kurtbayne

I futzed around with the head looking at the target. The fun thing about this is that you see the ball early in its ball flight, not 50-100 yards out when head is back with a full swing. Seeing the early ball flight might also be good for getting better concentration on ball trajectory on pitches and chips. Of course, looking at the target on putts is a beneficial drill.

good find wisco

OK snipes = snaphooks, nice slang I can't relate to casting/coming over the top since I tend towards an inside-out swing. There must be golf instruction books that have a troubleshooting solution for such a basic swing fault. So I'm by far an expert on this, but maybe try these inside-to-out thoughts for a few swings for yuks and maybe you'll get lucky. SHOVEL VS. PICK - your over-the-top is sorta like coming down sideways with a pick. Maybe if you thought of having a shovelful of dirt and then throwing out in front of you from way back. Probably not throwing the dirt way up in the air, but more rolling the dirt along the ground. It's not the perfect thought but might help CLUB IN THE BUTT - Try a very loose-wristed non-controlling swing and see if you can do a more inside-to-outside so that the club almost whacks you in the butt at the finish. Maybe you get close to hitting your left ear with your hands, too, I can't remember. If it's just hard to imagine, maybe try addressing the ball, the move from there directly to the finish. Try that a few times, then extrapolate on how to work backwards from that. That might shake a few preconceived cobwebs in your brain. SOFTBALL PITCH - similar to SHOVEL - snap an underhanded softball pitch, but more open and thrown in front of you, rather than sideways/left. Like SHOVEL, maybe "throwing" softball into the dirt is better than in the air, don't know. Then just find a way for the left arm to stay back with the right arm thru the motion. Kids here now gotta do chores, let me know if that helped

what is "snipes"?

Go to the library There's almost certainly mental golf books there Recently I've read Zen Putting (also related Zen Golf) Those were nice, kinda metaphysical, Buddha-like Kids in all sports are known for having more ups and downs than adults Sounds like you are actually better than average in that regard In addition to others' advice I'll say: At the least, PRETEND to be cool, relaxed, focused, consistent and you will, in time, actually become more cool, relaxed, focused, consistent And lastly: Even if you do nothing about your mental game, if you start young and play enough golf, you'll simply TIRE of all the mental baggage in your golf game once you do something wrong like million dollar drive, 10 cent birdie putt enough times, you'll simply get bored with that and you'll start doing it less and less reminds me of a story/joke supplicant comes to successful CEO type and says, "how did you become so successful?" CEO says "good decisions" supplicant says: "how do you learn to make good decisions?" CEO says "experience" supplicant' says: "how do you get experience?" CEO says "bad decisions" You've got at least 50 years of bad decisions ahead of you Lighten up and enjoy the journey You have the main qualification for being a good golfer: a willingness to change

most libraries have the Pelz books to borrow then buy later if you want I personally like his stuff You don't have to swallow everything whole of course His system does require a commitment on your part but then what system doesn't?

No advice for technical Mental however, I would think about this: 1. DUELING - I don't like the concept of "dueling" an "opponent" in golf, even in match play. Pay attention to YOUR game, not his. Notice where his ball lands if he needs help finding it, and notice if he violates any rules. Other than that, any mental energy focused on HIM is that much less mental energy available for YOU. And if you play Tiger Woods, you don't try to out-Tiger Tiger, you just be the reasonably-best YOU that you can be that day. No need to be a God, just punch in, and play your reasonable best without a lot of wasted emotion and misc. BS. For me that's the best path for consistent OK golf. 2. SELF-DIAGNOSING DURING A ROUND - Historically I'm a "thinker" on the course, always futzing with mechanics during a round. I didn't "get" the idea of just "letting go" and simply putting your subconcious mind in charge of actually hitting a ball during the round. But now I'm warming up to the idea that that maybe I should be taking the training wheels off my subconscious mind during the round and giving it more free rein and more responsibility. Of course, you're still going to have bad shots, perhaps even worse shots than normal, but perhaps they will be more CONSISTENT bad shots. So let's say you're hitting high, slicey drives today. Well just aim a little more left and let it go. Instead of micromanaging and being in constant fix mode, maybe what we need to do is have even LESS conscious control of our swing. Regripping at top of swing? Huh, how about that. I'll look at it tomorrow. Whoops kids on lap gotta go

