3 steps forward, 2 steps back

[Marty2019]

I played golf for a long time, but laid off for about 10 years before taking it up again about 3 years ago at the age of 60.  About 2 months ago, I finally started some lessons.   Indoor lessons. 

First lesson, my teacher tells me I need more shoulder tilt.  He video'd me, drew lines across my shoulders.  "Look, here's you, and here's Dustin Johnson.  Notice how tilted his shoulders are?  You need to do that." 

So I go to the range, and it works like a charm.   More power, straighter, higher shots.  Great.  I am exuberant.  I want to tell the world I've discovered the secret to ball striking: shoulder tilt. 

Next lesson.  The next thing you need to do is flatten the club at the top of the back swing so it comes down on plane and more inside-out.  Shows me how to do it.  I've seen it before.  Like Sergio Garcia, maybe not as extreme as that. 

So I go to the range, and try it.  I hit one fat shot after another.   Totally humiliated and depressed.   Why am I hitting the ball fat?  I feel like I can't go to my next lesson until I figure this out.   So I do a little internet research, and find that one of the prime reasons for fat shots is not getting the weight shifted correctly and not getting my hips open.  

So I go back to my instructor and tell him my story.   My impact position looks like my address position.   Even I know this is all wrong.  How can I get my weight shifted and my hips open?   He watches me swing, and tells me my problem is, I bump my hips way too far forward, and this causes my spine to bend away from the target in a big reverse C to the point where I'm bound to hit the ball fat.   This actually makes perfect sense.  He tells me, don't bump so far.  Bump less, rotate more. 

So I go to the range, and begin another totally depressing and unproductive hour of striking the turf.   Finally, I try narrowing my stance.  This enables me to get my weight shifted and my hips open.  My ball striking is stellar.   I want to tell the world I've discovered the secret to ball striking: narrow your stance.  I even start a thread: "Problem Solved: Narrow Your Stance..."  

I go the the range again.   Can't hit a thing.  My stance is narrow, I seem to be getting my weight shifted, but I just cannot make solid contact.  Finally, I video a swing or two with my iphone.   Guess what?   I'm not tilting my shoulders.  So I tilt my shoulders, and things get a little better.   Finally, I try tilting my shoulders with a flatter back swing.   It works.   I'm hitting the ball great.   I want to tell the world I've discovered the secret to ball striking: tilt your shoulders and take a flatter back swing. 

But what did that have to do with narrowing my stance, getting my weight shifted and my hips open?   There's a whole thread below here about how I solved my problem by narrowing my stance.   This has nothing to do with any of that.   It didn't matter how narrow my stance was, or whether I got my hips open, or whether I got any lag.   All I had to do was take a flat backswing with good shoulder tilt.  But what about next time? 

This is the thing about my golf game.   I got it, I got it, I don't got it.   Think of a drunken outfielder circling a fly ball.   One day, I'm finally on my way to breaking 80 for sure.   The next day, I fall on my face.   Where did it go?   This game is such a tease.  

Edited December 22, 2016 by Marty2019

[CarlSpackler]

I feel your pain. 

[mcanadiens]

And so it goes. My five years plus now have been largely stumbling around and falling into and out of half way decent results and straight trash. My definition of straight trash is a little more harsh than it was a few years ago, but it still seems to be the same. ... I suppose a round with myself from three or four years ago might make me appreciate the difference.

[BamaWade]

Marty,

If you're not a writer, you should consider taking it up.   Entertaining read, there.  Well written, and man can I relate to your plight!

Looks like we're around the same index.  I think it's a common issue for mid-cappers.  There are days (or parts of them) when it's all there, and the game feels easy to me...like I can pick out a specific trajectory & target down to within a foot and go at it...or alter spins around the green down to a specific RPM.  Then...bam - gone!

Back in my early 20s it would almost send me over the edge.  Now, it doesn't (as much) because I've accepted it's coming, eventually.   Enjoy the ride while you're on it, I guess.

