verse214

I used to have more of an upright swing when i first started playing and I had a severe case of hitting the ball out to in and creating a slice. I ended up getting a lesson from a local PGA pro who gave me a drill to train my swing to hit the ball from the inside. Slices fixed. My swing ended up flattening out quite a bit. I brought this up at my second lesson (3 mos. after my first) and it happened to be the beginning of the season. My pro would not have said anything about it had I not brought it up while we were reviewing a video of my swing and he brushed it off at first. I kind of pushed the subject asking him his opinion on whether it is something that needs fixing. He ended up promising that we would work on it in Oct. toward the end of the season bc he said i wouldn't be able to enjoy golf if I started changing my swing now. I feel like if i'm going to change it, I might as well start now. I drill like a maniac when I practice and this thought of going to the range and ingraining more and more of this flatness if i'm going to change it in oct is KILLING ME. There are very few pros (if any) that I can think of on tour that still swing it flat like Hogan. This is what prompted my questioning in the first place. My pro said they're more upright bc they're able to generate more power since you are able to pull on the club with stronger muscles in the downswing when you swing upright. Question: Is this even something important that I should be thinking of; does it make a difference between upright or flat? Are there any pros that are out there who play with flat swings (maybe that guy Angel Jiminez?) Are any of you guys/gals flat swingers like Hogan? Is it a problem that I should start fixing now or is it something that isn't important? My ballflight is fine.. miss is a hook.. Thanks!

I heard that he is a high school drop out... is this true? just curious

My suggestion is to go hit the impact board and bend them back. 2 degrees is definitely too upright if you are unable to hit it straight. you shouldn't be depending on your lie angle to create a drawn ball flight. Your lie angle should allow you to hit the ball straight.

for me the first time i went to the course i shot well over 130 maybe even 140 the second time i went to the golf course was months later and after a couple hundred hours at the range

go back to the range and take a look at your distances again. It sounds like there's some inconsistency that a little practice should resolve because if your pw isn't even going 100 and your 8 is going 140 (and used to go 150) you probably aren't swinging the same way for both clubs... just a thought... good luck!

Do you get a clicking whenever you make a fist in your wrist? then most likely you to have tendonitis (carpal tunnels) The only thing that you can do about tendonitis is rest it and that's it. Exercise while you have it will make it worse.

Please don't use iron head covers... most ridiculous thing EVER it's not like these things cost thousands of dollars (unless you're playing those crazy japanese forged companies made out of gold, then maybe iron covers would be justified)

To see what? I strongly doubt that Mizuno would put out an ad with them flicking away at golf iron heads, with the entire basis of the advertisement founded upon lying to the public by striking on their competitor's heads differently than their own. It's not something hard to replicate (if you have a high quality recording mic) and it would ruin their Research and Development reputation if this were true especially since the guy doing it wasn't any old schmoe at Mizuno. For the few posters out there calling this BS: Stop hating on Mizuno. Also, if sound could travel so purely through a Mizuno iron head, I don't see why the vibrations of hitting a golf ball wouldn't.

huh? you got dents on the face of your irons from the simple fact that they were banging into each other? I can say i don't have a single scratch on my forged irons from bag chatter.. but wait... oops.. i have mizunos

I just ordered the Softee mat for 149. Will let you know how it plays when it gets to my house... have you hit off one of these before?

I actually just got the Izzo Giant Super Cage Mouth yesterday and it's a little too big (12' high 10' wide); the junior may be a better size. If you just want to be able to collapse it, these nets are great as you just have to pull out the pole ends and they will collapse. I too am also looking for a mat, and i've heard nothing but good reviews for The Golf Mat, however it only comes with a "house stand mat" or something. I asked their customer service and they claim that it will keep you on the same hitting level or lie as the hitting surface. I'm going to look into your soft mat suggestion as I haven't heard of it before. Do you know if the prices are usually in the couple hundred+ range for hitting mats and if there's a big difference between those and the cheapo ones? If i could redo, I would get the Izzo Junior Giant Super Cage Mouth, I believe it is 9' x 10' and the net is extremely high quality and light. I didn't go for the one you have listed because with pitching wedges there would be a possibility of hitting it over the net and since i live in NYC, i don't want to be breaking my neighbor's windows!

