kc8kir

On the toe.... sorry. I was thinking of hitting the ball slightly off the toe of the club. I keep the heel from dragging in the grass!

Grip pressure for me with this method is very firm. You are hitting the ball off the toe of the club, so it will want to twist... but that dead hit gives the ball a different spin condition hitting the green (in my experience). It takes getting used to... but I find it very effective. To the prior post, I do raise the club on the toe as he illustrates in the book. This really helps in the rough, even when you play the club back. When playing out of deep rough, the ball is moved back and the hands forward. The club is still off the toe and I account for the decreased loft in how much roll out I plan. I try not to use too many numbers. I just figure 1/3, 1/2, 1/4... and that's about as much math as I want to do on the course to figure out how much to land the ball. Hence I use this technique most often with PW and 8iron. Seems to help keep the variation down and avoid overthinking it. I'll pull a 6 iron if i really need some long roll out, but thankfully that isn't too often. I still have not figured out his V shaped sand technique though!

It has been a very long time since I was on this forum. Still playing golf here... though struggling with a hook and shooting mid to high 80s. All that said... I still use the method Paul Runyan outlines in his book as my primary chipping method. Jim Furyk uses this method as well, and I find it to be very reliable. I will add or subtract a club depending on green speed for the day. Trajectory is played with using shaft angle and ball position. The firm wrists he advises takes some practice and is very much a dead feel through the ball... but I find it produces consistent spin conditions so I can judge the roll out or check much more reliably out on the course. Helped my game a lot ... but then again committing to a technique and practicing it will do that.

Shawn's videos were some of the first instruction I recieved and followed. I think his teaching really helped me realize some part of my potential much faster than if I had just followed "Golf Digest" tips, etc. I own his DVD, and it's a great resource. If I still lived up in Michigan, I'd probably make the trip to see him for lessons. All this being said, I had to be careful with Shawn's hip turn method. I am very flexible in my turn, and I mistakenly ended up reverse pivoting (weight staying left, then spinning out on the downswing). This was my fault entirely, as I should have known to practice my weight shift better. I was staying left, then going even further left but totally spinning out and falling forward. Just doesn't work for me and my upright swing. As a result, my swing became too flat and too much inside. I couldn't keep the club from going way across the line. I lost my ability to play all woods. Finally realizing that (somewhat a product of working on Brian Manzella's Soft Draw Pattern ), and practicing the proper weight shift (for my swing), I am starting to get my game back into form and I firmly believe I'll be better than ever. I still have the counterbalancing turn, but I get my weight to my right foot earlier, then back to the left much better. My balance and clubhead path are significantly improving. Amazing what just loosing the sense of proper weight shift does to your swing! I'm practicing the weight shift at the start of every range session from now on! Shawn has some of the best analogies and visuals I have heard yet in golf instruction. Between him and Brian Manzella, there is lots of good golf knowledge on Youtube.

I would definitely suggest finding an actual "swing trigger" to start the motion of the swing. Hogan had a slight forward body press. Lee Trevino had his three steps. Nicklaus had the stationary press and head turn. Sam Snead had the forward press. Byron Nelson had the forward body press with lagging clubhead takeaway. Gary Player kicks in his right knee. Harvey Penick suggested feeling like you are swinging a bucket of water. You wouldn't start straight back. A little swing forward is needed to set things in motion. Jim McClean suggests raising and lowering the right heel. Brian Manzella suggests stepping on the right foot. The idea is to have a conscious, easily repeatable, small motion to set the feel of the swing into motion. It promotes smoothness, a consistent tempo, and a repeating swing form. Makes the swing itself feel very automatic. Mine is a feeling of counting 123, 123, 123. So really a very slight forward body press. I rebound off that into the backswing. My swing is always in motion; I'm just catching the next wave.

Man... looks good. Just keep trying to get your practice swing to match the full swing as much as possible. Your swing looks really stable. Me and my whippy wrists are envious. As far as the consistency goes, what kind of swing trigger are you using? I couldn't spot anything (hand press, forward press, head turn, forward bump, foot step, knee push, etc). Might want to consider finding one and putting it into your swing. That will help every swing start feeling the same and hopefully migrate into every ball flying about the same. All the greats had a swing trigger. None started from a pure stationary position. The triggers of modern pros are very difficult to spot, as it's more of a feel thing than a big movement. Constant motion, back and through.

