jambalaya

Yeah, unless you plan to go to the range about 60 times or more seems a bit steep.

Don't know if this link will work for you but some good basic information about set up with the driver. It's from golflink which is a really good site but the forum is not nearly as active as this one. They have excellent tips and videos. You may be asked to sign up to see it but it's free now. It used to be a pay site. http://www.golflink.com/tipsvideos/v...t=38234&e;=.swf

When my irons go funky I let my left arm/wrist be more dominant. I try to exaggerate it. For me kind of pushing the club through the hitting zone with the right arm gets me in trouble.

The first instructor has already helped you so go with what you know. As for the memberships, do the one you know you are going to use and get your money's worth. If you have a lot of time on your hands and can play rounds freely to the golf course. But if you want to play multiple courses, have guys you play with that want to move the game around to different courses, do the driving range thing.

If taking a divot for you means more solid ball contact then it is probably true. One could argue that the angle of attack is steeper which will change your trajectory and may increase range. But I wouldn't take it as a given.

I know how you feel. After a six month layoff my driver play is horrible. One tip I tried that helped was choking up on the club about 1.5 inches. Next is to correct all my setup problems. I forgot how different hitting a driver was to an iron. There is nothing more awful feeling than continously hitting the ball off the heel of the club.

It helps if you hit the ball first.

That is another way of thinking about it but one that does not work for me. I have come to the conclustion that am more of a feel player and can't think about too much mechanically just before I swing. I think about taking a divot and that causes me to make a descending blow on the ball.

Practice, practice. There are a lot of approaches to putting you just have to find the right feel. A reverse overlap grip may work for you. I like to make sure my right hand is in control. Some people like to go straight back and forward others like a slight arc to their stroke. Some golfers put a little forward press in their strokes. Do some experimentation, read some tips and try things out. Then again, don't let one bad day make you dismantle a good thing. Some days we just don't have it and just need one slight adjustment.

The only way to take serious divots it to pound the ball down into the ground. I try not to think about a method for taking a divot but rather let taking a divot direct my swing. But I know some people play really good golf taking minimal divots. If you try to start taking divots you will probably hit more than a few fat shots but eventually you should get better at it. But if as you say you hit the ball crisp then why bother?

When I keep my body still the ball usually stays on the tee or the ground in front of me.

Well I have come off the longest golf layoff for me in about eight years. Didn't play for about six months. I wish I could give you something more to go on but I cannot get the ball in the air with the driver. The ball usually just dives down and rolls along the ground mostly to the left (right hander). It is not even a screaming worm burner. I don't make good enough contact for that. I didn't think I could miss that many times that bad even if I tried. No ball came close to hitting the center of the club. I was able to hit some decent iron shots. But no dice on the driver or even a three wood. Just baffling. Just to add, it is almost like I am smothering the ball. It is a pull more than a hook and just has no flight to it. Just an awful clank when I hit is so apparently way off the mark, probably off the heel but I don't know for sure. So I did a search on "Driver" and found a lot of discussion about my problem I think. I am pretty sure I am hitting off the heel so I have some things to try now. Should have done that in the first place.

I am not completely sold on the sex addict thing but certainly if you could get all the snatch you wanted just about any time you wanted I could see where it could get habit forming. Having a hot wife has nothing to do with it. Being sexy and good in bed and fulfilling fantasies and making the guy seem like a super stud blows away having a hot wife who does none of those things. Not saying Ellen wasn't an adequate lover which I wouldn't know but looking hot is not the deciding factor in the long run. That being said, it would be a miracle for this marriage to survive at this point one would think. Tiger has created a large hill to have to climb. If it were me none of these sordid details would be part of the daily news. Poor girl has to endure a lot of embarassment.

The public apology is so some people can get affirmation that Tiger is not superior to them. It is for people who are very envious and shallow.

Sorry to see Andrew go. The two brothers are the most annoying thing on the show now.

