jasongst

I will look into that, thanks. My most recent attempts have been to improve lag and increase the use of my lower body. Although I can feel differences emerging, I haven't really seen the distance yet.

Anyone have a story about gaining significant distance by altering your mechanics (rather than pumping iron)? I'm particularly interested in the lowish handicappers because there's no telling what kind of things a high handicapper might be doing to destroy distance. Here's my deal. I'm 6'2, 190 lbs, not chubby but not a gymnast, and I never work out. I consider myself to be of average strength. My drives are around 260-280 yards (roll and all) on average. My iron distances are like this: 4 - 180 5 - 170 6 - 160 7 - 150 ...and so on. At one time I was hitting my 7 iron closer to 160, although I feel my mechanics are much better now (better consistency). So I have the choice of focusing solely on accuracy, or I can also try to alter my mechanics even further to add distance. I refuse to work out. Any stories to inspire me?

Improvement requires having the guts to screw up your swing every once in a while. Sure you can take the easy road and never change anything, but then 20 years from now you'll be 20 years older with a goofy swing that "works for you" with lots of compromises. I say you should embrace the challenge of making changes. Not so much that you never settle into your swing, but enough that you can actually improve over time. So in answer to your question: All the time! And yeah, it stinks, but it feels great to come out on the other side being able to demonstrate real improvement.

If you go by his book, Hogan used an open stance for the shorter clubs, but a closed stance for the longer clubs. But yes, he flared his left foot.

Don't worry about it. They generally play nearly every day. The way to do this is to work out a schedule (helps to be on a golf team, etc.) and to sign up for a membership. I certainly hope people aren't paying full green fees when playing every day. Even if you are already playing every day and you aren't progressing as fast as someone else, again, don't sweat it. Practice and learning are organic things. Sometimes they can go faster for other people, but that doesn't mean your ceiling isn't as high as theirs. The sky is the limit, regardless of how you stack up to Joe Golf. The only golfer besides yourself that you should focus on is Tiger. The good news is that even if you don't have a way to play every day, you probably have access to some grass (back yard, etc.). You don't need to hit balls to get better at swinging the club. Use the tools you've been given.

How far apart are your feet, and how open/closed is your stance?

Weird! You have about 10 yards on me with the other clubs (except driver, which I seem to have plenty of distance with), but certainly not enough to justify the difference in our wedges. I can only dream of hitting my 56deg 103 yards, let alone a 58 or 60! What setup do you use for your full wedge shots?

How far do you hit your other clubs?

A little late to this party, but my goal is to break 75. Next year I'll try to break 70. My other goal is to make my approach shots my strength.

I seem to be using my lob wedge less and less. I don't know what the typical yardage is, but lately I'm preferring to hit a partial sand wedge. I think I fear the occasional blade or shank that, due to the full swing, sends the ball to some very undesirable spots. The lob wedge still comes in handy around the green though. What I don't understand is how pros can hit it 90 yards.

Don't you think LPGA players have more than enough access to English tutors? Encouragement from the Tour in the form of some program would therefore be a bit pointless. This is a weird situation, which is why I think we are seeing such a weird rule. They want the LPGA to remain popular in the USA, and their ruling makes perfect sense. They don't care where you come from, as long as you are able to communicate with your fans!

Here's one thing you definitely need to pay attention to: Make sure you aren't hitting the ball on the heel of the club. Hybrid clubs are going to have a slight gear effect, so heel hits will encourage a fade and toe hits will encourage a draw, etc. Try lining the ball up with the toe of the club and trying to deliberately hit some toe shots; see if that makes any kind of difference.

Is that the master key? Guiding your swing arc with your left shoulder? Because a couple days ago I started doing this, in order to remove the focus from my hands (I wanted more lag). It works really well! Of course, you could be talking about something entirely different.

Pitching is a little bit like putting in the sense that people figure out weird ways to accomplish it and they aren't always pretty. That said, the more similar it is to a normal swing the easier it will be. I've gone through zillions of revisions prior to getting good at short game shots. Here are some things that remained true that entire time: 1. Learn how to brush the grass in the same spot every time. If you are taking dirt chunks on every swing, your technique is not going to be very consistent. 2. Your hands need to be in front of the club head at impact, or you'll have difficulty doing step 1. 3. Make sure your swing arc is aligned with any upward/downward slope on the ground. Don't worry about loft; better to swing a tad down on the ball. If you hit it solid the ball will fly plenty high. 4. A shorter backswing with an accelerating downswing is better than a long backswing with a floaty, indecisive downswing. 5. Have confidence and allow yourself to use your instincts.

