squaddie

More speculation since I'm waiting for my car to be repaired, and I'm a Tiger fan... Like it or not Tiger has to publicly respond to the incident since the police are investigating. Based on facts and rumors so far, it's plausible his wife got him out of the car by smashing open a window and then unlocking the front door. If Tiger was somewhat conscious then she could have helped him to stumble out of the car and onto the ground. The domestic dispute escape-story also seems plausible, as it's been reported (so far) that no blood was found in the SUV, so Tiger may have sustained the injuries before wrecking the car. There was also a report Tiger's wife had changed her story to the police and said they had a squabble before the accident. Another unknown is the medication I assume Tiger's wife said he was taking. If the medication was impairing Tiger's judgment then the medication had to be pretty strong. The medication could have caused Tiger to not be able to sleep, have an impulse to drive somewhere, and not able to drive his car properly. Hopefully Tiger can answer why he needed to leave his house, heavily medicated, at an early morning hour. If it was not a domestic dispute that drove him out then he'll be OK to answer the real reason. Then police could charge him with wreckless driving or driving under the influence (of the pain medication), but hopefully they will go easy on him. However, if it was a domestic dispute, I wonder if he'll answer truthfully? If so I assume his wife risks getting arrested for domestic violence and lying to the police. If he tries to cover up the squabble, then he puts his integrity at risk, and does nothing to squash the rumors. Plus the issue that made his wife angry would not have gone away. Perhaps Tiger will have a concrete answer this weekend to answer all the questions.

Sounds like his face hit the steering wheel pretty hard, which would explain the lacerations. It had to be a hard hit if he was in and out of consciousness. Hopefully the hospital scanned him for any concussions or internal head injuries. He had to be distracted if he backed into a fire hydrant. Doesn't he have some tournament he's hosting next week? He'll have to come up with some statement to explain what happened if he hopes to avoid a bunch of rumors.

mb, your general swing description and fat-hit sounds similar to the swing problems I have been experiencing the past few months. One question: are you rotating your left forearm 90* or so in the backswing? I ask since for a while I have been turning my shoulders, arms, and hinging the wrists _without_ letting my left arm rotate, which has resulted in fat shots and leaving the club-face open. None of my instructors noticed the issue with my left arm since I managed to get my wrists to appear set in the top of the backswing. However I was compensating by severely cupping my left wrist (since my arms are very flexible), so as a result my wrists would not unhinge properly. Because of my stuck position I would lunge forward at the ball in the downswing, causing the ball to hit the hosel, or at other times leave the clubface open at impact. To illustrate further here's a video from Jeff Ritter that discusses the arm, forearm and wrist-hinge movement in the backswing (along with a drill).

Yeah, sounds like my typical round :) Just have to be patient at our skill level. Take your drops next time, as that will help prevent a lot of frustration. I knocked two balls into the water last time out (both were duffed swings), but I took my drops and carried on... That's great you are confident in your putting, since that's an important skill to work on. Now you just have to make your other club swings playable and you'll start having some decent rounds.

That's a steal for $120 a month. Wish I had an exclusive place like that around here - it gets old waiting for stall space here at the public course ranges and having to deal with Houston's erratic weather.

I remember. Weren't you taking lessons from the head instructor at Wildcat? I may check him out myself as my progress hasn't been that great with my current instructor (after 8 lessons).

Glad you are making progress. Your diligence to finding the source of the problem sounds like the same attention I have been placing on improving my golf swing the past few weeks. My rib injury finally went away two weeks ago, but now I've gone and buggered up my ankle with a minor sprain after running too long on a treadmill last week (first time running in 6 months). Ah, well at least my rib injury prepared me for being patient while healing.

Welcome, Bart. If you live in the Galleria then you are near two decent public courses, Memorial Park Golf Course, just a few miles Northeast, and Herman Park golf course, closer to the Medical Center (just south of Downtown). Memorial has a decent driving range (mats only) open till 9PM (balls sold till 8PM), but closed on Tuesdays. Memorial also has a decent chipping and putting area at no cost.

You should consider going through a stretching program when not playing golf. I'm 41 and took up a stretching routine a month ago to improve my shoulder turn. After going through the program I've noticed after spending time at the range I don't have any soreness or stiffness (100 balls yesterday). I'm using the Roger Frederick's "Golf Swing Secrets" DVD, which is tailored for an older audience. They are a little pricey but the programs are decent. It comes 3 DVDs for the stretching program, strength program, and swing drills.

I have a tough time hitting my 3 wood and "new" 5 wood off the deck. I've also had problems with my 3-hybrid lately. Oddly enough I've made very good gains with my driver in the last few weeks. I've been working on a better shoulder turn in my swing and keeping my arms closer together to avoid getting stuck, so with some more practice I hope to soon get the wood/longer hybrid swings corrected.

