What was your greatest AHA! Moment?

[Ernest Jones]

Well, not sure if my ahh moment is legit or just another fleeting glimpse of pseudo-enlightenment but my most recent ahh moment has been the realization that the direction I'm aiming the ball and the direction I'm swinging the club are not the same. Ultimately neither of these directions are directly at the target either...go figure...

[rb224315]

Originally Posted by chipandcharge

On the course, I emulated this by inserting a long pause at the top, almost a complete stop.  My number of

bad contacts almost immediately dropped to four to five a round, and my scores dropped from 100-102 to

90-91.

The short version of a long story:  My latest "eureka!" moment is the same as yours--pausing at the top has led to a lot better consistency.

The long version:

I played a lot of golf in the late '90s.  Still played after getting married in late 2001 but when kids came along (and after going back to school in 2010) my golfing basically stopped.  I've played on average 1 round per year since about '06.

I had one of those moments 2 years ago when preparing for a summer vacation.  Tour Tempo (I think that's the name) made a difference for me.  I guess I was swinging too slowly or out of rhythm and it was holding me back.  I played 2 rounds that summer and although I had made a little progress, I was out of shape & distracted and just didn't enjoy myself.  I haven't played since summer of 2011 but I'm about to take another vacation.  Graduated from school in December, so my prospects for playing more have increased, which brings me to my latest breakthrough.

On Craigslist I found an instructor who helped me figure this out.  He's inexpensive and probably not a highly accomplished teacher, but for the price I thought it would be worth the risk.  He watched me warm up and then he told me what he thought I should do next.  Thinking that my problem would be more easily addressed by figuring out why my swing seldom felt right, I guided him away from the detailed technical analysis and described what my swing felt like in less concrete terms--"tension", "fluid", "effortless", etc.  I described what I felt at different points in the swing, primarily in terms of my hands and wrists.

I went into the lesson with the intent of figuring out why my swing did not feel like the descriptions given by better golfers.  As it turns out, too much tension in my wrists and hands was leading to a terrible transition from backswing to downswing and it led to a great deal of inconsistency.  I now think about letting the club "settle" at the top for a brief moment and I am much more consistent.  Although I've been to the range a couple of times in the 10 days since that lesson I haven't been to the course to try it out yet, but I believe I'm on the right track to finally see some noticeable improvement this year.

[inthehole]

Took me about a year to get sick of buying dozens of golf balls & losing them in the woods.    I realized it's more fun to play from the fairways & keeping the ball in play was paramount - much moreso than trying to keep up with my buddies by swinging too hard.

Keep it simple stupid (KISS) - slow deliberate backswing keeps everything where it's supposed to be, forceful but in control downswing.      In other words, smooth easy tempo - and now, I'm hitting just as far as my buddies because I hit it cleanly and straight.

Putting, now thats another story

[divot dave]

Recently I've had 2 very helpful 'ahh' moments...

First was concerning my back swing and the ahh moment came when I learned that I wasn't making a connected turn (didn't know what one was really). It was very armsy some times and others out of synch. When I learned what a connected back swing was and more importantly what it felt like and how to repeat it, my swing path issues seemed to disappear over night.

The second ahh moment came with aiming off the tee. Previously I've had no real routine in place, i would do whatever seemed natural when addressing the ball. Recently, I've been drawing the line around the ball in permanent marker and using it to aim both my tee shots and my putts. I discovered an alignment issue with my new routine which has really helped greatly in accuracy off the tee as well as contact. My last time out, I used this new discovery and hit all but 2 fairways. I was able to aim like never before and actually place the ball in the general vicinity of where I wanted. The result was a score that was a good 12-13 strokes lower than my previous best. Putting was greatly improved as well. Only 1 three putt.

I'm hoping the next ahh moment will coincide with learning the feel of a proper weight shift

[jbishop15]

The biggest 'aha' moments that I've had playing golf are to keep my right foot down as long as possible, and to swing left after impact. It helps me hit nice push draws with a lot of distance.

[Brakkus]

Mine has been how important the backswing is to my swing. This winter I have practiced all winter. I really couldn't understand how a great swing hit the ball fat and thin etc.. My downswing seems to mostly feel great. Worked out that a maximum turn for me is not where I thought it was. Mentally I seemed to think I can just turn much further than I really can. So did work in a mirror and saw that my club gets to 3/4 with a 90 degree shoulder turn and because that it is the case there's no need to turn back quickly. Speed of backswing too fast and I undid all my angles at address. Now it's almost becoming second nature for the first time in 6 years. The aha moment actually maybe just working on the right things but mechanically this has put me forward in a major way.