My abnormal game....

[saltman]

Does anyone else "flush" the ball all over the place??

Last week, I played a wretched round of golf (for me), shot 94, hitting the ball everywhere but in the fairway.  Hit 4 fairways and 1 green, 1 green!!  This isn't all that rare for me, I tend to spray the ball all over the place, but this was on the bad side of bad.

At the end of the round, my playing partner who shot 81 was shaking his head in disbelief.  When I inquired as to why he was shaking his head......his response was....."I have never seen someone shoot 94 without topping, chunking, shanking, blading or even toeing a single shot in an entire round."  For the record he was wrong I bladed 1 and toed 1.  Since this is my game nowadays, I had never really thought about.  But yeah, give me a bucket of 100 balls and I will probably hit 90 of them "flushish".  But point out a target and I will flush it 15 yards left or right of it 7 out of 10 times!

The sad thing is, yeah I can go 72-75 low, but I can also go high, like 95 high as I did in this round.  I don't really have a typical round.  Anyone else have this issue?  What did you do to find consistency?

[Travtex]

Yep.  One of my stock idiot shots is the PURE dead push.  Can hit some pretty majestic looking hooks, as well.  I can finish having my tantrum fit before the ball even hits the ground.

[ChunkyDivot]

I don't think this is that abnormal - I could have written this exact post  - it describes my own (wretched) game to a tee (minus the 72-75 low part ... I wish!).  Aside from 2-3 random mis-hits per round (usually with bad lies), almost every shot I hit is on the screws, but could go anywhere.  Usually that means a 4-6 hole stretch where I am striping it down the middle of the fairway/at the pin and (consequently hitting all pars, a birdie or so, and maybe a stray bogey), surrounded by 12 holes of deperately scrambling from one side of the rough to the other to avoid (unsuccessfully) the triple/quadruple bogey.

The usual evaluation I get from other players (when I am dumb enough to ask) is that I have a great looking swing but just need to just "throttle down" a bit.

I haven't figured out how to to fix this kind of inconsistency in my game yet either, but I have some theories based on observation of my own swing and other similarily situation duffers.

The first theory I have is that this kind of issue seems to happen mostly to golfers (or at least me) who tend to be up and down "arm swingers" that have relatively quick hands - meaning a lot of their swing force/power is derived from the arrms and wrist cock rather than the hip turn/legs.   The second theory is that the golfer likely has pretty decent hand-eye coordination (perhaps from playing baseball, tennis or a similar sport) to make the necessary unconcious adjustments with your hands/wrists so that the club face is square to a target line (not necessarily the right one!) when impact occurs.

This action is hard to groove into a "repeatable" swing - because you literally have to time the arms and wrist action to your weight shift and turn perfectly.

How to fix it?  Beats me.   I thought it might be an allignment issue, or over swinging, but I am pretty careful on both points - so I tend to think its a different issue.  Rather than throttling down,  I thnk the existing "throttle" needs to be reallocated.   I am currently trying to work on developing a more repeatable rotary style golf swing that brings in the hips and back more into power generation while keeping the arms more quiet.  This does actually "slow" the swing down, at least to the observer - but I think that is a bit of an illusion (arm swings look more choppy/fast than rotary body swings).  However, so far it has also led to less consistent impact position and thus direction and purity of contact ... and its still hard to keep the arms / wrists from surging ahead, leading to remarkable dead pulls that travel far, straight and directly left into the great green yonder.  When it comes together it is definitely a straighter shot, but right now that happens even less than with my existing arms swing.

If you do figure this out though, let me know (with your handicap you are closed to solving this problem than I).

[saltman]

I guess I think its abnormal because the guys I play with that know far less about the fundamentals of a golf swing somehow find a way to put the ball in the fairway much more consistently.  I get the "throttle down" advice constantly, usually from these guys!  But if I "throttle down" my tempo is even worse.  I have to swing aggressively and I try to pick conservative targets, but this only really works if you can eliminate half of the golf course.  I don't have any identifiable miss (left or right), I can go either way.  I will admit my biggest fear is the snap hook however, but I have so many anti left devices in my swing the snap hook is almost impossible anymore.

It's interesting what you say about the hands.  I have heard the old saying, its great to be able to use your hands in a golf swing, its terrible to have to use your hands!  I did grow up playing golf, tennis and baseball primarily and I know I have a lot of hand action in swing.

I wouldn't say I am closer than you by the way, I am going the wrong way with my handicap.  I was low single digit in my best days, even touching scratch for a short period.  Amazing that someone can be a scratch at one point in their lives and then struggle to break 90 just a decade later.  What a game!

[ChunkyDivot]

It is a fascinating game - if there was a "cure all" for all swing-types we would all be scratch golfers (and this part of the forum would be a bit boring I think).

I am convinced that my biggest swing flaw (and perhaps you have the same issue) is "hand" related - I should open a "My Swing" thread to see if others agree. Why?  I have seen too many women golfers (and some men golfers) who have these sweeping wide swings around their body (which look really hard to control to me) and yet their wrists barely break at all (not getting to 90 degrees) and seem to use little or no hands at all at impact.  The ball usually doesn't go far, but it tends to go right down the middle.

Also, missing both left and right (as I do) suggests to me that timing (and not swing path) is a big culprit - and I think it is hard to control the timing of impact (and thus where the club face is facing at impact - left or right of target line) if the small muscles of the forearms and wrist are a big part of the swing.  In addition to quieting my hands down a bit, I've also been trying to work on a consistent rhythm to address this timing issue.

Anyway, enough about me - good luck with sorting out your swing!