About to quit!

[cedrictheo]

@TheAlphaMale If your contact is bad you will want to start looking at keys 1, 2, or 3. Steady Head, Weight Forward, and inline impact. Take some video of your swing... Make a my swing thread... Sign up for evolvr. What did your instructor have you working on?

[rkim291968]

... and if you can't take it, quit while you are still ahead.   Golf can suck you dry ($$$), expose all your mental weaknesses, take up much of your free time otherwise spent on quality family time, etc..    You can always come back later for more of the same .

[9wood]

I started playing golf but after playing for four years I noticed I was getting worse instead of better. It got so bad that I could expect to hit only about two out of 18 fairways on my drive and my pitching game was all over the place so I got so frustrated that I completely gave up golf and sold my clubs. Then years later I went to Florida and visited a friend of mine who is an avid golfer. He took me out to practice driving, and pitching and I found out that if I followed the tips that he gave me that I could hit the ball pretty well as well as fairly accurately. So after about 5 years of not playing golf I bought myself a set of clubs once again and began really enjoying golf for the first time in my life. Once I began playing again, I had to especially work on fixing my slice which I have now pretty much eliminated and also have seen major improvements in my short game as well. There have been many helpful instructional videos which were another key in helping me improve. I'm not a good golfer, but I'm better than I use to be.

So hang in there and be determined

[vangator]

I'd quit if I were you. :-)

[gregsandiego]

This is a great post for the feelings it captured.You can tell how many experience the same performance issues. About 10 months in I once threw down an iron after hitting a wild shot.But I felt embarrassed for doing so. I promised myself I would never lose it again and look at a secondary game that is part of golf.

That secondary game is can you keep your cool? Can you keep going and worry about the next shot not the last one? Or at the very least can you be a good playing partner so your friends - who are more concerned about their shots - are still having fun?

[Vinsk]

I think the guys are overstating it a bit (maybe I'm wrong, I'm no mind reader) when they say they share the same level of frustration you are experiencing. I've played many sports very well in my life, and nothing has frustrated me like golf. There's something mind-numbingly awful when you can't even hit the thing straight 50 yards. You feel like a cripple. Here's my story for you: I actually DID quit from about the ages of 25-36 because of frustration. I remember well playing in a foursome with a friend and two older men in their 70s or so who had spent the entire round watching me hit the ball in the wrong direction. I easily lost 12 balls that day. I hit a driver so badly off line that it went across the next fairway to my right, over a fence, and bounced through an abandoned parking lot. On the 17th hole I shanked about 5 8-iron shots in a row, picked up my clubs, and walked away in disgust. I recall one of the old fogies turning to the other saying "God, this guy's awful" under his breath. I could've killed him. Never again!!! I said. I was a minor league baseball recruit who could hit a baseball 450 feet. Playing golf had become the equivalent of throwing a baseball and having it defy the laws of physics against your will. It was so frustrating that I figured flag football, triathlons, or drinking more whiskey would be preferable. Volunteering at a pet shelter to clean up dog crap all day seemed like a better idea. On Thanksgiving Day in 2011, I decided to give golf another go. I remembered the bad memories and told myself to be patient. Really patient. I spent a lot of time on pitching and putting. I had days where I shanked 20 wedges in a row after hitting it well the day before and wanted to throw the club through a glass window. Then I would put it down for a few days and come back to it. About a year later, I felt like I was making great progress and I told my wife we should stop at the driving range so I could show off my new swing. I shanked maybe 50 balls of 60. This was after a few weeks of practicing daily. At one point I started hitting the balls with my right hand in the center of the shaft like a hockey stick. I couldn't make the ball go straight any other way. I remember posting a thread like yours somewhere back in like 2012. Today I can tell you I really lament not playing golf at all during those years. Also, the awfulness I exhibited then is nothing like the awfulness now. I still shank here and there, and duck hook drives, but the awfulness is less frequent and generally less penal. Your friends are right. You will get through it. Just be patient and have few expectations. The movements in a golf swing and the margin for error are very different in many ways and much smaller than in other sports. You may have two or three mechanical flaws that are quite fixable that are sabotaging your ability to hit the ball. Anyway, it's a great game, especially since sports get harder on the body as you age. I hope you break though your difficulties and enjoy it!

Just read this. Absolutely loved it! Nice story, great humor and a good point made as well. Thank you.

[inthehole]

Based on your handle ... I have a feeling that you're like most guys that really struggle who swing way too hard, out of control and in bad tempo.   You gotta start over by making clean contact ... while focusing on SMOOTH tempo from start to finish.      Even if you have to go to half swings - meaning half of a backswing & then go after it with a hard downswing.    A well struck half power swing in the center of the club face will travel plenty far to get you through a golf round.    Once you're hitting in the center of the club face, ramp it up gradually and add length to your backswing as you get better.

Trying to hit golf balls full power when you're not hitting them cleanly is torture.    Break it down, THINK about it systematically, what you're doing wrong and come up with a method of how to fix it.     Just can't keep hitting full power shots poorly - it probably won't fix itself.    You have to put some mental energy into it & figure it out yourself how you're going to fix it - lessons alone won't fix everything.    It takes effort and putting the time into figuring out a solution, then you'll have a lifetime of enjoyment out of golf.   You have to get yourself over this hurdle ... by using your head, not your alphamale biceps