Good advice, IF you are going to use that swing pattern (the Ben Hogan a la Slicefixer method). Gotta be careful here, because the golf swing is not a "one swing fits all" environment. Give the above advice to someone without proper coaching and the rest of the starting alignments, and you're gonna have them suffering with spinouts and all sorts of other faults (just like any technique or swing pattern, you need the whole picture, not just a part of it). There are many ways to swing a golf club, though the effectiveness of each is debatable. I think it depends on the person more than anything. I think the original post has more to do with "snapping the kinetic chain" a term gaining more and more popularity in golf instruction, and something that has been taught in other sports for years. Look up Brian Manzella on youtube for his video on "Firm Left Side - How to snap your kinetic chain". He gives a very good drill for learning how to snap the chain to generate more clubhead speed. If that fits your overall swing pattern, that is... It's unfortunate, but the golf swing isn't as simple as "just do this..." It's always "do this.. and this... and make sure then you don't do this... but keep doing that..." You get the idea.

Mats are evil things. They really screw up your swing if you haven't learned yet how to feel the difference between a barely clean shot, and a slightly fat one. Anyone I see hitting on mats really well, I question how they hit off grass and dirt. Not the same animal. Real ground is not perfectly flat and does not help you if you hit the ball slightly fat. I suffered from the same "fear of the ground". I didn't like the feeling of taking up dirt. That's because I hadn't learned to make good compressive contact in the order "ball then earth". The "earth then ball" is a very uncomfortable feeling, so I was constantly trying to pick the ball clean off the surface. Here is my five step process to getting over that fear (I had it myself)... 1) Stop hitting off mats. Ever. No seriously. If you really have to, then at least put a towel or something behind the ball about 3-6 inches back and make sure you miss that towel entirely. 2) Go out to a field with a 7 iron, a stand-up net, and a bunch of golf balls. 3) Take practice swings taking a divot. At this point we don't care how deep they are provided you aren't unearthing any Indian burial grounds. You just need to get the feel for a descending strike. Notice where the divot is in your swing. A good divot should be straight or curving slightly left, with very little taper, and uniform depth (ie not toe digging in, or heel digging in). A dollar bill shape is just about right. 4) Without changing your setup or swing, place a ball at the back of the divot and repeat. 3 practice swings to every 1 ball hit. 5) Your objective is to TAKE DIRT after the ball. Don't focus on the ball. Focus on the dirt. It's gonna feel weird at first but you will learn to hit down on the ball and take a good divot. One point of caution here. For some, too much forward press makes taking a good divot very difficult (mine were HUGE) so you can fool with lots of forward press to none, and see what the affect is on your impact zone. The reason you are hitting into the net is so you practice the feeling of good contact and overcome the instinct to pick the ball off the surface, without worrying so much about ball flight. You'll quickly get the feeling for having the divot occur after the ball, and how to swing as to not take too large a divot (not hacking into the ground). At the right descent angle, the bounce of your irons will allow you to make "shallow" divots not potholes. Some people's divots are larger than others (Jesper Parnevick hits down hard and takes huge divots, but that's why he is such a superb iron player - it also has to do with the fact he grips the club really hard). I repeat this process every time I start having trouble with "ball then earth" contact. It works and it doesn't cost you a dime! Ball flight gets much easier to correct when you are hitting the ball first!

SubPar, what tees are you playing from? If it's the back tees I would suggest moving forward until you can generate more distance WITH accuracy. Better to play a more forward set of tees and get used to scoring (and the confidence that goes with it) and then move back as your distance improves. That way, the course won't seem so long when you finally do have the distance. You'll be comfortable hitting those distances with accurate shot placement.

Besides initiating with the lower body, I think Harvey Penick had the best advice for how to start the downswing. Left heel down and right elbow return to side. Two things to keep in mind here. If you aren't lifting your left heel on the backswing, it's gonna feel like you just push the left heel into the ground. This gets your weight going left and back. Second, the right arm to body connection should stay in place until either just before, or just until impact. Depends on the release you want / works for you (David Toms impact versus Adam Scott for example). Want you don't want is to loose that connection really early and just end up flailing at the ball with your arms. Take it from me, that's a recipe for some really ugly shots.

I think it's kinda disturbing that you make Daly's habits such a personal issue. What on earth does it matter to your business if he screws up or succeeds? Does it somehow reflect on you? Do you gain something by wishing him future hardship? I have a serious problem with the way the golf media only wants to highlight Daly as a screwup. Not everyone in golf is a prim and proper frat boy with a pompous alligator on their popped collared shirt (don't go taking that the wrong way either). The PGA Tour is not a live remake of "Angels in the Outfield"... or perhaps it's "Angels on the Teebox, in the Fairway, etc." Granted, Daly has made mistakes, lots of them, but good grief... stop digging the man up only to throw him back in the ditch. At some point, it just becomes a sick obsession. I get the feeling even if the guy managed to succeed at this point, people would still bash him. That's wrong, plain and simple. In my book, no-one's a total lost cause until they're dead.

