My problem, and solution?

[vin13]

A bit long but I'm just looking for some affirmation or criticism of another Monday afternoon at the range, my general work relief Things started pretty well as usual with my P, 9, 7 clubs for 50 balls or so. I always hit my high irons well, slight fade, but then we I go to the 5 it usually gets a little hectic.

I've been playing about a year and have slowly developed a very Furyk-like swing (as described by my friend), bringing the club out at the start and in turn bringing it back in, across the ball. If you were standing behind me, the club would cross the ball from your right to left, which I think causes me to fade my high irons. This is fine with me, i'll play a fade, but the lower the iron gets, the more pronounced this gets. Can we say poor ball striking and SLICE? This swing problem was also making my hybrid (baffler 3 iron) impossible to hit (I haven't hit it well off the deck since the day I bought it) and just in general causing hell when trying to get alot of loft on my lower clubs.

So, I was watching the golf channel last night and there was the Lessons with the Pro segment, this time being David Toms. I try to observe and pick something up, and something he said stuck with me. "good players know the club has to come from here (low and behind the player) rather than out here (outside and high) So after a couple of shanked shots with my 5, I try to loosen up and start the club back behind me rather than flying my elbows out like a chicken. (I also tried the Vijay glove drill to keep the left elbow inside, which helped)

My first swing was a hook! I've never been so happy to hook a shot left into a tree! Haha, no slice! Wow, so with some work I had the low irons hitting great, and was drilling the hybrid as well! I'm pretty stoaked at this point, and I bring the driver out. Sure enough, no more 50 yard slice, with great feel at impact, and solid distance. It was great, I decided to stop hitting my hybrid because I wanted it to end well on these great shots, but just couldn't put it down! The more I practiced, I started putting a slight draw on the ball which is something I've never been able to do.

So with my last 2 balls of the jumbo bucket, I decide to try and draw the first one. I know the ideal way is to simply adjust the face at setup but for me that doesn't ever feel right, so I just tried to bring the club a little further behind and sure enough I had a pretty little draw 7. Last ball, let's try and fade it, sure enough I concentrate to bring the club a little away at take-back and it was a great feeling. I'm not ready as a player to try to bring this to the course imo, but it was still alot of fun which is what I'm playing for.

The only downside to this is that in relaxing my swing and taking it back behind me, I feel like I'm doing the opposite of what I used to. I almost feel like I'm losing control of the club at the top of the swing, but I'm thinking it's just my wrists doing what they want to naturally. Since the results are great so far I'm going to keep working on it and hope it sticks.

In general, I felt like I made a huge change for the better. Sorry for being long but I would just like to hear with some more knowledgeable guys have to say. I've considered taking lessons, but time and funds are a little short so I'm holding off. Like I said, I've been playing about a year and feel like I've got a natural ability to pick it up decently and work from there. I play 2 or 3 times a week around the Austin area and am a golf addict, please help!

ps. Love the site, just found it recently

[JtotheD]

I read the whole post and was confused about whether or not you had a question that needed to be answered.

It seemed to me you had a problem with slicing and were able to fix it on the range, which is fantastic dont get me wrong, but were you looking for some more advice about the fix.