Just buy a single used blade mid-ranged iron club from ebay and try it out, like a 6-iron or 5-iron. If you're not hitting well with it then take a lesson with it to see what the problem may be. With your handicap you'll probably hit it well, after adjusting to it. I bought a blade just to try it out, and found out after trying it that I still need some work on my swing, so sticking with my GI irons for now.

Your bent left arm= slice seems reasonable, as that has been my problem in the past. I would not turn my shoulders enough and instead and bend my left arm too much, leaving the clubface open on my downswing. Ideally the left and right elbows should feel like they stay close together on the backswing, even though the right arm folds in.

I try to keep my eyes or my head facing the ball on the backswing. But once I get to the top of the backswing I tend to lose focus of the ball until the follow through. Sometimes on the downswing I try to follow the ball and turn my head which leads to strong push shots. I tend to hit solid when I force myself to keep looking at the ball through impact, but sometimes I forget to do that if I'm concentrating on my backswing position or weight transfer in the downswing.

Your backswing position looks fine, I don't see any overstretching or straining. If it's the back of your shoulder then either your rear deltoid or rotator cuff muscles are affected. Perhaps when not on the course you should take up some mild stretching exercises for the shoulders to keep them limber. Then before playing a round do some light shoulder exercises and stretches to get the muscles up there loosened up.

It sounds like the ribs are recovering better, if you aren't feeling any pain when walking around. Four weeks ago I injured a rib or muscle on my right side under my shoulder, though doesn't sound like the injury was as bad as yours. I tried swinging after a week or two but the pain persisted, but now I've finally recovered. I would take rest this weekend and perhaps take some practice swings sometimes next week, maybe just half swings in the air hitting nothing. If you feel pain while doing that then you aren't ready to swing. If no pain then swing for about 10 to 15 minutes, pausing 30 seconds between each one. If you feel pain besides muscle soreness the next morning after practice swinging then you are still not ready, but you are getting close, perhaps by next weekend. If no pain at all then you are probably ready to hit the course again.

I've had some fat shot issues recently and was reading Bobby Clampett's book, "The Impact Zone", to see if any of his techniques were relevant to the issue. He advocates aiming at a point a few inches ahead of the ball in order to make better contact. Perhaps doing that will get your swing to be a little more shallow and have it's lowest point slightly ahead of the ball.

I've had problems with an open club-face, too. I've traced the problem to two causes: 1) Letting my backswing get too armsy, moving my arms up instead of turning my shoulders. As a result the arms are disconnected and are not in the right position to allow the club to square properly in the downswing; 2) Hinging my wrists too early in the backswing. Sometimes I focus too much on holding the hinged position with the wrists and tense up my hands, wrists and forearms, which causes me to resist the forces that allow the clubface to square during the downswing, as I have pretty strong forearms. As a drill you could take a sandwedge and try taking half-swings again, focusing on getting the shoulders to turn 45*, so the arms are at the 9 o'clock position. The left arm remains straight (not rigid) and the right arm can fold a little as if for a full swing, though ensure the forearms and elbows are close to each other. Your wrists should hinge up naturally in the backswing around the 45* mark if you are turning the shoulders and the arms are following properly. In the downswing your wrists may feel like they are hinging even more, and you should power through the ball with the clubface square at impact, if your hands, wrists and arms are not too tense. This drill is similar to the "9 to 3" drill that I read about from an instructor named Geoff Jones (who goes by SliceFixer on some other golf forums).

Check out the Amazon reviews on that Putt n' Hazard system, as it was ranked a strong 1 out of 5 (1 is the worst score). Amazon Page for ClubChamp Putt n' Hazard It is odd to have a simulated water hazard and bunker inches from the hole, unless that was their clever way to explain having ball returns for missed putts so close to the hole. There's another putting mat-system that allows adjustable breaks by Extreme Greens, but they are a little more expensive (from $459 and up).

