squaddie

I'm a former slicer, so here's what I see from your videos: First video: definitely see an out-to-in swing path, as I could stop the frame right at the moment of impact and see your club approach the ball from the outside. Your swing appears very armsy, as your hips don't appear to be turning enough. As a result you are using your upper body to power the swing, since you can't get any power from a pivoting hip on the downswing. It's OK to turn your hips up to 45 degrees in the backswing, then pivot the right-hip back (as a lefty) to help set the shoulders in motion to bring the arms and club to the ball. I'm guessing due to your lack of hip turn that your swing plane is too steep. It's hard to tell as you cut off the top part of your swing in the video. My guess is you need to let your lower body drive the downswing more. But to do that you need to work on your backswing, get your hip turning correctly and ensure your arms are not set for too steep of a swingplane. Be patient and research some drills on how to get the lower body more engaged, and also check up on taking a proper backswing. I wouldn't spend time banging any more balls at the range until you have the techniques down for correcting the out-to-in swing. I tried the same thing, hitting hundreds of balls, but was not able to correct the problem by feel alone. Keep at it and good luck.

Nothing wrong with spending a lot of money on a putter if it feels right. Just take good care of it and keep the headcover on it in the bag and it could last a lifetime.

I'm still waiting on mine to show up from a 3rd party vendor. I'll definitely provide some feedback after a few days of use, as I've been working hard the last month trying to reduce glaring flaws in my swing, and hope this training aid can help. I'll be a good tester since my arm positioning at the top of the backswing can break down when I try to gain the proper shoulder turn, so I hope this device can help me correct that problem.

Check to see that you aren't turning your head to follow the ball as you strike it, as that may be causing you to open up a little bit. Ensure your body and momentum turns the head, and come out balanced in the follow through. I was pushing and fading for a while until I realized I was too eager to see where the ball was going after I hit it.

It could be you have introduced some involuntary movement in the backswing or downswing, either lunging at the ball (explains the chunking), or raising up in your backswing. Best to take a look on video in slowmotion with the 3 wood and the long irons, take six swings with each from the front view, and see if a pattern can be found in the video. Doing this is how I found I was lunging at the ball with my short iron, after two instructors missed the problem without video.

As a fellow high-handicapper, it sounds like you had the ball tee'd up way too high, as in above the crown, and you also didn't have proper address position for a driver. Here's the setup I used to have more consistent contact with my driver: Tee up the ball so almost half the ball is above the top of the clubface. Then position the ball just inside your left heel (if a righty). Place your right foot a little wider, just outside your right shoulder. Set the clubface in front of the ball. Then ensure your hands are slightly behind the club head. I have my hands positioned just left of my zipper, so the clubhead is in front of my hands, as opposed to with an iron setup. This hands and club position will help ensure you catch the ball on the upwards part of the swing. Try easy swings at first to get used to it, and ensure your head is not bobbing up and down. You can even practice the position and swing with a fairway wood or hybrid until you get used to it, then move up to the driver. Good luck!

Here's two thoughts you can try to influence the clubface to be more square at impact 1) Pretend like your club will chase after the ball after you hit it: Sam Snead would use this thought to get more power out of a swing, but may help with getting the swing to track the target line better; 2) As you start the downswing, imagine your momentum will be projected in front of you, at the target. Perhaps that will influence the swing plane to orient itself more towards the target line. Another thing you could try is weakening your grip slightly (rotating the hands counter-clockwise a little, but keep clubface square at address).

Sorry to hear about your swing melt-down. That's one worry that has kept me from visiting a golf resort on the weekend is having a horrible time due to terrible swing flaws. I can pay a lot less to have my swing melt down on a local course (lol). One of my short-term golfing objectives is to have a swing I'm comfortable with anywhere I play. Oh, well, back to practicing...

Based on PGA tour's scoring page it appears Tiger and Vijay are paired up today (Saturday). I don't think Vijay is bothered by Tiger, so should be interesting to see if Vijay can close the gap.

