Correcting a shank.

[jb1982]

Haha... yeah. There are some decent drills to help but nothing beats heavy drinking

I've got the flask too. But I stick to vodka. That might make an interesting thread hugh??

[Klew]

I just got over the exact same thing....the "sh..."

Let me guess, when you do make contact it goes high and right, big time.

If that's the case, when you are taking the club away it's coming waaaaaayyyyy too far inside and you can't recover. Club needs to go across and through your target line. Try the toe up to toe up drill with a bucket of balls. Gradually go longer and longer in your swing and it'll fix itself.

[lamebums]

I just got over the exact same thing....the "sh..."

What I've found most effective is to take a cardboard box (it will have to be at least three feet long to be worthwhile) and put it parallel to your swing, about an inch in front of your ball.

Personally, I'm afraid of hitting the box--it'll keep me from taking the shot outside to begin with, preventing me from hitting across the ball (what causes a lot of shanks for me), but if you do hit the box, you'll know what's going on wrong.

[solid_ONE]

I was getting to the point I didn't even like playing! Fix a case of the shanks with a case of beer!! .

I didn't like playing for a while too, but I was not going to give up that easily. I found myself hitting at least 2 bukets a day, every day. I tried a drill using two balls from the link Q.Q.Quillume googled for me earlier. It works quite well. I'm going to add the "box in front of ball" drill to my practice. I also found that taking back the club at a steeper angle helped get the club in at a steeper angle of attack (that's what the drills are trying to make you do). Keeping this in mind helped the most.

Probably not the best advice.

Sure sound like good advice to me... I'll drink to that.

[Guest]

I'm in the same boat, too--I've had a pretty alarming frequency of sh*nks going on for the past ~6 months or so.

However, the thing that is really rattling me is the fact that I haven't sh*nked the ball like this ever since I took up golf back in 1996.

I'm the anal-rententive type who doesn't like quick fixes--especially when it comes to my golf swing. However, I've got a tourney coming up this weekend, so I guess one thing I can try at the range this week is to line up the ball on the toe of the club. Maybe even mentally "allow" myself to mis-hit the ball off of the toe. Considering I've probably mis-hit the ball off the toe 1 time in the past 5 years or so, this might be my temporary fix just to get me through this weekend.

P.S. For those of you who don't know, a budget tip is to stick some masking tape on the face of your clubs to show you where you're making contact. This has got to be much cheaper than buying the real contact-sticker-thingies.

[jb1982]

I'm in the same boat, too--I've had a pretty alarming frequency of sh*nks going on for the past ~6 months or so.

I had a tourney last year, that I started shanking my irons right before. I usually did it while trying to focus on hitting a draw. I swung to much in to out and hit the hosel. So for the entire tourney, I didn't hit a single draw with and iron. I concentrated on hitting fades, and never shanked one ball! If you set up with a slightly open stance and think about coming slightly from the outside in, it's hard to hit the hosel.

Lining up on the toe might work too. But when I see that I instinctively over correct, swing too much in to out and hit a hook

[$2 Nassau]

I've been known to hit a hosel rocket or two every once in a while. Sometimes during a round I can feel the contact with my irons moving towards the heel.

I'm 6' 3" tall and fairly lanky. For me, posture is important. When I get lazy and "hunch" over the ball, my balance gets thrown off. I lean towards the ball on the downswing, making it easy for me to extend the arms too far and sometimes make hosel-first contact.

I concentrate on proper knee flex and sticking my butt out a little to ensure I maintain proper spine angle through the entire swing.

Just a little something that works for me.