That's great findings after just a lesson or two! I would consider yourself fortunate, and now go out and play a few rounds. Make notes if anything goes wrong that you can't fix during the round and you'll be ready for your next lesson. My thoughts are if you are topping or hitting fat are two possible issues, as I recently had similar problems. You said you were overswinging before so these issues might be left-over from swinging around too far. 1) You might be getting too far right in the backswing, so your swingplane is shifting right on the downswing, too far behind the ball. Ensure in the backswing your weight is not getting too far outside your inner right heel. 2) No weight transfer left on the downswing. You might be activating your downswing too early from the shoulders rather than letting the weight go back left and posting on your left leg. There are a couple of recent big threads in this forum on hip movement you can check out to see the concept of the hip slide or bump from the top of the backswing.

bunkerputt, I think it's useful to aid in your analysis of the hip action to download that MotionGolf model and video that's available for free on their website that safetrip mentioned. Using the free MotionReality program I compared the 3D model's hip movement (frame by frame) with your animated gif hip movement and noticed the following: * As the downswing was initiated in the 3D model there was a clear lateral movement back to the left side. The hips stayed in their orientation and shifted left a few inches. * After the lateral move in the 3D model the pivot point appeared to be established on top of the left hip in it's new position. As the new pivot point was estabilished the right hip then pivoted around the left side. The big difference I see between your animation and the 3D MotionGolf model is that the model appears to have only two pivot points to your three pivot points. Remove the 2nd pivot point and replace it with a lateral shift and your animated model may fit better with what should happen in reality with an ideal swing. One aspect that complicates a 2-D model of the golf swing is adequately capturing the weight-transfer. Without the weight-transfer accounted for from right-to-left (in the right-handed swing) then the lateral motion and establishment of the 2nd pivot point cannot be demonstrated properly. The MotionGolf model viewer has a Center of Balance overlay that shows how the center of gravity moves in the golf swing. Turn that overlay on as you observe the swing from below and you'll get a better idea how the lateral move is tied to the weight-shift to the left side in the backswing.

Thanks for the video, WTCG. I especially was interested in Butch's tip about "taking more club and swinging easier" when having to decide between two clubs where the shot is just about at the maximum of the higher-lofted club. I've been working on hitting the ball more solid and I seem to do that when I'm not trying to kill the ball. But I have been thinking about which club to use in terms of average of the maximum distance I can hit them, which has been causing my accuracy problems. I'll have to try this out next time I'm at the range.

Man, that's a great animation. I wanted to put something together similar to figure out the hip turn and pivot points, and have the shoulders overlaying the hips, but didn't have time the past few weeks.

I have a similar problem, in that my head dips, or drops down and to the right, half-way through the downswing. I haven't had time to work it out due to a rib injury, but here's where I left off with my analysis. (Summary of this post in bold, as it's a little long) I've attributed the head-dipping problem to two issues with my lower-body movement that cause my hips to slide too far left, which makes my spine angle drop, which makes the head appear to drop. I believe the dipping-solution is to tighten the arc of the backswing and downswing, and following below are the details behind the proposed solution under the context of two of my swing problems: The first issue has to do with swaying back too far right on the backswing. As a result I tend to hit fat since I shifted too much to the right of the ball, and then in the downswing I slide my hips too far left to compensate and get back to the proper impact position. My corrective movement is to tighten the arc of my backswing and get the weight over my inner-right heel at the top. To do this I try a better one-piece take-away and let the shoulders control the movement up, with the hip turn responding to the shoulders' movement (ala Hogan). The second issue has to do with my hip action on the downswing. I believe I slide my hips too far left and get too wide of a turn, causing my hips to outrace my upper body. As a result my spine angle drops and then the head dips. I haven't figured out the correct downswing hip-action to take as many internet sources on hip action are vague on the details and differ in proper hip-action and weight transfer movements (post to the left side, slide then turn, turn then slide, slide only, turn and slide at the same time, etc.). I suspect the proper downswing hip action has to do with allowing weight to transfer from the right heel to the front-left toe or ball of the left foot, then as the weight transfers allow the hips to turn or pivot left, without outracing the shoulders as they begin to turn back left. My only way to check this issue (without a camera) is to see how well I end up on my follow through. I try to work on the hip-action that allows me to end up balanced well on the left side in the follow through, and the ball-striking was solid. If I am off-balanced to the left or right then my hip-action and/or weight-transfer on the downswing were not correct. This is where I have left off on my research. I look forward to any other helpful input for our head-dipping issue for me and Travtex. EDIT: Looks like Iacas's thread on sliding the hips may help out with this issue: Re: The Biggest Secret? SLIDE Your Hips

Ringer, that was an awesome video. I've been having lots of problems figuring out the hip movement, and after trying this a few times with practice swings it seems to help with my hip-sliding issue, where I drop my spine and head during the downswing. Will try this out on the course tomorrow...

I would go back to Golf Galaxy to the putting area, then pick one putter at random you don't like and warm up with five strokes. Then select five putters that you like the looks of, then hit five strokes with each one at different distances. The pick whichever one felt and performed the best regardless of the price. If your putting stroke has issues you may want a lesson to evaluate your putting prior to purchasing a new putter, since if you test the putters with a bad technique then the putter you select may not be optimal. If you take a lesson you can ask the instructor what type of putter would be ideal for you so you can pick the correct putters to test.