How You Got Your Swing.

[skillzwhogolfs]

Starting this post to see how all types of players obtained the swing they have today. Was it from tweaking a swing the "felt good", or many lessons, few lessons, Driving range all day, etc. What process did you go through to obtain your swing?

For me I have not had any lessons, watching pro's and golf tips online. Many many hours on the range and course trying out many different swings and ball flight patterns. I am at a point in my golf that I do not have a consistent swing and is bothering me.

Please post how you got to where you are today, what worked and what did not, tips that helped you greatly and tips that did not.

[jshots]

My current swing was developed over countless hours last summer and this summer on the driving range, filming my swing, getting advice from this website, and from other golfers.

I feel you on the consistent swing problem, I personally think it is due to how quickly I have improved over the past year. I have never really had enough time to properly develop that really good feel for my swing, and I use a few swing thoughts and triggers to try to repeat it as well as possible. The more I play though, the more consistent I am getting.

Technically the things that really got me hitting the ball well I can contribute to a few things. Not shifting my weight towards my back foot. Developing a better, slower tempo, which helped with my balance. Shortening my back swing. And keeping my wrists solid and firm in the back swing. Spending time really thinking about these on the range and hitting many many balls. These were all Ideas that were given to me either from other golfers or from this website.

One thing that I think really makes a huge difference is the fact that I started golf with good instruction when I was about 6 years old. All though I never really played well when I was younger or got too terribly interested , I think I had good swing thoughts ingrained in my head by my golf pro dad, and the rest of my avid golfer family which has really helped me now that I'm in my 20s.

[dak4n6]

Good thread.

25 yrs of fiddling. Basically watching the pros on TV. Payne Stewart and Steve Elkington were my swing role models. One day standing on line in a bank I was looking at the PGA logo with the shape of a golfer in his follow through, noticed how straight and extended his right arm is. I've held on to that one to this day. Went through years of slice-o-rama. Developed a 'shut face elbow close to the right side' swing to combat the slice. Went over to the other side and went through years of hooking.

I have finally emerged with a nice dependable and fairly consistent swing. Plane right in the middle between upright and flat, club face parallels left forearm at the top, neither a sweep nor a dig, decent lag and ball compression, and can work the ball either way. Still get into hooking phases once in a while though..

[iacas]

A lot of work, analysis, drills, feels that shift from day to day, careful study, dedication, and again, work. Work. Work.

[Precis1on]

I'm still getting there, but so far it's a battle between what I'm doing in reality and what I feel like I'm doing. Lots of video analysis and lots of tweaking. Keeping the swing as simple as I can is important.

And lots of practice, lots of playing, and lots of work. Will begin getting myself more fit this offseason and spend more time staying in the best shape that I can be.

[threejack]

I'm self taught for the most part so I would film my swing and break down every little thing to try and match my positions to the common positions that most pros share.. id say i have good positions but I do have a lot of bad habits. most important thing is stick with what works and keep practicing. just think of furyk. ugly but very effective. theres no right way.

[MrSandman]

Pre-video tape and YouTube instruction days, I learned on the original medicus 5 iron (early 1990's). Simple, bet very effective at teaching you where you need to be and learning muscle memory.

[inthehole]

Just reasoned it out (being an engineer helps).    When I started a year and a half ago, I observed so many guys with just plain ugly swings - common thread is they all had super fast tempo on the backswing.    I thought a  slow controlled backswing would simplify things - it does.    Alot.   From there I just concentrated on making good contact, and not worry about max distance (I'm not flexible enough to get alot of distance anyways).    I still hit it as far as anybody I play with - just not overly long.     Studied alot of youtube videos, Golf Channel, Golf Digest mag and S&T; methodology.   Playing close to 150 rounds in that year and a half with countless range sessions (and a practically new bass boat that didn't even get wet) helps too... we're talking very serious golf OCD here.

Bottom line, if you do your research and study the swing, you can learn it on your own - there are so many resources available today.    If I were to summarize everything I've been able to piece together, golf is all about swinging under control, and not overswinging...

[inthehole]

... forgot this place - tons of good information to be had here

[Adam Young]

hit balls on my on in a field for the first year. Then took a lesson, guy strengthened my grip and my weak slice turned into a powerful draw with an extra 40 yards.

Then turned from a slicer into a hooker (30 handicap)

hooker into a big drawer (15 handicap)

big drawer into a medium drawer (7 handicap)

then kept it that way and just got more consistent with that (5 handicap)

stopped working on swing so much, started fiddling with shaping (pro)

now I play a small draw. Biggest leap for me was when I stopped worrying about mechanics of swing and started playing with shapes in practice, working on routine more, aiming more to the middle of the green, trying to shoot under par rather than par. The last one was the biggest, My game is not as sharp as it used to be, but because I believe I can shoot under par, I do it more consistently, even when paying poorly.

