Rugger

Depends on the club. Pitching wedge...probably 8 or 9/10. Longer irons..probably 5/10.

Played another difficult course today(147) and played OK, not great. I scored better than I have in a while but I didn't leave thinking 'great round' to myself. I think decent tee shots helped me out a lot, even though I only hit 4 fairways. Par 3s ate me alive, though more practice!

My biggest benchmarks are fairways, GIR and putts. If I get to mark down a "Yes, Yes, 2" per hole I am a happy camper.

The ball you play makes a big difference. I was playing a practice round last night, when I got to 18 I dropped two balls at 150yrds out: one of them was a range ball I found earlier, and one of them was a ProV1. I put full swings on them with a pitching wedge, both swings are pure contact and the ball took off going really, really high. The range ball stuck about 2 feet from the pin, probably 155 yards, but the ProV1 overshot the green by about 20 yards, going 170 probably. Note that the green was lower topographically than where I hit from, so that accounts for some overall distance, but the ball also played a big part of the difference between the two.

I hear you loud and clear. People I play with see me at the range before they see me on the course and they think I am a lot better than I really am. I have a hard time bringing it to the course, too. For me just relaxing is the best thing to do. Remember it's just a game and it's just one shot. Don't have 10 things running through your head about your swing. You should be thinking about your swing on the range, not on the course.

I think a lot of those look jacked up because of the angle of the camera. I didn't square up to it for whatever reason. What do you see in my posture, though? Which angle are you referring to?

Played a tough course today(143) and I didn't play great. Putting and tee shots let me down a bit, but nothing was strong. I made some great shots with both long and short irons, including some nice 240-250 4 iron shots. Just can't seem to string together enough positive momentum to score well. Good news is that I was hitting down on the ball all day, bad news is accuracy is still off.

I had another thread this with video but it was a bit misleading. I apologize if this is out of line. I'm looking for advice. I've been making better contact in the last few weeks as I am finally beginning to hit down on the ball as opposed to scooping at it but I am still lost. I can very regularly make downward contact with 7-wedges, 5-6 are OK and 3-4 are very spotty. Right now I'm focusing on creating lag by swinging with shoulders and hips rather than arms, but I am also trying to focus on my takeaway/backswing so that I am set up for the appropriate swing path. For the most part , when making good, downward contact, my swing path has been in to out, with the club path moving away from my body, creating a draw to a big draw. I think improving on these two are equally important, but the swing path and correlating accuracy will help me in the short run. I don't have an official handicap, haven't played enough rounds seriously, but would probably wind up between 25-30 handicap . I've played bogey golf, but typically have a handful of pars, a birdie or two, some bogeys and a few blow up holes. The strokes add up quickly that way. My putting needs work, but my short game is better than my handicap would indicate. I would say a majority of strokes are lost off the tee or with long irons. I appreciate any and all tips, insight, advice, criticism, insults etc etc!!!! Note: As someone in the other thread mentioned, it looks like my grip is jacked up. It might be, but it looks like that mostly because I have big hands and sausage fingers.

That is a good idea, and something I do work on, but often forget amidst trying to remember to do so many other things. Gotta write it down in my practice notebook! Thanks!

New video from tonight. I was hitting better but still hitting quite a few thin with the long irons at the beginning of the session. Only toward the end was I able to get somewhat consistent contact. Short irons were fine. I'm kind of swing in-to-out now and was seeing a mild to big draw tonight. I haven't seen that before. I wasn't too upset about it because I was happy just to get good contact when I could. I think the more vertical my swing gets the straighter my swing path gets. I also notice a hitch at the top of the backswing, almost correcting for a flatter take away. Do you agree? Thanks! Note- About my grip. Believe it or not I do grip it in my fingers...I just have fat hands

Any takers? Video in post #2

After watching a bit more it's apparent that by not leading with my hips/shoulders that the flip is definitely there. I made seemingly pure contact on that swing, but you can see my chicken wing right at the bottom. More chipping, 9-3 and impact drills. GUH!