Best of luck with your game.

BamaWade

[Kalnoky]

9 minutes ago, BamaWade said:

Entertaining read, there.  Well written, and man can I relate to your plight!

 

I agree, on both accounts. Very enjoyable read.

 

[RandallT]

Good stuff.  First step is admitting this to yourself. Then the real work starts.  

Good read. Also glad the thread isn't about a crappy old Paula Abdul song

[Hategolf]

7 hours ago, Marty2019 said:

......This is the thing about my golf game.   I got it, I got it, I don't got it.   Think of a drunken outfielder circling a fly ball.   One day, I'm finally on my way to breaking 80 for sure.   The next day, I fall on my face.   Where did it go?   This game is such a tease.  

I know exactly what you are talking about. 

When I make an adjustment to my set up or body angles it might work like a charm, but then other things fall apart, or stop working. I realize, I just don't know enough. 

One instructor who I learned a lot from explained it, he said : "The golf swing is like a circle, and you need to learn every piece of the circle. If you fix one piece, you need to know about the other pieces to make the full circle work"..or something like that..haha.

If I would have learned the pieces of the circle properly since day one and worked on them,  I would be playing great golf now. 

I write what I learned down and it helps me not to go backwards. 

[bm85]

Simple. Specific. Slow & Short. Success.

You are focusing too much on success. It probably took me 6 months to get my hips open at impact without thinking about it.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2016 by bm85

[Marty2019]

Thanks for the responses, everybody. 

One thing golf has taught me is that I am sort of a "true believer" for want of a better term.   I find something that helps me hit the ball, and I want to tell everyone about it.  If I turn my left foot outward a few degrees, and all of a sudden I start hitting the ball better, I want to tell all my friends they need to turn their left foot outward a few degrees.  It'll solve all their problems!   And I have to fight the urge to tell everyone on the driving range the same thing.   And I have to fight the urge to start a thread and tell everyone on this message board.   Having trouble with your swing?   I know the answer!   Relax your hands!  Turn your left foot outward!   Keep your head behind the ball!   Keep your right elbow in!   Relax!   Tilt your shoulders!   Take a flatter back swing!   Shorten your back swing!   Get your hands on top of the club!   Get some lag!  Clear your head!   Whatever little discovery I make, I think, That's it!   I'm there!   I know it all now!  

Right now, it's Lessons!   Lessons are the answer!   Everyone get lessons!  

Next week, who knows.  

 

[Marty2019]

13 hours ago, Hategolf said:

I know exactly what you are talking about. 

When I make an adjustment to my set up or body angles it might work like a charm, but then other things fall apart, or stop working. I realize, I just don't know enough. 

One instructor who I learned a lot from explained it, he said : "The golf swing is like a circle, and you need to learn every piece of the circle. If you fix one piece, you need to know about the other pieces to make the full circle work"..or something like that..haha.

If I would have learned the pieces of the circle properly since day one and worked on them,  I would be playing great golf now. 

I write what I learned down and it helps me not to go backwards. 

I used to be very consistently mediocre.  Since I started taking lessons, I go to the range, and I'm brilliant one day and clueless the next.   Eternal optimist that I am, I find this encouraging.  

The good thing about a good instructor is that he will keep you on track.  No more wandering through a thousand YouTube videos, thinking, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.  He will yank you back onto the path.  So, maybe I have finally found **the answer**.  Get an instructor.  

 

[Patch]

I think most golfers as they get older, at some point,  realize that "this is my game", or "this is my swing" and go with what they developed over the years. I am not saying an old dog can't learn new tricks, but then again, we might be dealing with an old dog's mentality, or body.

It was probabably 20+ years ago that this dawned on me, that this is as good as I going to play this game. That some days will be better/worse than others. Sometimes a lot better, and other times a lot worse. It's golf. 