This little Sergio topic prompted me to take another look at my swing on video (first time in a while) and I was surprised at how poor my lag was looking. (It's amazing how tempting it can be to swing too much with your hands.) Now I'm going through another tweaking phase trying to add a nice lag to my shots, and although it feels weird it hasn't messed me up too terribly yet. Right now I'm trying to guide my downswing arc using my left shoulder, while more or less pretending my hands don't exist. It actually works pretty good. I'm not certain if I'm hitting it farther yet (some strong winds lately add confusion) but I'm definitely hitting it just as straight.

Great post, and so true. The problem stems from the fact that most instructors fail to communicate (or perhaps even realize) that their tips are only effective in the context of the particular swing they teach. For instance, if you move the ball position and adjust the stance then you are now playing by an entirely different set of rules, and everything else will be affected. Elements of the swing that worked a particular way might need tweaking or all-out changing. My personal view is that there is not necessarily one swing that works best for you, or at the very least it's a waste of time trying to find it. You're better off just picking one swing (with a proven history) from the outset and going with it. (If you stop thinking in terms of the limitations of your stature and level of athleticism, you begin to realize that you are capable of far more than you know.) Whether that's a book or an instructor, it's up to you, but take all advice that comes from the outside of that bubble with a grain of salt. And if you ever have to change instructors, make sure they are aware of what you have been learning, and make sure they are willing to go along with it. That said, golf has certain unseen skills that you are constantly learning regardless of the swing you use. You develop coordination that can apply to any swing. If I were forced to learn a brand new swing tomorrow, even if I was forced to reverse every habit I've formed, I guarantee you I would learn it far faster than I would have back at the beginning of my golfing days. In other words don't sweat change, but at the same time try extremely hard to identify the type of swing you want and then stick to it. Picking a person to mimic is, in my opinion, the best choice because you have hours of video footage to use as a comparison tool, and plenty of evidence that the swing works. Hogan is a popular choice, and for good reason: In addition to having a reasonable amount of swing footage available, his swing has been extensively documented in his book for reference. Then again, this is the advice of someone who is still an 8 handicap ;) It is dropping through.

I just wanted to point something out. If this is a tournament or something of consequence (which it was), then I would agree with your sentiment. However, if this were a normal casual round, then I think you have two bits of etiquette bumping up together: One, help your buddies find their ball, and two, avoid slow play . If this is a foursome and there are already 3 guys looking for the ball, I think the guy who is 200 yards away on the other side of the fairway hitting his ball out of turn is the only smart thing to do in order to speed up play. It's far more considerate to the groups behind you. Letting the next group play through is another option, but if there is a group immediately behind them too then you are only benefiting one group whereas playing faster benefits everyone behind you. So the better etiquette choice would be to find a way to play faster when reasonable. So to the original poster's credit, he was probably trying to speed up play for the benefit of others. But considering this was an official round of sorts, in retrospect he would have been better off looking for his buddy's ball. But it's still his buddy's fault for allowing himself to be DQ'd. There are many options that allow him to avoid that consequence. It's also his buddy's fault for blaming someone else for his own goofs.

Speaking of foxes, one time we were playing this course that ran up against some woods. On one hole after we hit our drives, foxes ran out of the woods, grabbed our golf balls, and ran away. Who knows what they were doing with them.

You may be right. And up till this point, I have often made the changes you suggested as my swing has evolved. But make no mistake; this is not an alteration of tension, and it is relaxed. You are only conscious of it if it is different than your current grip, but like any learned activity it does not remain conscious for long. If a good grip is as essential as people make it out to be, then this attention to detail is warranted. One thing I forgot to mention is that many people probably hold the club this way naturally. I, for one, did not. It's very possible that I was flawed in the past and have only now made myself un-flawed.