Here's a link with a video where you can put into slow motion. I wish I had a better camera so I could get more clarity when slowing it down. What do you guys think? http://www.swingacademy.com/videoPlayer.aspx?id=6865 2 things I see: 1) big inside-to-out swingpath. Usually works OK with only a moderate draw. Sometimes it doesnt....It definitely looks funny/unprofessional on video..to me 2) Hips and shoulders are not early enough, hands catching up too fast. Thoughts?

Well I had one of those moments tonight. Yesterday at the range I couldn't miss. I was hitting down on the ball every shot, no flipping, and pure contact no matter what the club. I was hitting my struggle clubs (3i/4i) as good as any other. I was hitting 240ish with my 3i and pretty much 10 yard increments all the way down. I felt like I finally had the muscle memory down and could take it to the course. Well today with my confidence at a seasons high, I brought my video camera back to the range and planned on having another great practice session. It started great as I worked my way from 60* to 7 iron. Then the problems began. Pure contact was on and off with the 6i and I could feel myself flipping. Moved to 4i after a couple solid shots and things completely fell apart. I think it was a combination of poor ball position and flipping, but I was hitting everything thin and getting awful contact. I knew what I was doing wrong, yet still couldn't pull it together. After getting frustrated I switched back to 7i and had some good shots. Back to 4i and it was no better. Then I get home and load up some video of my supposedly good swings. This was the first time I had seen my swing in a few years. It is not as beautiful as I imagined it More practice, more patience, more focus and unfortunately....more range balls I will upload a video of a good shot and bad shot as soon I can.

Don't swing with your arms, swing with your hips and shoulders. That and Flying V!

I have a somewhat similar situation. I can get great distance on 3-9, but my wedge distances don't seem to correlate like they should.

Tempo and fluidity is better, but you're right that you still have a flip. Quite a bit of it from what my amateur eye sees. You've got a weird looking hiccup near the bottom of your swing and it's because you're almost jumping up to make room for the club coming through with your flip. Keep your front arm extended, no chicken wings!

So the way that other members interpret my opinion is the basis for evaluating my credibility as a potential buyer or seller of equipment? That seems a bit absurd when examined through a macro lense. I'm not arguing because I want you to change it, as I understand that you are trying to weed out unscrupulous sellers who are here to only use the market place, but is that the best way to go about it? A member could have contrasting views about golf that the vast majority of members don't agree with, should he or she be barred from doing business from other members purely based on his or her view points? It's fine that my rep is -10, but I wish I had been alerted everytime I recieved a reputation comment like a majority of other fourms have as a default.

I've been here a while, have quite a few posts and haven't gotten any rep points. Seems a bit ridiculous. I know it's not my forum, and it's not my rules, but it's a bit disheartening.

I'm looking to get into club making, mostly for my own benefit, but I assume I'd eventually do some stuff for my friends too. This interest mostly comes from a a loose 3 iron head that I have right now and obviously needing to fix it. Is something like this pretty spendy to get into? I want to start with simple stuff like shafting and grips, maybe other stuff later. Tips? Ideas?

I'd pitch first, then putt. I can get a good feel for my swing and contact with some 20yrd shots.

Better contact throughout the round. The farther I get into the round, the worse my iron play gets.

Had ONE shot from a bunker in my round today. I needed it to fly about 10 feet and roll 5-7. What did it do? Went about 2 feet to the top lip of the bunker. More practice I guess!

2nd set of videos are definitely better, but it still looks like you're trying to sweep or scoop the ball off of the turf. You want the club head moving DOWN when it makes contact with the ball. A lot of amateurs(including me at one point) think that the bottom of the swing should be where the ball is, yet that's not true. Take a look at a vast majority of tour players. Almost all of them take big chunks of turf out with irons - also notice that those divots are IN FRONT of where the ball was. This is because they keep their hands in front of the club head at impact and their swings don't bottom out until AFTER contact. A good basic tip is to exaggerate your shaft lean at address, and focus on keeping that angle in your wrist until after contact. SWING DOWN ONTO THE BALL, DO NOT SCOOP IT!

Bought a wedge a few days ago. Bought a Ztech shag tube today. Best golf purchase I've ever made.