Draftstone

I'll try what you described, I am quite good with hand work usually. I'll also keep a look for a used one that's not too expensive! There is also the possibility of a complete set of new irons, a broken club could be a good excuse for the wife to accept

I have the half'n'half shafts (half graphite and half steel) so might be hard to re-shaft with a new shaft if the shaft is also bent, they don't seem too common.

Rotator cuff tendinitis. Went off to play golf + volleyball even with some pain in my shoulder. Now paying for it, out of golf for some time!

Hi! Hit a rock with my 6 iron (Wilson Staf Di11) and the club bent a little backward at the ferulle (I can see a little gap between the ferrule and the club head) and when looking at the club, there is clearly a couple of degrees of angle toward the back of the club that is not there on any other irons of the set. Don't know if it's just mental, but since then, can't hit properly (5 iron and 7 iron are good, 6 iron are all fat). Evrything still sems rock solid, no movement at all even with trying the club again and hitting some fat shots (on grass and on mat), it did not bent more. Is it a thing that can be repaired and if it is, is it the kind of thing that I can do myself or it takes good skill at a pro shop? Sorry no picture, but can provide one if needed tonight! Here's a try to indicate the problem with a diagram of a side view of the club |||

Same! Everytime I am in a bad situation (weird lie, ball way up/down from my feet, etc...) I go for my 6 iron (or lower if I am close to the green). I prefer to lay up being confident I'll hit my shot with my 6 iron then trying to go for the green and not being confident about it. It might be because everytime I practice, I do my warm-up with my 6 iron, so the 6 iron is the club I hit the most at the range.

I use oobgolf.com. It is all website driven, so will work on any platform. There are some minor issues with it (very minor) but I have not found anything free that gives out as much information.

Yeah, what you said makes total sense. His swing is probably in-to-out, but his clubface is open the same amount of degrees that his swing is. Since he said he had a nice little draw before, he was probably swinging in-to-out before too. Since the problem only arrived since he started to put his weight forward, he probably contacts the ball earlier than before so his clubface has not "released" yet. If before he was hitting with his club face square to target, but now he is hitting the ball a little bit earlier due to a forward shift (his whole downsing moves forward, which makes the ball contact a little earlier in the downswing) his clubface is probably still a little open (with a good slow-motion video we would probably see his clubface return to square a couple of inches after impact). Changing the grip would probably help, but rethinking about it, when he puts his weight forward, he probably moves forward at the same time to promote the weight shift. He should try to notice if he does move forward when shifting weight. If he does, that would be the problem.

Have you tried a slightly stronger grip ? Usually it promotes a closeb clubface at impact. So maybe your grip is a little too weak, and your natural hand position at impact makes the head to be slightly open. Adress your club with the face pointing as you do right now, strengthen your grip a little without changing the clubface angle, and try a couple of swings.

Just wondering where this 2 caddie rule stops. Last week at the barclay's, a player (sorry can't remember his name) hit a shot out of a greenside bunker. After his shot, he went on the green to mark his ball and since his ball was dirty he looked at his caddie to clean it, but his caddie was busy raking the bunker. The other player's caddie made him a sign and the player threw his ball to the other caddie, that cleaned it and threw it back to the player. Would that be a breach of the rule of using a single caddie, or since it was simply for cleaning a ball and no club/putting line questions were discussed, everything was fine?

Quote: Also, watch this before you film your next swing. My girlfriend was holding the phone, so I'll blame her

Overall I was simply curious. I'd like to be able to hit a draw most of the time (from my practice today, it was easier to get solid ball contact trying to hit a draw than a fade) but I was curious if I ever want to practice my fade which of the 2 technique is the best.

Small local 9 hole course. Played +6 (my personal best on that course is +5), so overall it was a pretty good round for me! par, +2, +2, par, par, par, par, +1, +1 (all par were GIRs) Those 2 last bogeys really hurt, I would have beaten my personal best.

