dexterousity

Okay gents, after hitting the range with a couple of mates earlier in the week, found I had a couple of flaws that I needed to work on. However, at least two of them had been caused by trying to practice indoors (its winter down here right now) - Worried about hitting the ceiling with my irons, I had kind of tried to stop my follow through - Constantly swing and then stopping with the irons had stressed my left elbow a little, and I was trying to compensate with my right arm. I went down to the 2 dollar shop a month ago and brough a plastic kiddy kit, with a little hole for indoor putting (which was the main reason I brought it), as well as a club (too short for me). However, since learning of these issues, I've been using the little toy club to practice my swing, and ... although I think its helped, I just wanted to see you folks through if it could ingrain any bad habits? In particular, the smaller and cheaper plastic mean I can fling the club around, and get that good follow through motion without worrying about dents in the walls. Similarly, the lighter plastic means I can stop any time, and see how the face is aligned during the swing, and there's not anywhere near as much stress on my joints. Obviously, because the toy is meant for 4 or 5yos, its not long enough to actually touch the ground, so I have to concentrate on getting my posture correct. And obviously, its not going to help me with contact or distance or anything like that, but as a method to groove that feeling of flinging forward and being able to stop during swing and see how opened or closed the face is ... it seems useful? Ideally, once the weather warms up, I can practice outside with my clubs, but as an interim measure, what are people's thoughts? Edit - Is there no automatic formatting for line breaks?

Thanks rocketman, I probably phrased that poorly. Rather than pausing at the top of the backswing, and then rotating my wrists, its more like thinking about it during the backswing, so the motion goes to an already rotated position, and I can then move smoothly into the downswing, without any pause. I come from a tennis background, so I've been likening it to preparing for a topspin shot. If your preparation and pre-swing motions are correct, when you hit through the ball, your arm naturally uncurls and if your grip is right, you'll hit the ball right. I guess I'm trying to apply the same principles to the golf drive. I originally did have a grip where I sort of rotated my club a little anti clockwise, so it was square at address, but was told that it was best to let the clubhead sit neutral at rest (ie, slightly open), and work my grip around that, and let my arm naturally rotate through the swing. Guess my arm needs a little help to act as naturally as it should?

Hey all, Just starting out in golf, and be trying to find out more information about this specific action during my backswing, but not finding a lot of answers. Essentially, I've been working my drive by recording myself, and checking my swing against people on the forums and youtube, and I'm working on having a consistent drive mechanism. I've only been to the range a handful of times, but people there are really helpful, and one of the things a guy said to me is that during the swing, my wrists should rotate over, in order to square the clubface, and change from a high flying slice to a straighter drive. Now thinking that as an action to do in my swing doesn't feel very natural, throws off my rhythm and adds one more thing to think about. Instead, I found that at the top of my backswing, if I rotate my wrists about 45 degrees clockwise, I find my wrists naturally rotate more during my swing, to the point where its naturally going to be a square face at impact, and I can hit dead straight. Its a concious action during my backswing, but I find that to be a lot less confusing that doing thinking extra stuff during the downswing. Now it works for me, but is this something that is generally done? I found that when my club was (more or less) perpendicular to both forearms at the height of its backswing, I'd hit with an open face, and so it'd go consistently high and about 25 degress to the right. This change has allowed me to hit straight, low, and I feel like I'm getting that nice flight path. The old man next to me complimented me on the ball after I tried this the first time, but maybe that was just pity after seeing me slice so many balls off to the right!

Hi all, I'm just picking up the golf game, but I'm fairly vertically challenged. Probably top off at about 5'3 or so, if I'm lucky? I manage to get by for certain sports by picking up gear for juniors (ie, shoes/shorts), so I'm wondering what the exact difference is between a good quality set of golf clubs for juniors/womens/men? Looking to pick up a set of second hand clubs, and it seems that there's a lot of good ones out there for womens/juniors out there for sale on the cheap? Assuming the length is alright, is there anything wrong with me using junior/women's clubs? I would assume that all things considered, all clubs would have the same head technology regardless of which demographic its meant for? I hope people will answer, and then promptly forget about this topic, so when I post later, this won't come back to haunt me :P