Interestingly, I went the opposite way to most people. I started out knowing a hell of a lot about the golf swing, and progressed away from it to a more natural motion. My technique these days would be defined as worse than when i was a 5 handicap, but its a swing I own now

[TN94z]

I basically got mine from playing all of the time.  We would play round after round after round constantly!!   My main goal then was just scoring.  I didn't care how pretty the ball flight was or how pretty my swing was.  I just wanted the ball in the hole.  Once I got feelings for what my swing did to produce a cut or produce a draw or hit a punch shot....they just stuck. It was really all common sense (or so I thought) that if you put type a spin on the ball, you could make it go this direction.  That was all fine and dandy for playing with my friends, but once I hit up some tournaments and saw how inconsistent and untrustworthy it was, I was hooked on making it better.   So I hit the range and did what I thought was quality work (in hindsight I was really getting some bad habits into muscle memory) and got to single digits!!  So I decided to take lessons to get to scratch, right?  Wrong!!   It exposed my flaws and bad habits and now I am stuck in the learning phase again.

BUT....I know I'm on the right track now, so it was for the better.

[LovinItAll]

I'll do a 'double' here: I didn't start playing until I was 30. Like most, I was a slicer until I took a couple of lessons the first year. Ater that, I began playing in earnest, usually getting in at least six rounds/week plus plenty of range time. End of year two: index=12 During my third year, I again took a couple of lessons. My index didn't improve that year. Years four and five were more playing and practicing. Between years five and seven, my index fluctuated between two and four, with periodic index releases at scratch or slightly better. Alas, after my seventh year, I didn't have the time to play/practice as much. My index ballooned up to 7-8 until I quit playing in 2006. I returned to the game this past spring. I've played/practiced almost every day since then, and my latest revision was 6.2. I feel like I'm light years away from playing good golf, however. My wife began playing in '99. She got good faster than anyone I've personally known. She took a few lessons to learn grip/setup and dug the rest out of the dirt. She was a five after her second year, shot a round of even par during her third year, and now maintains a decent index with virtually no practice. I wish I could do that......

[GatorCallaway]

Ben Hogan 5 Lesson's

[Mattplusness]

Trial and error, practice, and many hours looking for balls in the woods.

[saevel25]

Started out with my dads help, your basic golf instruction. Then it was basically trial and error, just using athletic hand eye coordination. I could play decent golf, sub 90-100 with this. From there, i took lessons for a summer, and really got better. He tried to get me to stop swinging so hard and shorten the swing, he also got me more on plane. It was a two plane swing, to hit a control fade. He weakened my grip. I was able to play better golf, got down in the mid 80's. Then i took a 5 year break, do to college, then is started playing more at my work with league play. I really took some lessons from a pro with video camera. I finally got better, now if i have a bad day mid 40's is the worst i do. That is really struggling for me. My game is high 70's to mid 80's. So for me its my own hardwork with intermintent lessons when i really need a 2nd pair of eyes for help.

[Shot 1]

worked for the city "Parks and Playgrounds" for a Summer being bored, and we made a 5 hole golf course around the ball fields. We would hit baseballs sitting on the ground with a bat. After a few days of this I started thinking about how similar the swing was to a real golf swing and started working on hitting it straight with bat and developed what I have today.......or the 1st version of it .....{8^ ]

[bwdial]

My old swing was kind of like a sickness.  I got my new swing mainly from reading and watching videos here.  This place also led me to the Stack and Tilt book which I read cover to cover.  It's a work in progress, but I am beginning to see results.  I'm still working on the hip slide to start the swing.  When it happens, the results are fantastic; when it doesn't, they are abysmal.

[Kapanda]

Originally Posted by inthehole

Just reasoned it out (being an engineer helps).    When I started a year and a half ago, I observed so many guys with just plain ugly swings - common thread is they all had super fast tempo on the backswing.    I thought a  slow controlled backswing would simplify things - it does.    Alot.   From there I just concentrated on making good contact, and not worry about max distance (I'm not flexible enough to get alot of distance anyways).    I still hit it as far as anybody I play with - just not overly long.     Studied alot of youtube videos, Golf Channel, Golf Digest mag and S&T; methodology.   Playing close to 150 rounds in that year and a half with countless range sessions (and a practically new bass boat that didn't even get wet) helps too... we're talking very serious golf OCD here.

Bottom line, if you do your research and study the swing, you can learn it on your own - there are so many resources available today.    If I were to summarize everything I've been able to piece together, golf is all about swinging under control, and not overswinging...

How the hell do you do that? 150 rounds??