Hi! After posting a video in the "My Swings" section talking about my problem where I would mostly hit fades and was unable to hit a draw, I started to practice what I was told I should work on. I have to say that it is paying off. Today I was able to hit draws pretty easily (still not consistent with the amount of draw tho, one shot would be like 2 yards, the next one 10 yards, the next one 5 yards, etc...). There was one thing I noticed. What I was told to practice was to keep my right knee more in front (I am left handed) and keep my foot on the ground a little bit more. Doing this, I noticed that my downsing was a little bit more horizontal which probably helps to promote the in-out swing path. Its mostly a feeling, the friend I was hitting balls with said he sees almost no difference, maybe a couple of degrees max. I tried hitting more vertical like before (once again, most of a feeling, friend said it almost looks the same) and I was hitting a fade with long clubs and a straight shot with short clubs. I also tried to open the clubface and swing more horizontal (like for my draws) and it results in a fade, but the distance loss was more than by swinging more vertical but the clubface square. So it got me wondering, which of the fade technique is the right one. I think the way I am hitting my draws is correct. Ball starts a tiny bit lower, curves 5-10 yards, and goes around 5-10 yards further than my old swing. My "vertical way" of doing the fade, balls curves 5-10 yards, and distance is as before. Trying to hit a fade with the same swing as the draw gives me the same amount of curve, but ball goes 5-10 yards shorter than before. So to resume For my fade/straight shots, should I swing more vertical like before (trying to keep the downsing more vertical, probably results in a small outside-in move) or should I swing the same plane as for my draws, but play with the clubface angle? My guess is to keep the swing plane the same, since it seems easier to play with the clubface than with the swing plane, but I was wondering how you do it when switching from a draw to a fade. Do you simply open the clubface or do you change the swing plane? (maybe both?) (don't know if this should be in instructions forum, feel free to move it)

I don't know if it is a good idea to do it, but it works for me! I too have quite a gap in between 2 wedges, so I take my PW, open the face (which reduces loft) and aim a little right since ball wil go left (instead of going straigth, ball starts a little left and fades only a very little. I am left handed, so if you are right handed, reverse all this.). I can reduce distance between 10 and 30 yards depending on how much I open the face, the only thing I have to do is aim more right the more I open the face. This allows me to hit normal swing with my PW instead of trying to hit 3/4 swing with it or 110% swing with my SW.

It depends if it is a complete practice session (no round of golf following) or a small bucket before a round. Before a round - I get a 25 ball bucket (around here, most courses have a small bucket where they hand count 25 balls) - Stretch a little - Hit 3 little chip shot with 60 wedge - Hit 2 full swing with 60 wedge - Hit 5 ball with 9 iron (2 half swings, 3 full swings) - Hit 5 ball with 6 iron (only full swings) - Hit 5 ball with 5 wood (only full swings) - Hit 5 ball with driver (only full swings) I only use this practice time to get "used" to different club length before teeing off. I saw overtime, that when I tee off without this small routine before, my first hit with a certain length of club, I usually miss hit (fat/thin/whatever). With this small practice, I usually score 2 to 3 shots lower on the first 3 holes (computed stats for my local course with and without this practice, 2.84 strokes difference in first 3 holes (par 5, par 3 and par 4), while the reste of the round is pretty similar (0.4 strokes difference). So simply getting used to hitting with various length seems to help me. For a full practice, I usually take one or 2 big buckets, depending on how much time I have to spend at the range, and the only thing I do consistently, is I start with my 6 iron until I can hit 5 good shots in a row with it (to my standards, that are probably quite low for some of you). +/- 10 yards horizontal dispersion from my target line, and at least 140 yards of distance (I usually get around 160 with a good hit, so I give myself a 20 yards margin). After that, I usually switch to the clubs which I had problems recently on the course. Once I start to hit well with a club, I switch to another club I had problems with. At the end, I keep the last 5 balls (10 if I took 2 buckets) for chip shots practice.

Thanks for those replies! I can easily notice a difference between my swing videos and the one you posted. I'll try to see if I can replicate them! For the ball forward, it really struck me when I watched my own videos. I thought I adressed the ball near my right pectoral muscle but looking at the videos it is clearly under my shoulder. Probably a perspective thing, I'll change that! For key #1, I noticed that in my backswing, my head does not move until I get my shoulder under my chin, then my head moves back. Should I reduce the backswing or is there any drill I could work on to keep the same "size" of backswing but to practice not moving my head once the shoulder comes where the chin is?

Hi again! I've worked on my swing this summer, and most of my fat shots are gone (still hit it fat from time to time, but I no longer hit the ground 6 inches before the ball, so the ball still goes forward). Trying to stop moving the head helped a lot (still moving a little, but seems a lot less than before). I currently have a fade issue and I am wondering if you could help me from that video. I always try to hit a draw, I try to swing a little from the inside (and I must fail at it!). For 90% of my shots, it starts straight or slightly left (remember, I am a lefty) and then fades (with the occasional slice) a little to the left. But sometimes, out of nowhere, I hit a draw (or a hook), but I don't feel like i've done anything different then when I fade it. Here's my approximate shot percentage straight fade: 70% straight slice: 5% straight draw: 5% straight hook: 5% push fade: 10% push slice: 5% push draw: 0% (never ever hit one of the range or on course) I almost never pull the ball either (when they start right, my father often tells me that I was aligned that way) Any help please? :) This video is with a 6 iron, hitting a straight fade in both position. (in this video, you have both point of view, followed by the slow motion of the same 2 swings)