Iacas, if you are recommending a training aid then it's got to have something going for it. I'll go ahead and try it out myself since I'm really working hard on my swing mechanics right now, so this is a good time to use it. I feel like one of my swing issues is allowing my left arm to bend too much at the top of the backswing, though it's not a major issue. Getting a full shoulder turn seems to help reduce the problem, but I'm not always sure. From the product video the concept makes sense. I just bought a SwingExtender on ebay for $24.99 + $8.95 shipping. The vendor (bayoyprogolf) has only one left as of right now, so get it while you can.

The third round will be make or break for everyone near the top, including Tiger. Everyone tied for second has to decide if they should take chances and go for Tiger or play steady and avoid any mistakes, hoping to slowly creep closer to Tiger for the final day. Tiger will continue to try to widen the lead, though only do so when the smart play arises, so as to avoid bogies or worse. Padraig will have a very tough day tomorrow, as if he can't keep up with Tiger and avoid any more bogies then his chances of winning will evaporate on the final day. I hope my buddies don't want to do anything tomorrow, as I am more interested in watching Saturday's round than Sunday's. It would be really bizarre if Tiger's game fell apart on Saturday, as that would turn Sunday into a free-for-all for the win.

The only complaint with my revolver is the same as kregan's, that the revolver clips cannot support short wedges properly. The revolver feature is useful if you have the bag in a golf cart, but for a push cart the revolving feature is not necessary.

Same here. To add to that, I wish I had first spent the time to study and understand swing overall mechanics better on my own, not just the fundamentals. Over the last six months I've had a few lessons where pros were teaching me something that lead to a swing-fault since I misinterpreted the technique, and they failed to recognize my mistake by the next lesson. For example, I was told to keep my hips quiet and to turn my shoulders more (X-factor stuff), and as a result I developed a false shoulder turn (restricting the torso while extending or lifting the arms). Since I'm not a natural swinger understanding the bio-mechanics would have probably helped me to avoid many swing faults I'm facing now.

Thanks, as I think I'm starting to discover that I was not bending forward enough at the hips at address. Not having much luck correcting my issue, after trying all weekend swinging in front of a video camera (my back is pretty sore from the work). Next I will be studying some of Shawn Clement's materials, see if I notice any improvements. Clement has a feet-together drill video that may be helpful to me, similar to what deronsizemore suggested. EDIT: Just tried deronsizemore's feet-together drill again and found I'm having a better time with it after applying Clement's momentum-toss-fall approach to the backswing and downswing, which is promising. Before I was just banging the club into the matt or going thin, but now I'm making better contact.

Could be you are moving your head or spine around too much in the backswing and downswing. If your head or spine moves up in the swing and stays there then your club will come down above the ball (skulling it). If your head or spine drops down too much at the ball then you will hit behind it (fat) or worse. Make a video of your 7-iron swing and see if you are raising up or dropping down too much. That's been my big re-occuring problem the last few months (now working on the issue).

I've had a lot of lessons with video analysis lately so I 'll throw in my 2 cents. From the front view it looks like your stance is a little too wide for the PW, as it appears your feet are more than shoulder-width apart. For irons I thought the stance was supposed to be around shoulder-width. Your knees seem too flexed in your address with both clubs You probably need more hip-bend and less knee flex. Ideally the middle of your shoulders should be over your toes. From your stance the toe of the club appears to point up too much. I think your hips and shoulders turn too much in the backswing, but it doesn't seem to be hurting your ability to keep the club on plane, but wonder if that will affect weight distribution on the backswing and downswing transition. Perhaps you are hyper-flexible? As long as your starting the swing with your lower body then you may not deal with over-the-top issues. Do you hook shots often? Because your club is pointing mostly to the right at the top of the backswing I wonder if that can lead to hooked shots. What's really great about your swing is that you keep your head level and spine-tilt somewhat consistent, despite the big hip and shoulder turn. Also your impact position and follow through look really good.