I am coming late to this but I am totally unsurprised by this and all of you who buy into a famous person's public persona and forget that they are a human and a man live in a fantasy world. Hardly any of you could stand up to the onslaught of beautiful, sexy women throwing themselves at someone like Tiger. It is fantasy to marry someone like that and expect them to remain 100% faithful. I would bet Billy Graham probably got some strange at sometime in his life. Yes, it is possible that someone like Tiger could go through life without cheating but I would put those odds very, very low. Basically the way to avoid such temptation is to completely stay out of public and social situations for the rest of your life. I am positive that before this age of fame at any cost and 24/7 news cycles, and obsession with celebrity that people from the past who have been sainted as famous and strong family value men strayed just like Tiger. It was all kept private and secret. Even the prostitutes had moral codes back then so to speak. Now everyone wants Tiger to go on Oprah and shed some tears and bring himself down from his lofty position so we can all feel better that Tiger is no better than us. No, he is better than us in many, many ways still. Some people are really angry and sad because our ideal has been shattered or we feel superior to him now. I frankly feel no different at all about him, would love to hang out with him, and would probably hook up with one of his rejects one night if I hung out with him enough times.

I am also glad Blake is gone. What a friggin hothead. It is he who has everyone so riled up about Andrew. Yeah, Andrew had something to do with it but I think it would have passed but Blake would not let it go. It is so obvious that everyone's obsession about getting Andrew off the show is screwing with their own games. So he is annoying. Get over it. It was poetic justice that he torched Tony on the head-to-head.

If you are hitting hundreds of balls a week, that would have a tendency to create blisters. Kind if interesting you seem to be getting blisters on the middle fingers. I don't think I have ever had blisters there. Usually more on the outside fingers. When I truly learned how to grip the club in the fingers i dramtically reduced the possibility of blisters. But if I went out to the range and hit 300 balls, I might get a blister somewhere.

When I saw the title of this thread my advice was going to be for you to leave your clubs in the bag.

What he said. If you put a club or pole or some other alignment aid down where the ball would be you need that point directly at the target. Then just set the one at your feet parallel to that one. If you extend those two line all the way to the target one ends up at the hole or whatever you target is and the other just inside that line and parallel. If you run those two lines out visually though they are going to seem to converge when you get a certain distance out.

I tried to do as you as an experiment, turn the head to watch the position going back, and it had the tendency to make me reverse pivot. I have to fight the tendency to dip the head forward on the backswing all the time so I don't need something to make it worse.

I never think about the concept much but I always interpreted it as what you do after impact which goes to show you how confusing golf instruction can be.

I have my doubts that it will work for me ultimately. I have been coaching girls softball for years and played football, baseball and basketball competitively through high school. One thing that is pretty universal is that when someone is learning to throw a ball for the first time lower body movements are by no means natural. You have to teach someone to step and throw. This especially true for girls who have played no sports before. All of them just move the shoulder first and kind of flop the shoulder and arm basically pushing the ball rather than hurling it. Little or no lower body movement occurs. The shifting of the weight to get into position to throw a ball most efficiently has to be taught. And what is it? In an overhand throw you begin to raise the arm while rotating the shoulder and at the same time you step forward with the lead leg, plant the lead leg, and then throw. In batting you raise the bat, take a short stride forward, shift the weight forward, then hurl the bat at the ball. Now what would be wrong if I lifted the golf club, shifted the weight onto my front foot, then swung the club? Seems to me once I know or feel my weight is planted on the front foot I ought to be able to take a decent wack at the ball. Everything after that should be comfortable and automatic.

Of course his contention is you cannot start the shoulder move he describes without the lower body reacting and moving at the same time and if I am reading correctly the lower body will move faster than the upper body and therefore lead. That is if you follow his principles. His whole premise if I am understanding correctly is that he found if you start with this shoulder move and left side control you are not going to have the situation you describe. The lower body will move.

He says in his book that the lower body must lead the upper body. But the lower body and upper body (shoulder turn) start at the same time. It is his contention that if you do his method right the initial shoulder movement gets everything going. He doesn't think you can separate the two movements. I think it was worth the money even though I really cannot say I completely use his system. There is something holding me back from good execution of his method. I think it is my lack of attention span mainly. I don't know why exactly but my lower body gets stuck. I don't have this problem in other sports. I can throw a baseball with great form shifting the weight, planting the front foot and rotating into the throw. But get a stick in my hand and it is much harder for me at least. One thing I do know is that if I get into trouble shanking the ball, letting the left side take over seems to really help me with that.