Good post avid golfer

I'm new to posting golf advice - I didn't think this concept would be so hard to explain. In my view, the "volleyball" or "ball behind the ball" drill I think has two purposes: (1) to flatten out the clubhead path at the bottom of the swing, and (2) to help better your release at impact. I could go FOREVER about these two topics, especially "release" but I'll try to give just enough about what I think this type of drill would work. BTW another way to do the drill would be to go to some short-ish rough or alley grass with, say, a mid-iron or fairway wood, and try to make the longest swish thru the grass you can without taking a divot. In other words, how long a trail of grass can you disturb without digging any out? Experiment with ball position and clubhead path. Start disturbing the grass about where your ball would be, then see how much forward you can disturb the grass without unduly contorting your body. Then try it the other way, start disturbing the grass as far back as possible and then leave the grass about where your ball would be. Then try halfway between the two. Then experiment with an outside-to-in swing path and an inside-to-out swing path, and then a square swing path. Can you make any discoveries about your swing? If you're at a range, sometimes you have the mats where you can poke the rubber tees thru the hole in the mat. If you see two holes 8-16 inches apart, you can steal someone else's tee and put the extra rubber tee in the adjacent hole. Then you try to hit both tees. Probably should use a 3-wood for this, as range management will probably not be thrilled about you pounding slashes into their tees with irons. Or you can just put two wooden tees a few inches apart in the grass. That's a lot of work fetching them, tho. SHALLOW ANGLE OK, back to purpose. One purpose of the drill is to help you be able to sweep the club along the ground like a low-flying plane, as opposed to hammering down on the ball like a kamakaze pilot. (this is not to say that you NEVER hammer down on the ball, but you need to learn both a steep and shallow angle of attack). My experience is that most high-handicappers in general come down too steep onto the ball. I also think that many of these golfers don't realize just how steep they come down on the ball. Maybe it's sort of an optical illusion. Or maybe they think that since their arms aren't coming down steep onto the ball, then the club isn't. The main problem with a steep angle of attack is that you have less margin of error to contact the ball. I saw an old lady a couple of days ago with a driver or 3-wood. She was coming down at a 60-degree angle. At that angle, it seems that she has MAYBE a half-inch to work with. 1/2 inch too early, and she slams the driver into the dirt and it bounces back up to the ball, which actually sort of works if the ground is solid. 1/2 inch too late, and she tops the ball and squirts along the ground. An absolutely perfect hit will give the ball a low shot with a lot of backspin, similar to snapping down a ping pong paddle on a ping pong ball to elevate it. Unless you're God, you're gonna want more than a 1/2 inch play on your drives. Something in the 3-4" range would be nice. You can get away with a steeper angle on shorter irons, but long irons and most woods need a shallower angle. If a person says that he can't hit long irons or fairway woods, this would be a logical thing to check on for his swing With more margin of error, there's a better chance of hitting a ball solid. Actually maybe that's not really the case, but your misses (which most golf shots are, frankly) will have better results. How you produce this flatter angle of attack I think sorta depends on how you swing, but in general I think you want to think of a bigger arc in your swing, a swing that is more of a big swoosh using more of an extended body/legs/arms, rather than throwing/extending your arms directly at the ball and then snapping your wrist/club at the ball at the last microsecond RELEASE The other purpose of the drill I can see is to teach you more about the concept of release. As I said before, I could talk forever on it. I think most people don't really release at impact, at least what I call release. It's a hard concept to understand truly what I mean by release. Maybe look at it this way. Imagine a similar drill with 2 tees. The first tee is where you ball normally sits. The 2nd tee is 15 to 20 degrees farther along past the normal ball position, well into your follow-thru. The tee is probably a foot tall at this point. As you contact this 2nd ball, most people are done accelerating the ball with their hands/arms, or to say it another way, they are no longer "adding on" torque to accelerate the club and "compress" it into the ball. And they are no longer using the hands/arms to steer the club or work the club to the proper position at impact. By this I mean that most golfers don't have their body work done correctly, so they need to make an adjustment with their arms/hands to produce some sort of acceptable result. Now that the normal/first ball has been hit, it's sorta like the pressure is off, and the swing moves freely without acceleration, as, you might say, the job is already done and we're just coasting now. This free movement of the club and arms and body is kinda of the feeling of "release" that I think golfers should be more acquainted with. If a golfer hits the 2nd ball just right at this point of the follow-thru, the ball would likely shoot up at a 45-degree angle with a big hook. AND it will take off like a rocket. AND it will feel like you've hit a soap bubble, not the rock of a golf ball that you usually hit. AND it will feel WOOOOONDERFUL, better than sex. And you'll say, wait a minute, I wasn't even trying, wasn't the club decelerating? Wasn't the clubhead in front of my hand in the "non-power" position? What the hell just happened? SOOO, if you go back to the "volleyball" drill and contort your body so that you hit the volleyball with your normal torque-y/compress-y hit and then coast on to the second ball, which is where you ball normally is, you may someday be just relaxed enough and non-controlling enough and lucky enough to get a truly released hit. Done for now