I can't believe no-one had this one on their list. All time favorite movie. No contest. I like lots of movies, but this is the best. Watched it so much as a kid, I think I broke the tape. TOP GUN Some guy is hitting into our group out golfing, my buddy turns to me and says "Sir, do I have permission to fire?" and I respond "Do not fire unless fired upon!". Driving off from the first tee, we cooly chant "I feel the need... the need... for speed!" Mention doing something totally crazy, and the only response is "You're gonna do what!?!?" Can't forget the classic insult line. "Slider... *sniff *sniff... you stink..." Make a comeback on the back nine. "Sir! Maverick's re-engaging!" And who can resist wanting to sing "You've lost that loving feeling" every time at karaoke. Hehehehe....

Lots of good practice drills for putting, but there are really three things to focus on (in this order): Pure Contact Distance Feel Green Reading and Special Techniques The first and the second will get you two putting most greens. At home, I suggest practicing getting pure contact. Short putts only at first, but just focus on the feel of the stroke. Close your eyes and hit a few. Memorize the feel of a correctly stroked putt. Even with pure contact and good distance control, you'll still have odd misses and struggle on challenging courses. That's were green reading and special techniques come into play. Here's where experience and preparation (mapping the greens, practicing on them, etc) comes into play. Oh and don't forget: If you're having trouble putting, it's probably because your approach shots are too far from the hole!

Over-firing the right hand through impact (right hand takeover) along with a loss of arm-body connect (arm runaway) will cause this. Take it from me, it's not fun and it will eventually lead to heel hits and shanks. Keep the left side steering and the right side submissive. If the right side takes over completely, and straightens the arm too soon, the result is a clubhead moving too much in-out (or conversely, if you combine it with a casting motion, way too much out-in). Note, I'm not saying to discount the right side as a powersource, it's just that it's very easy to shove the club at the ball with the right side and add too much power too soon. Think of it as shoving a kid off a swing from the top of the arc. You wanna push the kid near the bottom not the top. When I have been doing this (still working it out), I could literally put the clubhead inside the ball, swing, and hit the ball dead center on the face. My clubhead was rerouting outside the target line that much. The result with long clubs is an alternating game of pull, hook, slice, push, pull, hook, slice, push. Lots of heel hits and shanks later, I'm realizing my right elbow needs to return to my side and stay there longer, allowing the left arm and body rotation to pull me around through impact. It's a much different impact condition, but it sure makes square contact a lot easier. Just look at pictures of Hogan, Snead, and Nicklaus down the line at impact. A drill to test if this is your problem is to swing the club and let go with the right hand just at impact. If you can't manage to swing into a balanced finish, you may have other problems (posture, weight distribution, etc). Releasing the right hand should make the followthrough feel very easy, provided the right hand has not had the chance to shove the club at the ball.

There is a HUGE debate on the correct path following impact. I believe both are viable, but which is more efficient or effective remains for consideration. You can: A) Release down the line. or... B) Release low left. Both options are completely ruined by slinging or flipping the clubhead. Cupping the left wrist destroys the impact alignments. Finally, the path of the club after impact should be a result of the pivot and arm-body motion, not a contrived result. Lateral, or halted body rotation, encourages dtl. Full rotational encourages low left. Interestingly enough... the two greatest ball strikers used both methods. Ben Hogan released low left. Moe Norman released down the line. Both however had flat left wrists at impact. If you want to know more about how to release low left, check out slicefixer on golfwrx. MiniMoe, it's neat to see someone doing well practicing the Moe Norman swing. I often wondered if Graves and his academy was full of it or not. Question answered.

I'm thinking the shaft tip is too soft for your swing. As a result when you really go at it, the face closes much faster due to increased shaft load, and the ball hooks. Over time it will mess up your swing with other clubs because you will change your hand timing to adapt to the shaft. Try a shaft with a higher kickpoint, or heavier shaft at the local golf shop. See what happens when you really go at it.

Try increasing your swing tempo. I just picked up the book "Tour Tempo". It's very interesting how fast the pro's actually swing and their 3/1 timing compared to us amateurs. If you're not swinging with a fast enough tempo, you won't load the shaft, and you won't generate the clubhead speed as easily. Just look at long drivers... their tempos are insanely fast.

Please tell! I can't wait to get one of these!

