" thing before. He also says that once you get the "click" you rarely regress. That was nice to hear!

Any other "click" stories out there? Anybody know how to make my putting "click?"

[FAHooGolfs]

I had the same type of epiphany earlier this year (around late April) and, as a result, I've gone from a routine round being somewhere between 78-83 to a more consistent level of between 75-78. Furthermore, I now find myself playing new courses for the first time and playing them well because I can rely on hitting the ball more where I want to rather than having to fall back on "course knowledge" to play well.

My "click" also came from my teaching pro who had me envision rotating around a pole positioned straight through my chest. When I do that, I could really feel that in my sternum (although not so much anymore now that I'm used to it). At the same time, I finally understood what it meant to turn against a stable lower body. Those two factors combined really made my shots more consistent.

The only downside so far is that I'm now disappointed with rounds where I shoot 79 and I'm really annoyed at rounds of 80 (like what I shot yesterday).

I think the comment abuot rarely regressing is correct in that, once you get to a certain level, you have a much better understanding of the golf swing and what it is you're trying to do. On the other hand, its still quite possible to do silly stupid things in your golf swing and throw it out of whack a bit. Case in point, despite 3 straight rounds of sub-75 golf, I've found myself all of a sudden sliding forward on my downswing. I need to head back out to the range and firm up my lower half to get that out of my system before it really gets into my head. Part of it, I think, comes from my solid ballstriking and thinking "hey, now I'm hitting it more solidly, I can be much more aggressive with my swing."

[NM Golf]

Golf is like that. It seems like improvement comes all at one time then you plateau for a while, shoot basically the same scores, then you improve again all at once. At least that is the way it goes for me. I have recently had that "click" and my scores have really gotten down in the scratch range. Most of the summer I hung around the 75-80 range then in late August something in my game just seemed to snap and I have played really well including a couple of rounds in he 60's and several others under par. I looked at my stats for September and October my scoring average is 72.8. Compare that to the 78.7 from April-August and It is easy to see something just finally made sense in my game.

[evossman]

Great story, very inspirational.

I was wondering if Golf Digest had a link to that "in the slot" article online. I didn't have any luck with Googling it.

Also, in those four years how often did you play during the week?

Thanks

[sPinHigh]

Not sure but is this it:

http://www.golfdigest.com/instructio...slotswing.html

[sPinHigh]

Not sure if it is a click but I sort of "clicked" with the putting this year when my pro noticed that I kept my hands very far out from my body and had a very active right hand. I tended to miss to the left of the hole.

Key for me to good putting is to keep hands "low" and close to body and have the feeling that the left hand drags/leads through the ball. I've seen a reduction from 34-36 to 30-33 putts per round since this "click". But I also focus a lot on having speed to go beyond the hole so not sure which is the main factor.

[Lbob]

This year I played about once a week. In previous years it was quite a bit less. Maybe once a month or so.

I think that the link above is the slot drill.