Suddenly useless at golf

[trickyputt]

As for myself, every time, i find i am not closing the toe. Its funny how the small adjustment changes my body position so much.

[dkolo]

This happened to me today. I'd gotten my handicap down to 22, nearly broke 90 after a few rounds of 91,92. Took a week off and went to the range today and shank city. Either balls were stone cold shanks or I was slicing / fading everything, after hitting a stock draw for the past three months. Even my punch shot that had been dependable went to crap. Wasn't even feeling good pitching with irons. Just felt like the lost kid I was 8 months ago when my swing was in shambles after a bad fall and long winter. Hope to forget about it and get back out there tomorrow or in a few days.

[SidRixon]

This happenned to me last weekend, when I was in a four ball on Sunday afternoon. I have been playing for a bit less than a year, and thought I had it all sorted. Then, last Sunday, I had a nightmare (also had a hangover), and sometimes could not even reach the red tees from my own tee shot. Also nearly nailed a playing partner with a shankeroo that went practically square. I was really unhappy. I thought that I was going to have to give up the game, but I went to the range the day after and worked on basics. I worked on posture, and in particular keeping my knees nice and straight and stable, not swaying. Got my game back and shot 45 on our front nine a few days after. Quote from this thread "One of the biggest challenges higher handicap golfers have to come to grips with how poorly they really strike the ball and how much of an opportunity there is for them to simply improve contact. Since they're no longer chunking, or blading every other shot, they tend to think that they've progressed to the point where their ball-striking is relatively good, and all they need to do is refine course management, short game specialty shots, and working the ball in order to drop that handicap down to the single-digits or below." This is so absolutey true, I agree one hundred per cent. I sometimes hit an iron of the fairway and it goes long and true, and miles better than normal, when I am not even trying. Shows it's the strike that matters. Also, yesterday, I was in a bit of trouble off the tee and tapped a hybrid out between some trees to get back on the fairway. Again, it was so clean and went a long way, and it made me think how important is good contact.

[3putter]

I wonder if anyone has experienced this....

I have been playing for 2 or 3 years and have made steady progress. I'm a bit of a tinkerer and have paid a lot of attention to everything about the golf swing. Around 1 month ago I was shooting low 90's and could easily control trajectory, playing gentle draws and fades on command.

Then suddenly, I had 1 bad round and now I cannot hit the ball at all. It's like I've just picked up a club for the 1st time.

When I'm addressing the ball, I'm not even sure if what plane to take the club away in. I'm struggling with my wrists and I'm slicing low and wide on every other shot. I played 9 holes earlier and hit 1 good shot. The rest were scuffs along the grass, or 45 degree slices.

Please help! What has caused this meltdown.

I'm annoyed as I've worked so hard on getting better and it feels like it's all been stripped away in an instance

Thanks all

As a relatively high handicapper, this would happen quite a bit where you would go through spells of regression.

I agree with virtually everything David said. I've been playing about as long as you have, and I tinkered a lot before. I tinkered with one thing to fix another issue, and the craziness just compounded. Whatever "solution" I thought I had often wasn't sustainable, so I had to simply go back to the fundamentals and my game improved drastically. (Turns out my whole issue was just my darn grip, fixed that and the rest was history)

My other input would be to learn from whatever the root cause is here and file it in your head....they have a habit of creeping up again.

[legitimatebeef]

Hi Mitch, not to be mean or antagonistic but it simply sounds like you are being humbled by golf. It happens to everyone probably. In your case I think you were especially vulnerable because you felt like you "could easily control trajectory, playing gentle draws and fades on command." Most likely you were being highly subjective when making this particular assessment of your own ball-striking ability. I say that because if you truly could control the ball, you would be consistently scoring in the 70s, 80s at worst. The reality is probably more like you are just as susceptible to the same kind of club-face issues, club path issues, weight shift issues, grip, setup, etc, etc as the next guy. I.e. your swing was not nearly as fail-safe as you thought. It never is. For anybody. The good news is that being humbled like this is an ordinary part of the golf-improvement process.

[Mitch360]

Thanks for all the good feedback. Having read the posts I think I know what my problem is. Until now, my method has been: 1. Hit 50 balls...hmm, Not great. I must not be doing something the pros do in their swing. Solution - watch some videos and replicate. 2. Hit another 50 balls... Excellent. Something went well, figure out what I changed and exaggerate it. 3. Play 9 holes with my new pro swing. Think plane, think do not roll wrists, think left shoulder down, think hit in front of ball. oh damn,can't hit the ball to save my life I'm starting to believe that great ball strikers are able to hit so well because they've grooved a swing and learned a feel over years and years, rather that following their own secret method of swinging that produces great results. In fact, I'd say that sometimes maybe they don't even know how they do it! Just natural feel and instinct from lots of practice. Maybe there really are no shortcuts in the painstaking game of golf :-)