Some very interesting research is being done on the "hitter vs. swinger" debate. From what I have heard so far, not one test subject was a true hitter or swinger. Good swings are a combination of both, allowing the golfer to apply more than 85% effort and still maintain accuracy. Look at Hogan, he said he hit equally hard with both hands, and that the harder he hit, the straighter it went. Modern pros wouldn't tell you this, but their swings are not as perfectly grooved as Hogan's. They have many more timing issues. Nicklaus would have agreed with Hogan, as he hit hard with both hands and made it a point to swing fully on all his regular shots. No shot was a half effort because doing so would mess up his natural timing and rythym. I think the best golf swings are not one side dominated or the other. The body propels the hands, and the hands are free to add some extra power just prior to impact by virtue of the wrists unloading. In the case of the shanks, mine is due to the right hand basically giving up on the backswing, then playing dead on the downswing and not helping square the face. The club tracks severe in-out with an open face, and there it goes. Shank city. Unfortunately, my success was short lived. Range yesterday, the interlock wasn't working for crap. Went back to overlap and started pounding it. So maybe it was just a quick retraining of my hands. Hit a few shanks though... and those really ticked me off. I need to work on my takeaway, and keep it from looping inside so much. Low and sweeping is ok, but not if it goes so far as to put me way across the line and past parallel.

I guess it depends on your personality, but I have played some good rounds being very aggressive when it comes to the actual 30 seconds to setup and take the shot. I plan what I want to do, then I step up and just do it. No extra thought, just step up and make that ball go where you want it to go. It's so easy to get caught up on swing thoughts and nice finish poses etc. Leave the practice to the practice tee. Hit the course and play golf. That's why a game of golf should take only 3.5 to 4 hours for a group of 4. Take a second to get a game plan together, then execute. The longer you wait, the worse it gets. To prove this to myself, I played a round where I literally went as fast as I could and swung hard (but in control) on every shot. I made more shots in that round than I have in any round yet, and it was FUN. I showed this idea to a friend of mine (I am helping him get into golf) at the driving range yesterday. Basically told him, stand behind the ball, aim, step up, align, check the target, pull the trigger. Rinse and repeat. That's practicing target golf and trusting your swing. You gotta get on the course and let it go. Every hole is a new chance to do something incredible.

Do yourself a favor and check out Macgregor and Wilson Staff (not ProStaff) as well. Some very nice, high quality, brand new iron sets from last year available now for around $200. You can even find the Macgregor forged V-foil blades for around $200. Very slick sticks that don't break the bank.

Let me start by saying I have had my doubts about what grip works best for me for a while now. After video taping my swing I could see my hands with the overlap grip were NOT working together in the swing. Left hand control on the backswing was looping the club far to the inside, resulting in an across the line overswing. The right hand wasn't doing its job, or it was taking over and smothering the shot. For the last 6 months, I have not been able to hit fairway woods (severe heel hits, giant slices). Irons have been fine, but I have had serious episodes of the shanks. You name a club, I've probably shanked it. I have lost all confidence in setting up to hit the ball, as I don't know when one of those right to right monsters or 45 degree screamers is going to pop up. Combine this with not being able to hit fairway woods, and my golf game has been in serious jeopardy. Last night I just said the heck with it and went back to interlocking grip. I immediately noticed I was setting the club on plane without thinking about it. The inside loop is almost completely gone, and no more overswing. The hands started working together. The best part... No shanks! Even my mishits were somewhat online. Gone were the giant chunks I had been hitting (alternating with shanks). The ultimate test was the fairway woods. Once I got my ball position nailed down, I started hitting them ok. This is a huge improvement. I can't wait to work on them more. Lesson learned. The hands have to work together and stay together through the swing. For me, that means interlocking grip.

Down here in Texas, where tight lies and hardpan are a regular occurence, I chip off the back foot all the time. Not a foot behind me mind you, but off the right big toe. Works great, and if you open the blade you can hit a short high spin pitch. The only caveat is that it doesn't work so hot on fluffy lies. Very easy in those situations to chunk it or bounce through it. Moving the ball forward helps in those situations, but watch for the resulting run-out. In really fluffy lies, I'll just hit a flop shot by placing it off the left toe and sliding the bounce of the club under the ball. In his short game book, Paul Runyan talks about moving the ball in regards to your suspension point, basically your top vertebrate, to change trajectory and contact. As such, with one basic chipping motion, you can modify your setup for any number of lies. Leaning forward or back has the affect of moving the suspension point as well. It's actually nice to modify the ball position for the lies instead of just the weight distribution at setup. You can readily see where the ball is in the stance. Gauging weight distribution is a bit more "touchy feely" and works somedays, doesn't work others. Too much variability for my taste. I think the suspension point concept would help a lot of golfers develop real short games, not just a chip, a pitch, and a putt.

I really think there is nothing wrong with it. No seriously. He simply has a large loop that he has grooved and plays well with. On short irons especially, it's a great swing and Furyk is very accurate. His swing is somewhat a function of his double overlap grip as well. To those who say a large loop is not a path to good ball striking... lol... look at Lee Trevino. That guy makes more flush contact than anyone besides Hogan or Moe Norman. In the end, it's all tempo, balance, and repetive motion heading into impact.