Get your swing analyzed on video - you may have developed and out-to-in swing on the longer clubs. My out-to-in problem was due to starting my swing with my shoulders rather than my lower body.

Thanks for the advice. I'll slow down my swing, close the feet and see if I can correct this issue.

From my latest lesson I found I have a re-occurring problem where I drop my head forward and to the right during the downswing. I think about keeping the head where it is and not drop my entire spine forward and downward, but 9 times out of 10 it happens. The problem causes me to hit the heel or even the hosel of the club, as I shift my swingplane forward and rightwards of the target. Are there any effective drills for not dropping down? My legs and hips are flexed and quiet, and my backswing looks good with a full shoulder turn. On video, during the downswing it appears the drop happens once the club is almost parallel to the ground, then I see my head lean forward to the right. When I was compared against a video of Stuart Appleby it showed his head was almost perfectly still during the backswing and downswing, even through the moment of impact. My instructor has recommended using impact tape so I started using that yesterday to help feel out a better downswing position. I've tried two ways to stop moving down - one is to think about moving left towards the target during the downswing. That seemed to help, but not sure if I should be intentionally moving leftwards. The other way I've tried is via Shawn Clement's videos, where he has the concept of "bracing against the left side" at the top of the backswing. That seemed to help, with impact tape showing my hit closer to the center, but I don't always remember to do the bracing.

EDIT: Beaten by nine minutes, but supports Amused's post on the same topic. Nothing wrong with that, if that's their marketing strategy. Titleist has produced game-improvement irons in the recent past (see this review from 2006) thesandtrap.com: Titleist Forged 775cb irons review . For whatever reason Titleist decided recently their product line on more skilled players (hopefully me one of these days). I wasn't aware the same company that owned Titleist (Acushnet, part of Fortune Brands) also owned the Cobra Golf product line (and Pinnacle): http://www.acushnet.com/ourbrands.html As Amused indicated, perhaps the parent company prefers to have Cobra focus on a wider range of products for all skill levels of golfers, which frees up Titleist to focus on products for the higher-skilled players.

I say get a neutral-face driver and practice with it, but you have to be patient. I spent several months and many lessons to correct my driver slice, which was due to an over-the-top swing (caused by bad swing mechanics).

For me my left leg straightens after I strike the ball, my hips already turned left, my right arm and club pointing at the target.

Be sure to pace yourself - 200 balls is quite a bit for a new player. When I was a new player I strained a muscle along my ribs from hitting at the range too much. Make sure to take a practice swing before every real swing, and always have a target you are trying to knock the ball to. Also, you may want to take a lesson, have a pro analyze your swing on video and look for any swing mechanics issues. If you can find issues now then you won't ingrain any bad swing habits. Don't expect to correct all issues in one lesson - first lesson should just be to find the faults, perhaps fix one or two.

This sounds a little simple, but it seems like you are trying to hit _at_ the ball instead of through it, once you know the ball is there. That explains why you don't turn your hips and shoulders further through when the ball present, as you are trying to focus completely on directing force at the ball, so the hips and shoulders try to direct themselves at that spot. To help fix this issue, I thought this tip I read yesterday is useful, by a Canadian golf professional named Ed Hanczaryk: "The ball is the wrong thought to get you playing better. The intention should be on the feel and flow of the swing, and/or the target – not the ball. That explains why your practice swing is so nice and relaxed, creating that swish you wish you had when the ball is in front of you. This takes some discipline and the ability to actually be aware of your thoughts. But look closely next time out. If the ball is seducing you, please don’t be fooled again. The club and the target – those are the places your mind should be. " Here's the full article link: http://www.awarenessgolf.com/tableOf...ballAddict.htm

Yeah, in video 2 it looks like you are swaying way too much to the left on your backswing. You should be turning your shoulders/chest, which should rotate the hips naturally, without swaying off center, your back facing the target. Ensure the right knee retains it's flex on the backswing.