steve8820

To even imply that Woods would not come back because he felt that he wasn't good enough is outrageous. You mention him struggling in 2009. His 2009 stats straight off the tour website, 17 starts, 6 wins, 3 seconds, 14 top tens, 16 top 25s. His 2009 performance would be an absolute career year for anyone else on tour. His 2009 performance as mentioned by another posted could have been clouded by off the course concerns. Given this, I think he comes back stronger than ever in 2010. The skeletons are out..........all he has to do is play golf.

Actually, I would say Yukari's comments are right on with what the Tour could/should do regarding Tiger. Age has nothing to do with idiotic comments. You have clearly proved this with your comments above..........

Let's me start by saying that I am not a huge Tiger fan, before or after his infidelity surfaced. Tiger did not commit a crime by cheating on his wife. It is criminal offenses that get athletes in trouble with their sport governing bodies. It is a moral issue and the tour could not do anything even if they wanted to. We all know that they surely do NOT want to do anything to keep Tiger away. I have never heard of any sport legally being able to keep an athlete away because of a moral issue. I can guarantee you that if they did try this, lawyers would be involved. Ok, now to your comment about a company firing you for acts that reflect poorly on them. First off, Tiger does not work for the PGA Tour. Second, there is NO way you would be fired from your job for cheating on your wife. As terrible as cheating on your wife is, it is a moral not a criminal offense. Let's say Tiger assaulted his wife, a criminal offense. I guarantee you, the Tour would be able to legally control his return. Completely different matters though........

It is not the equipment as mentioned above. It is your swing. I too fight heel mishits with my driver from time to time. It stems from a fault in my swing where on the start of my downswing my head/shoulders dip slightly closer to the ball. A bi-product of overswinging for me. Focus on keeping your head steady and maintain your posture. Hit some drives at 50% and I bet your heel hits go away.....

I agree with keeping the wrists loose. However, I have seen some dramatic changes in my ballstriking after working some drills from Bobby Clampett's "The Impact Zone". I definitely recommend picking it up. There is a thread about it somewhere on here. There are a few key things that I picked up from this book, one being maintaining wrist cock. I misinterpreted wrist cock and the book clears it up. Focus on gripping the club in your fingers. When you cock your left wrist, do so with the lower three fingers of your left hand. So keeping with a light grip, more pressure is in those lower three fingers. Don't tense up your wrists. Try to hold this angle through impact. You will notice as I did that it is impossible to hold it through impact and naturally your wrist will uncock. The difference in power is quite dramatic.

Hard to agree that he is close after watching coverage yesterday. When I watch him play it just appears to me that he doesn't give a sh$%. Maybe it is just that he works fast. It just seems as though there is no thought process before the shot. ........."Ah lets just get this round over with so I can go pound some beer......". I agree with the posts above about the golfchannel coverage. Pure snoozer. The only thing in comparison to the golfchannel's coverage is TNT's coverage of the Open.

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "If you believe that you can or cannot do something, you are correct". Only you know your game and if you truly believe in it. Do you really love the game enough to ride that rollercoaster all the way down? You mentioned having the talent to play the game in college, but decided not to because it would take too much time. Something like that could be telling of how successful you might be on your journey. It is my belief that the guys on the PGA Tour are not that much better physically at the game then say the Nationwide or other top tier tours. What they have is an intangible quality or drive that separates them................. Do some homework on teaching professionals and see if it is dream lifestyle. See if the income is something that will fit the lifestyle that you want to live. I think many people love playing the game of golf and then feel like they should pursue a career in the golf industry. Once in the industry, they many times play less golf than before. I am not saying that it is not a rewarding profession or a worthy career to pursue. I am just saying there are other careers that pay significantly more and allow far more time to actually play golf.

1st beep start swing, 2nd beep start downswing, 3rd beep is impact. It is as simple as that. When I setup to the ball I usually wait two cycles of beeps before starting my swing. Don't be in such a rush to swing.

I've wanted to check this book out, but have not done so for that very reason. I can only imagine what swing thoughts an analytical golf book like this would impose on me.....

I am surprised to hear OCN being in rough shape. However, I haven't been out there in a few months. They usually are very well maintained. Sounds like you had some fun though...............

Start with the slowest tempo, 27/9, and go from there. Oddly enough, that felt fast to me about 4 mos ago. Now I am on to 24/8. I cannot really give you anything to help with not anticipating the tones. At this point, don't even worry about hitting balls. Just swing a club to the tones. Get the feeling of just reacting to the tones with a smooth transition. A smooth transition between tones is huge.

I am surprised that this seems to be a shock to you. The US doesn't make anything anymore. I can't blame the US companies for manufacturing elsewhere. It boils down to the roll up of costs associated with paying an employees with benefits such as health care, retirement, pensions, etc. Roll all those costs up and it ends up costing you $200 per hr to pay a guy to turn a bolt on the assembly line. You'll start to see US companies manufacturing clubs here when the US assembly worker decides he is willing to work for much less pay, no benefits, no pension, etc.............

