Hazard Finder

I think of a natural swing as whatever motion an individual would make if I gave her a stick and told her to hold it with two hands and hit something with it. Certainly individuals have different natural movements.

Durng a natural swing, your arm will rotate. I do try to limit that rotation. I set up how I want to make contact (square clubface, hands forward, flat left wrist) and then (try to) keep my left arm/wrist in a fixed position throughout my swing. But that doesn't completely stop my arm from rotating, and my clubface doesn't stay square. I'm not sure that it'd be possible to actually stop my arm from rotating and still take a full backswing. That said, I expect the issue here is much more communication than anatomy. Telling someone to keep the clubface "more closed" and to "concentrate on keeping the club head square to the arc," seems very confusing to me. By contrast, if your instructor had said: "you're out of control on your backswing, so keep your left arm and wrist fixed throughout your entire swing, and only take a 50% backswing for right now." you're probably not here asking whether you've got some quack teaching you a bogus swing.

Just play more is the best advice. That said, four thoughts on the range-to-game work. First, and obviously, be sure you're hitting off grass, not turf. Second, course usually means less than 'driving range perfect' conditions. You're more likely to find imperfect/unlevel ground at the far end spots at your range, and you can usually add some randomness by dropping and playing as it lies. Third, when you play, there's time between shots. Take a couple minutes between shots. Take some practice swings, watch other people hit, check your text messages, whatever. Fourth, on the course, you rarely hit two shots in a row with the same club. Recreate that by grabbing an old scorecard and "playing" 9 holes. 26 handicap, don't worry about hazards or bad lies or doglegs, just work on distances. If hole #1 is 400 yards, hit driver. If you slice the hell out of your driver, pick a target that's 250 yards out and grab your favorite wood/hybrid. On the other hand, if you hit your driver 250 yards straight, pick a target that's 150 out and grab an iron. So on and so forth. Goal is GIR.

For me to believe myself, I need to be confident, and that usually requires some past (positive) performance. So I get putting drills where you tighten the circle down to the hole. Assuming you complete that drill, that should help build confidence. Same with my driver. Only after I developed a (reasonably) consistent swing was I able to swing confidently (angry). That said, I do not understand why someone would not try to sink a putt during play. By the time you're on the green, course management should not be a concern, so trying to sink a long putt is high reward and low risk. As you point out, very different than aiming at the flag. And I'll admit that I'm usually content enough to leave an easy second putt, but I doubt my not-killer mentality is why I have to pay to play... On that note, your location reminded me that my introduction to golf was the student-plus-twilight discount at Birdwood. Several years later I actually attempted to play golf for the first time. But the importance of beer to golf was ingrained in those formative years...

I'm very-not-an-expert, but if your left elbow is *significantly* bent on the backswing, that's probably a symptom, not a problem. So I'm not sure it's something you should focus on. Correcting the larger swing issue(s) may naturally straighten out your left arm. I had a total baseball swing with a major left elbow bend. The fix for me was "steady head" drills, not focusing on the elbow. When my head's still, a baseball swing feels unnatural, and to feel max backswing extension I actually stretch out my left arm (I don't "lock" it, but it is straight). One longer-run thought: it feels natural to have a flat left wrist at the top of my backswing when my left arm is straight, and it feels natural to have a flat left wrist at impact when I have it at the top of my backswing. That old baseball swing, flat left wrist at impact was nearly impossible. Anyway, I'm not qualified to diagnose anyone's swing flaws, probably not even my own. But if any of this resonates, skip the straight elbow drills and work on steady head drills. Swinging with your feet together is a good one. Now I just need to get more consistent.....

Do you practice putting? Admittedly, I don't practice it enough. You can work on accuracy at home -- just putt the ball straight at whatever target you set on the floor. For gauging distance, you need to know what the greens are like that day, so take 10 minutes before your next round and hit a couple dozen putts on the practice green. As good as I am about making time to go to the range before a round, I'm really bad about making time to go to the practice green. Makes a big difference.