You know, I've been meaning to post about my putting technique since it has been so consistently good lately. Might as well put it here! There are a number of things that I do, and when I sum them all up the output is excellent putting. It also happened to coincide with switching to a lighter blade putter (from a 2-ball knockoff) but I'm sure much of it is universal. I'll detail it all as a problem/solution list. Problem: I was pushing/pulling my putts. Solution: To help ingrain my chosen line, I first pick out an intermediate target about 4 feet in front of my ball, then (here's where I differ from most) I point at the spot with my putter, and drag back an imaginary wire from that spot to my ball. For some reason this helps me. Once I pick my line, I stare down at the ball, square up my alignment, then defocus . Focusing on the ball causes you to watch the ball as you hit it, which causes you to turn your body and pull your putt. After I hit the ball I wait a second or two before looking up. I put the club grip into the crease under my thumb pad instead of the crease under my palm pad. This just opens up the club face a litle. I put the ball directly in the center of my stance. Roll-be-darned. I choose to have confidence in my natural ability to hit a straight putt. I stopped trying so hard. One I pick my line and set myself up, I stop thinking about technique and just hit it. If you offload all your stress into your pre-shot routine it frees you up to swing with more confidence. Problem: I was having distance control problems. (Most notably after switching to a blade putter.) Eventually I realized that I was relying too much on muscling the ball through as I putted. Solution: I started relaxing a little bit and feeling the heft and momentum of the club a little bit more. I swing back relatively slowly, then on the way through the ball I add a tiny amount of acceleration and "will" the ball to go the desired distance. Before I putt the ball, I thoroughly imagine the roll, focusing on the speed needed to reach a spot just beyond the cup. Some days this is tough, and on those days I don't putt as well. Sometimes it helps to imagine a roll way beyond the cup, barely beyond the cup, barely to the cup, and barely short of the cup, all before one putt! Before taking my stance, I stand 90 degrees perpendicular to the putting line and defocus until I can sense true horizontal (gazing at trees can help). Then I look at the slope of the putt, and I usually get a good read on how steep it is. Notice I don't list "picking the right line" as a problem? That's because I think choosing the right line is what we need to focus on the least. Yes it's important to get the right information on the break, but ultimately it's a guessing game, and it's far less important than hitting the ball the correct distance and/or avoiding pushes and pulls. Hope this helps!

I just posted something that is helping me deal with this very issue. At the very least it's something you can try: http://thesandtrap.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16703

If you are drawing and hooking the ball but would like to hit a natural fade, you might want to read this. Your mileage may definitely vary here, because A) I haven't read this tip from any reputable source, and B) I've only been trying it for two days now. It also might not apply if you don't use a glove, or if you use a weird grip size. So I've had the tendency to draw or hook my shots for quite a while now. Earlier this week it was really getting out of hand though, and I was sick of magically "figuring it out" without really understanding how. In order to prove to myself that I was still in control, I wanted to learn to hit a fade without thinking about it. (I could hit fades on command, but I had to swing abnormally.) On a whim, I tried a small adjustment to my grip. I didn't weaken it or strengthen it; instead, I adjusted where the fingers of the left hand were putting pressure on the shaft. Take a look at your fingers. The knuckle that is nearest to the tip of your finger I will refer to as the 1st knuckle, followed by the 2nd knuckle, and so on. Prior to yesterday, my natural tendency with my left hand grip was to apply pressure using the crease formed by the 2nd knuckles on my fingers. Basically I was wrapping my fingers around the grip as snugly as possible. I was not overly tense, by I tried to really fit the grip into my hand. The adjustment I made was to move the club grip more towards the finger tips of my left hand. I now apply pressure using the pad between the creases of the 1st and 2nd knuckle. (There is the sensation that you are leaving a slight gap in your palm, big enough for a pencil, but this is not necessarily the case.) Immediately upon trying this I hit an enormous slice. Then, with a better release (and a slightly stronger grip) I was able to tame it into a shot that either went dead straight or had a very slight fade. (Yes!) So for the time being my hooks are gone. I'm also finding it easier to aim my pitch shots around the green. It took a little getting used to (plenty of misses to the right), but I'm now back to playing well (shot +3 over 9 holes this morning, which is good for me). So until someone comes out and tells me how incredibly wrong it is, I'm going to go for it. (I consulted Hogan's 5 Lessons and there just wasn't enough detail on the left hand to determine this.) If you can't seem to cure your hooks, you might as well give this a try! P.S. I think the reason this works is because having the grip more in your fingers influences the natural tendency of your wrists rolling over. Either that, or it prevents you from regripping on the back swing. I'm not sure which it is, but as long as it keeps working I don't really care.

Good enough for me. Don't recall exactly now if I read "pull" or "hook", etc.

I read somewhere that a too-small grip will encourage a hook and a too-large grip will encourage a slice. Is this true?

You've done a good job of explaining it. Thanks! Although in theory I've known that one should lag the club head, your explanation helped me tie it to another phenomenon: tucking your legs in while you spin on an office chair. Or maybe an ice skater tucking in their limbs to spin really fast.