never heard of it, but any drill that makes you think of hitting the ball farther back than where the ball actually is will be helpful to a lot of people volleyball I guess works as well as anything

My 1st post on a golf forum ever ! Keep in mind (1) total stranger (2) woeful lack of data (3) not golf-schooled (4) I *HAVE* hit tens of thousands of balls on the range in the last 6 months or so, and have good effortless distance on the range Show this to your girlfriend: To me, No distance + good accuracy = over-focusing on ball/club/hands/arms to create accuracy at the expense of distance 1. You can only get real pro distance by effectively using your entire body to generate clubhead speed at impact. Unfortunately, using your entire body to efficiently generate power and accuracy is very complicated to learn as an adult. Think "Martian Chinese Calculus" difficult. 2. There's no "secret" or shortcut to getting big long distance. If there was, half of all golfers would be hitting long, instead of the current 1-2%. It takes lots of practice and study, which you probably don't have time for, since you have a job and a fiancee and probably want to actually play golf once in a while. 3. Knowledge is *literally* power in golf. Michelle Wie is not stronger than your boyfriend. Not even close. But she KNOWS how to use her BODY to swing a club super-fast at impact. 4. If you are committed to hitting long, and are allergic to books and studying, I'd say this for advice. (a) HIT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF BALLS WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED. Balls into a net in the garage with your boyfriend feeding you balls, or ball on a string that you can reset eyes closed. Even just swinging with no ball can help. Accuracy is very NOT important. Body parts will hurt/break down. This just means a part of the swing that needs change/correction, often because you will not let it take its natural path. Work around injuries, and massage out ligament/tendon scar tissue (b) CONCENTRATE ON LOWER BODY. Stop obsessing about hands grip club arms and move down to torso hips knees feet balance (c) BIG BALANCED BEAUTIFUL (BBB) this is your mantra. BIG = body extended and tall, long arms, long legs, maximum clubhead arc/path - this helps to activate the entire body. Don't swing HARDER, swing BIGGER and LONGER. BALANCED = keeping a sense of balance always in mind during the swing and using it to magically create power. BEAUTIFUL = always looking to have a more beautiful swing, more lower body or total body, more fluid, more smooth, more effortless, more magical. Effortless power instead of powerless effort. A million beautiful misses will steer you much better towards a pro distance swing than a million sensible serviceable whatever-gets-me-thru-today swings. So your balls spray all over the place on the course. So what? You're a beautiful woman, ergo, you need a beautiful swing. Your boyfriend or girlfriends don't like the result? Tell them, "don't let the door hit you on the way out". NEVER be sorry about the result of a shot. Be PROUD that you're willing to sacrifice accuracy and utility for beauty and power. This I think is the best mindset to eventually hit balls with pro distance and, with much practice, pro accuracy.