I haven't taken lessons, and I don't plan to take them. The game's fun for me; it's been fun since I was consistent enough to shoot about 110. When I first started out, lessons could have helped me accelerate the path to playing well enough to have fun. But that ship has sailed. And I do like having things to "work on," but I don't need lessons for that, and I've never been super-serious about improving. Shooting in the mid/high 80s now; to me, there's very limited value in being better at golf. All that said, I could see my desire to take lessons changing in time. This would be way off in the future, but retiring to a golf-obsessed life sounds like a lot of fun. That or fishing-obsessed. Or both... Of course, this is all individual to me. Whether and how a person has fun isn't something that can be generalized. I say do what you need to do to make the game fun for you. If that means lessons, do it.

Years ago, I asked my wife's grandfather (a plus-handicapper through his early 80s) this question. He told me he had asked the same question decades ago, and gave me the same response: "Hit the back of the ball with the front of the club." Truly a golf zen master. In that spirit, my tip is that, to break 100, you only need three clubs: one wood, one iron and one putter. Stay zen.

Yeah, when there are things stopping you from playing regularly -- weather or injury or work or whatever -- it makes it really hard to get better. The range is a great place to work on all the swing tips you read here, help build muscle memory, etc., but there's no substitute for just getting out there and playing. There's a lot of really bad golf being played out there. It's tough to tell on a site like this, where a bunch of excellent golfers, some of whom are instructors, come to discuss fine-tuning their obessions. But for every single-digit handicapper on my usual course today, there will be a few dozen guys who are there primarily to have some beers outside on a sunny day, who take a mulligan every other hole, and who've never come close to breaking 100 despite never recording an "honest" score in their lives. For what it's worth, I love playing with guys like that. Don't take themselves seriously, lots of fun. Anyway, if you can shoot about 120, you won't have a pace issue with most golfers. On "2 pars and nothing over double-bogey," the impressive thing to me was nothing over double-bogey, not the pars. Getting to the point that I didn't have any "complete self-destruction" sorts of holes was a big deal for my game. It also reminded me of another pace-of-play trick: put a max score limit on yourself. My friends (many of whom will never break 100) and I will use double par as our limit -- e.g., on a par 4, after your 8th shot, pick up your ball. We mostly do that so that if someone has a "self-destruction" hole, he can just pick up and walk away before it gets to his head. But it does speed you up. If you're *really* worried about pace, you can put a double-bogey limit on yourself. You'll be on the green in time to putt for double-bogey most holes, so it's really just not finishing out your putts. And, trust me on this, nobody's going to think badly of you if you don't finish out your putts.

Where you go from here is (weather permitting) to a full course to play a real round. 2 pars and nothing over a double-bogey on the short course; I’d assume you’re better than a great majority of the people playing my usual course today. On that note, the thing I wish I did differently when I started out was to play more. I was self-conscious about my game, and I spent time at the range trying to work things out, but I rarely played. I didn’t really improve until I started playing a lot. Part of that is that playing is the best practice. But also, the more I played, the more I realized how bad most people were, and the more confident I got in my own abilities. I see you worried about driving 175-200, but that’s as far as most people can drive. I can’t hit my driver over 250, I don’t hit my irons any further than you do, and shooting in the mid/high 80s makes me better than most people I play with. Similarly, on a par 5 “hit it 150, 150, 150, 70, and back 20 just to get on the green" isn’t so bad. Just sink your bogey putt, and you’ve had a decent hole. 18 bogeys is a 90 is better than 95% of people will ever shoot. Heck, fix the approach from 50, and you’re putting for par. Anyway, I got out more by grabbing 2 of my easiest-going friends (a 3-some meant our group would move quickly, even if we were bad) and bringing a lot of the great equalizer (beer) along. But even if it's you and 3 randoms, odds are someone else will be playing your pace. Very few people are actually good at golf. And if you do end up surrounded by very good players, and you feel like you're slowing them down, the easy way to keep up is to not look for balls you hit out of bounds, but rather just drop a new ball in the fairway the same distance where the last one went out. I found that, as long as I was keeping up with the pace, I was able to have fun out there. But distance will come from confident swings, and confident swings come from playing more. Can’t help you with aging, but if you want to keep playing through winter, move down here to Florida. Our challenge is playing in summer….