All a golfer can do is find what works for them,  to get themselves into a repeatable impact position, which in turn gives them some what repeatable ball flights. We have all seen on the various pro circuits, and other amateurs we have played with, those golfers with less than stellar swings, but that have great ball flights. My thinking is that all the better players we see share a more precise impact position with each other.  

Myself, just to break the monotony of doing the same things over and over, I will try new things just because. However, I always know what my own "back to square one" is. Other than practicing what I know works for me, I have not found any new tee/fairway swing tid bits, that would consistantly save me strokes. Putting is the part of my game that I can make changes to, that helps me score consistantly better. 

These days, I just do the best I can with the tools I got. 

[uitar9]

2 minutes ago, Patch said:

I think most golfers as they get older, at some point,  realize that "this is my game", or "this is my swing" and go with what they developed over the years. I am not saying an old dog can't learn new tricks, but then again, we might be dealing with an old dog's mentality, or body.

It was probabably 20+ years ago that this dawned on me, that this is as good as I going to play this game. That some days will be better/worse than others. Sometimes a lot better, and other times a lot worse. It's golf. 

All a golfer can do is find what works for them,  to get themselves into a repeatable impact position, which in turn gives them some what repeatable ball flights. We have all seen on the various pro circuits, and other amateurs we have played with, those golfers with less than stellar swings, but that have great ball flights. My thinking is that all the better players we see share a more precise impact position with each other.  

Myself, just to break the monotony of doing the same things over and over, I will try new things just because. However, I always know what my own "back to square one" is. Other than practicing what I know works for me, I have not found any new tee/fairway swing tid bits, that would consistantly save me strokes. Putting is the part of my game that I can make changes to, that helps me score consistantly better. 

These days, I just do the best I can with the tools I got. 

Well said. I finally realized I have to figure out how to get the ball in the hole with my old body...or...just work on mechanics. I decided the score was more important to me.

[RandallT]

23 hours ago, Marty2019 said:

Next lesson.  The next thing you need to do is flatten the club at the top of the back swing so it comes down on plane and more inside-out.  Shows me how to do it.  I've seen it before.  Like Sergio Garcia, maybe not as extreme as that. 

So I go to the range, and try it.  I hit one fat shot after another.   Totally humiliated and depressed.   Why am I hitting the ball fat?  I feel like I can't go to my next lesson until I figure this out.   So I do a little internet research, and find that one of the prime reasons for fat shots is not getting the weight shifted correctly and not getting my hips open.  

So I go back to my instructor and tell him my story.   My impact position looks like my address position.   Even I know this is all wrong.  How can I get my weight shifted and my hips open?   He watches me swing, and tells me my problem is, I bump my hips way too far forward, and this causes my spine to bend away from the target in a big reverse C to the point where I'm bound to hit the ball fat.   This actually makes perfect sense.  He tells me, don't bump so far.  Bump less, rotate more. 

Good luck, Marty. I just wanted to contrast this little bit with my experience this year. I think your instructor might be a bit to haphazard with you, in that he is not focusing on one thing (the priority) and fixing that.

I've bolded here that you are working on getting less steep in the downswing. You talk about steepness there, but then one range session later, you are off to look at your weight shift and opening of hips.

Below is a thread that I started in May about that topic, as I've been assigned that too (for a while).

Now you could go there and find a tip or two that helps you. Fine- all well and good, but that's not the point. The point is I was given this piece in May (actually I think I've had it for far longer than that, but I had done some backsliding to readdress old things).  And I'm still working on it!!

You can jump over to my swing thread too, to see how long it's been. Some ups and downs, but hopefully I'll be posting a pretty optimistic one pretty soon based on results at the range yesterday (I've learned to give it time before declaring success!).

Now, I've gotten lots of drills to do things that all come before the flattening. I've gotten other ways to look at it. Lots of feels. But the point is that it takes a long time (lots of short, effective practice sessions) to make progress on a major piece like that, and I want to make sure your instructor is not acting like you should be done with something that major within a week or two.