I was just wondering what are those numbers you refer. Are those steps in the swing? Btw: nice round! I hope I'll be able to play those numbers one day :)

Thanks! Before last year, I was only playing 3-4 games a year. Last year I decided to try to play every week, but only started to research on "how to play" at the end of summer (pretty harsh autumn/winter here so we have to stop playing around early october usually). This winter I took some classes and continued to read here and doing some simple drills in my basement. This summer, I continued to read and practiced a lot on the range while playing at least 9 holes per week (usually between 18 and 36). I saw my game improving a lot, but never every part of it at the same time. I knew my overall game improved, but the scores never followed. I could have a great driving game one day, but would miss all of my chips. Next time, awful driving, but would land most of my approach shots near the green anyway, and then miss the easy putt. etc.... But that game, really showed me that I am able to play "good" golf.

Hi! Yesterday I played the best golf of my life so far. My current handicap index is 23.6 but I managed to play +5 on the local 9 hole course where I live. My good games are usually around +9/+10 on that course. It started with a triple bogey on the first hole (sent my 2nd shot out of bounds,and had some mishits for the rest of the hole) and told myself "that will be another of those rounds..." I could not have been so wrong, followed that hole with 6 pars in a row. Made a double on hole #8 (tee shot missed fairway in muddy area, had some problems getting out of there) and a par on final hole. It is a par 35 course (3 par 3 and 2 par 5). Hit 3 out of 6 fairways (my only big miss was the muddy spot on #8, the other misses were "good misses"), hit 3 GIR (plus 2 fringes), had a 1.6 putting average, everything was going so well! Overall I was so happy to see that I can finally play good golf. Usually there is always an area of my game that simply does not work on any given round, but yesterday, everything was going really good (according to my standards hehe). I also want to say thanks to everyone that posts here, my golf game has improved a lot since I started reading here and doing some drills that people are talking about.

Do we post progress update here? If so, my intended target has got his clubs, took lessons (he wanted to take lessons before doing anything else related to golf) and we started going to the driving range sometimes. So level 2 achieved I guess! Two things left in my opinion to make him a golfer. - Go play a 9 hole best-ball with him (so he won't take 100 strokes to complete a 9 hole course) - Go play a 9 hole course where he plays his own ball He's the kind of perfectionnist, he wants to be able to make constant good contacts on the driving range before he agrees to a best ball 9 holes, so I hope I'll be able to make him play his own ball before the course closes for winter (usually october over here).

I'm right handed, but I play all sports which involves sticks/clubs/etc... as left handed. I have no idea why and I did not choose to play golf left handed because I like having problems finding clubs haha. I do everything else right handed. At baseball, I throw right handed, but I swing left handed. Hockey, left handed. Golf, left handed. As soon as it involves holding something with two hands, I can't do anything right playing right handed.

I can hit a 5 iron relatively well (with my limited talent). My 4 iron was a lot harder so I switched it for a 4 hybrid. It was a lot easier to hit. I should go back and try again the 4 iron tho, my iron game has improved a lot lately, but my hybrid have not improved much compared to my irons (4h still goes farther than 5 iron, but my 5 iron is a lot more straighter than my 4h). I'll have to go to the driving range soon!

Thanks a lot for your answers! Will make it easier to take a decision next time :)

Hi! On the course I regularly play, there is a short par 4 (270 yards) with the whole left side starting at the tees until the green that is water, marked as a lateral water hazard. The fairway also have a slight angle from right to left (left is lower). So since I play left handed, if I hit a slice, it will end up in the water for sure. I usually simply re-tee the ball (since the hole is not that long so lost of distance is not so important when playing for fun) and hit 3 from the tee (it is suposed to be 3 right? ). But, from my understanding, since it is a lateral water hazard, one of my option would be to drop the ball inside 2 club lengths where it entered the hazard, as long as it is not closer to the hole (since it entered sideway due to a slice + roll, it enters the hazard at least 200 yards out, well inside the 100 yards to the green marker). My problem is that the way it is setup, you have the water, then about 1-2 feet of rough and then the car path. On multiple spots along the hazard line, there is no way I can drop the ball. If I drop it in the rough, I end up both feet on the car path, if I drop it at the maximum 2 club length, the ball ends on the carpath. So my question is, how exactly should I play this. Since there is no way my drop would be playable, should I take another 2 club length after the car path (as long as it is not closer to the hole) and drop it there? If I do this, it is almost guaranteed that I can have my ball and both feet on the fairway (no rough between car path and fairway) and have a clear short shot at the pin playing 3. It looks a lot easier to make a simple bogey (double bogey at worst) from there (playing 3 around 50 yards out from the fairway than re-teeing for 3 at 270 yards away). Thanks for your help!