No problem. I very rarely post here, but this forum has been an incredible resource for me -- I've gone from never having broken 100 about a year ago to regularly shooting in the mid/high 80s, which makes me as good as the guys I work with and need to not embarass myself in front of. Part of that is playing *a lot* more, but another part is the tips I've read here. That in mind, here's my effort to give back to the forum. These are the four tips that have helped me the most: 1. When you swing, pull the club with your left arm (assuming you're right handed). Power comes from the left. Your right arm is just there for guidance, not for power. Opposite of baseball. Practice at the range holding a towel in your right armpit. That'll keep your right elbow tucked in and eliminate a baseball swing. Don't worry about where the ball goes when the towel's in there, the towel's not going to be there when you're actually playing, you just want to use the towel to get used to having your right elbow in and pulling with your left arm. The range is for bad shots anyway.... 2. If you've got an outside-in swing (this is the likely culprit if you have a bigtime slice, like I did), when you warm up before swinging, don't take your normal swing. Instead swing a few times as if the club is a big bucket of water you're throwing over your left shoulder. Before you take these warm up swings, don't bother setting up properly or anything. This is just to get your body used to an exaggerated inside-out motion. 3. If you think about your swing as a pendulum, the pivot isn't the middle of your chest, it's your left shoulder. Really helped me visualize the game, from lining up right, to hitting down on the ball, to follow through, to weight shift, etc. This whole deal's a mental game... I'm sure... maybe... 4. If you're struggling with the driver, seriously consider buying a driver with a short shaft (42-44") and/or high loft (more than 10 degrees). Mine is both. Short shaft means easier to make good contact; high loft means backspin to compete with sidespin (i.e., slice). Upside is accuracy; downside is distance. Also, the ultimate goal is to drive the big dog 300 yards down the fairway, and leaving the big dog in the garage doesn't help me there. But if you struggle with the big dog, better to be 230 in the fairway than 280 in the woods. And I've got enough other holes in my game that I count 230 in the fairway as a strength.... No idea if any or all of these will work for you, and I'm sure some people here will have had bad experiences with or recommend against any or all of them. All I know is that they helped me make the transition from really, really sucking to being a normal bad golfer. I fear my next step -- somehow becoming a good golfer -- is one I won't be able to acheive.... Gotta dust off the big dog...

It took me a long time to take my "range game" to the course, so don't be discouraged. Two things I'll recommend: First, do your best to replicate course conditions on the range. You want a range where you can hit off grass/dirt and tee up with your own tees. The range I practice at now has uneven ground at the end spots, which is even more helpful (since I'm still not nearly good enough to put it in the fairway every time). Also, mix up your clubs at the range, like you have to do on the course. Hit one with your driver, then one with a wood, then an iron, etc. Pretend you're playing a round. Toe your driver on the first shot means you have to use your 3-wood on the next shot. Hit a good drive on your first shot means you should use a 7 iron on the next shot. Be creative. Second, at the course, only hit the shots you know you can hit. At the range, if you hit it poorly, the next one is still off the tee or from fairway conditions. On the course, if you it hit poorly, your next shot will be difficult because you'll be in the rough or the woods or whatever. In the highly *likely* chance you mess up that difficult shot, things will get even more difficult. And then it's in your head and things unravel. So be conservative on the course. If you hit it poorly, with your next shot, just knock it back on the fairway to set yourself up well. Only hit shots you know you can hit -- that's what you're doing on the range. Then count your "aggressive" shots and your "just kicking it back out" shots separately so you get a sense for how you're doing.

"Since I really need this warm-up in order to get the necessary confidence in my swing, the result was catastrophic." Story of my life. When I do have time to play it's frequently work-related, which means I'm running from the office and to the first tee. It can take 3 or 4 holes before I find my groove; it's like I'm a different golfer on the back 9 (not that I'm good on either side of the turn). I wish I had the time to play as much as you do, by the way.