So it's December, and I'm still doing lots of drills about this, constantly reviewing all the past lessons, and I'm just now nearing a point where I would say it is starting to feel natural. 

2 hours ago, Marty2019 said:

Right now, it's Lessons!   Lessons are the answer!   Everyone get lessons!  

Next week, who knows.  

So yes, these things take time, and don't feel like a dunce for sticking with one thing until you've cracked it. It may take lots of iterations, lots of dead ends, lots of "aha" moments where you THINK you've solved it (but the solution fades in a couple weeks for some strange reason), even a couple times where you think you made progress but you were doing it totally wrong, but definitely lots of different peripheral pieces that combine to get you into the right positions prior to the downswing, etc.  It takes time to know that you're progressing. 

One thought is that if your instructor is sending you all kinds of directions, maybe you tell him that YOU WANT to stick with one thing at a time until you've got it. Maybe he's the one with "instructor adhd," and needs a student to focus him. Dunno.

 

[Marty2019]

2 hours ago, RandallT said:

One thought is that if your instructor is sending you all kinds of directions, maybe you tell him that YOU WANT to stick with one thing at a time until you've got it. Maybe he's the one with "instructor adhd," and needs a student to focus him. Dunno.

 

Well, just to defend my instructor, I think he's very good, and he's the one keeping us on track and making us stick with one thing at a time.  

 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Marty2019 said:

Well, just to defend my instructor, I think he's very good, and he's the one keeping us on track and making us stick with one thing at a time.  

Is he?

And your hips going too far forward is not a problem that we see too often. If your head tips back, that is what often causes fat shots. But if your hips go forward and your head stays in place… or goes forward itself… that's usually not going to cause fat shots.

How did he measure your head going back? Relative to your belt buckle, or relative to your feet or something else in a fixed position??

[Marty2019]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Is he?

And your hips going too far forward is not a problem that we see too often. If your head tips back, that is what often causes fat shots. But if your hips go forward and your head stays in place… or goes forward itself… that's usually not going to cause fat shots.

How did he measure your head going back? Relative to your belt buckle, or relative to your feet or something else in a fixed position??

 

Yes, he did video it, and drew lines, and told me to slide a little less, and rotate a little more.  He said it would be easier on my back.  I really don't remember if my head was tipping back or not. 

But let me ask you a question.  Do you think there's a tradeoff between sliding your hips and rotating them?   Do you think it's possible to slide your hips so much that it restricts you from rotating them open?  Think 63 year old man with all the usual flexibility issues. 

Really, it wasn't a big thing in the lesson as I recall, and it came up because I asked about it, not because he wanted to move to that subject.  Most of what we talk about is getting the club on plane on the down swing and not coming over the top.  I've made a lot of progress, but I'm not there yet.  At least my divots aren't going off at a 45 degree angle to the left like they used to.  But hitting my 7-iron?   On a scale of 1 to 100, I'd say I have gone from a 10 to a 30. 

Really, I like this guy.  He doesn't talk too much.  He sticks to the point.  He's patient.  And I understand what he's trying to tell me, and it is one thing at a time. 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2016 by Marty2019

[Marty2019]

I'll say this about my lessons- The total cost of my 10 lessons is equivalent to the cost of 100 buckets of balls on my local driving range.   Very first lesson, I learned about shoulder tilt, and that made a massive improvement in my ball striking.   I think I could have hit 100 buckets of balls and never figured that out.  So whether or not I learn anything else, it was worth it. 

Now, if I had the nationally recognized Erik Barzeski as my instructor, I'd undoubtedly be getting a lot more for my money.   Seriously.  But I live in Jacksonville, so I don't get that opportunity.  

Edited December 23, 2016 by Marty2019

[Kalnoky]

Harvey Penick said a good instructor can fix in one (1) hour what it would take you 6 months to figure out on your own. Or he said something very similar to that...