I've experienced similar results with focusing on keeping my head steady throughout the swing. Just the other night, I was having an issue with very inconsistent iron contact. Heavy, thin, etc. contact. I recorded a couple of swings and sure enough my head was dipping down at the start of my downswing. For the remainder of practice, I focused on keeping my head steady and contact improved dramatically. It is something that I have focused on in the past, but obviously need to revisit. To those on this thread who believe that a steady head during the swing is not needed turn on any golf event and watch how steady the pros keep their head. After seeing my head move around on video I went back and watched Wednesday's coverage of the Bob Hope. Sure enough, their head is very still throughout the entire swing.

You mention rolling the left wrist and allowing the left wrist to roll in the post above. Although they sound the same, are of course two entirely different things. IMO they are "allowing" the wrist to roll over, from body rotation + correct grip with light pressure.

To the OP, I suggust that you continue your lessons with the Pro and apply anything mentioned on this forum very lightly if at all. You are at a stage where learning the right way now will save you far more down the road. I made the mistake of getting a few lessons early, had some success, and then assumed I could figure it out on the range. WRONG!!!!!! I am now forcing myself to relearn certain things in order to really get as good as I can. I saw your question about a swing thought for squaring the clubface. IMO, this is certainly not a candidate for a swing thought that you want to incorporate. This is going to lead you down the road of handsy impact positions which will allow you to play decent golf on the days that your timing is good. You are going to rob yourself of power with this as well. It is your body that swings the club and squares the clubface. Embrace that. It is far more repeatable and provides loads more power than hand manipulations for a poor golf swing.

In the "After" down the line shot, it looks to me like you are getting very little body rotation. Your hips do not appear rotated at all at impact. You are trying to flip the clubface closed with your hands. Rotate your body and keep you hands passive. Use the big muscles to square the clubface, not your hands. Your lower body has to get out of the way or you are going to block/push everything right.

I am starting to take this approach as well. When I just swing to a tempo and "let it go" the result is far better. I played baseball all my life and cannot think of one instance where I was concentrating on mechanical issues during the swing. Yet, I do it everytime over the golf ball.

Give Tour Tempo a try. It will get the mechanical swing thoughts out of your head while you play. Makes the game more reactionary, like other sports. It will with no doubt improve your game.

IMO, you cannot practice too much IF you are practicing with a purpose. If you just beating balls into a net, then yes too much can/will cause bad habits. However, this approach at the range would do the same. Living in Florida, the weather of course does not dictate my practice schedule. However, my 9 mos old at home does. My only practice nowadays is when he goes to bed. That said, I used a net in the garage. However, I use a few training aids to get me in correct positions when hitting into the net, Swing Extender, Path Pro, and Tour Tempo. Before the baby, I would hit balls at the range and not really get any better. My practice time is now less, but I feel the quality of practice is better. I also save $$$ on range balls....... :)

I'd say it is probably an advanatage, but will be offset by the fact he is probably playing drunk......... :)

I think the general idea of the tool is it forces you to swing with your body. I tried one on the range quite a while ago and trust me there is no flipping at the ball with a weighted club. An obvious fault that I had at the time.

Did you ever think that maybe the golf instructor was saying to swing up as more of a swing thought for the student who was coming in very steep at impact? Can't really say for sure because we do not have said golf instructor here to comment for us. Truthfully, I would leave the golf tips and instruction up to PGA professionals like your quoted Dumb Golf Instructor. It is very amusing to read your attempt to debunk golf magazines and golf professionals with your "analysis" of grainy Youtube videos. I am sure next year you will flip/flop on this just as you did with SnT. Coming in 2011........."You need to hit up with your driver" by Erik Barzeski.

There are not different versions of TourTempo that I am aware of, just different delivery methods for the tones. You can download the tones from the site and install them on an mp3 player. There is an iPhone app available. They make an earpiece that looks like a bluetooth device preloaded with the tones (overpriced IMO).

It seems counter intuitive because they are smooth. Make no mistake, they are getting after it. I am a Tour Tempo believer big time. I estimate that it shaved about 7-8 strokes off my score when I was practicing with it religiously. Went from shooting around a 90 on average, to low 80's and high 70's. If you have good fundamentals, it is almost like a overnight difference in ballstriking. Unfortunately, late last we got really busy at work and I played twice from September through November. Also, got rid of my iPhone that I had my TourTempo app during that time frame. So when the holidays came along, my game was in the toilet. I figured that I didn't need to practice with the TourTempo tones anymore, WRONG!!!!. I played some really bad golf in December. I have since re-purchased the tones and already a night/day difference on day 2. Spend the $15 for the tones, you will not regret it.

You need to have fairly solid fundamentals to maximize what the tempo training can do. If you have some good fundamentals in place, here are some recommendations on how to get some good, great, and unbelievable results. DO NOT anticipate the beeps, just react to them. I fall into this trap often. Also your trasitions in response to the beeps has to be smooth. A jerky response to the beeps will destroy the swing.