Takes one to know one Slow learner... must not have been much of an epiphany if you can't apply what you learned about being a pro in tennis to that of golf

LOL just to play devils advocate.. doesn't that make you better than a 12? this thread blew up from the last time I looked at it... 804.. it sounds like you just want everyone here to tell you what you want to hear (i.e. ooo you hit it so far, that's so amazing for playing 1 year, you'll definitely make pro if you're that good, can i hang on your n*ts?)... no matter what anyone says bad or good it still doesn't change reality... stop B*llSh*tting and go practice

What school.. sorry but it's not potential if it's not a tier one school.. didn't you just say in an earlier post that you were going to goto college?

It's risk versus reward, let's say you practice and don't goto college and end up breakin something.. or not making it.. you just screwed yourself and will be stuck making 30k a year doing something you hate... then you won't have a good job and you won't have money to even play golf goto school.... don't be an idiot... unless it's going to be community college... then play golf...

yea, it's probably true

Hey 804Golfer, I wouldn't take it to heart when you read about all of these "no"s and "slim to no chances".... Reason being it is extremely difficult to become a tour pro and if anyone said "yea you could do it" would probably catch a verbal beat down from everyone else on this forum. I'll bet you that when almost every tour pro (including tiger) started playing golf, no matter what age they were (2 or 20), they didn't know whether or not they would make it to the PGA Tour and they probably all asked themselves (and others) the exact same question you're asking now. There's nothing you can do but keep asking yourself that question and then take the steps to bring yourself closer to the answer that you want to hear . That goes for everything in life (not just golf). Who knows, one day you might ask yourself the question and realize that you don't want to play on the tour. Good luck regardless!

THIS EXACT SAME THING WAS HAPPENING TO ME A MONTH AGO. And I found the answer too. I think you have the exact same problem I did. I would work up to the driver and back down and once i hit the mid irons i would start shanking. The reason is because after you hit so many balls with the longer clubs, you get used to a flatter plane so when you come back to your wedges, you end up attacking the ball from the inside too much (not upright enough of a swing in other words) How did I fix this? I've probably posted this drill as a solution to everything but it definitely fixed this for me. get a 2x4 or a shoebox and line it up one ball width outside of your target line and parallel to your target line. place a ball on the target line and swing and hit shots like that. It teaches and in to out to in swing and it definitely FORCES you to take the correct angle on the backswing depending on the length of the club. If you hit with the 2x4 or shoebox with a short iron, you'll have to take a more upright swing because you start out closer to the ball at set up and you'll hit the 2x4 if you're too flat or too outside in. if you hit like this with a long iron, you'll have to flatten your plane out because you're farther away at set up first thing that you'll start seeing is a nice draw.. and then you can start working on timing the opening of the hips, etc. to hit the ball straight and then start working the ball, etc. i'm telling you I got this from my pro at the driving range here in NY (he was ranked a top 200 teaching pro in 2005) and the guy swears by this. He even taught some doctor who started using it and won a club tourney and then tried to friggin create one and even hired a patent lawyer to make a patent (eventually the patent lawyer advised that there was nothing "unique" about a friggin block of plastic/styrophome that you would just line up along your target line to patent). i've used it and it saved me from the shanks like you're describing and I haven't had the problem since.. it's also greatly improved my ballstriking and i've gotten down to a 18 handicap with it (after starting golf 6 or 7 mos. ago). I've had more improvement by using it the past month or so than i've had the other 5-6 months or playing. Good Luck!!! Edit : apologies to divot tool, i see that he posted something similar above! i'm telling you this works magic!

75 hours a week???? What are you, a golf investment banker? Pulling those kind of hours practicing, I don't care what kind of business you run on the side you're not going to have a good business, unless it's sleeping!

Pretty ignorant statement When someone is about to plop down 30k+ for something they tend to make sure they like every aspect of it.

since TM states that proof of receipt does not mean proof of submission, the class action lawsuit would never get filed as it would not stand a chance... even so, i feel that the insurance policy that they purchased would cover the loss so they most probably would not do do something that fraudulent... besides, they'd probably want to get the most out of the premium they paid for the policy and it would be in their best interest to provide as many people TM drivers at the insurer's expense since it would be to their advantage to have as many ppl as possible playing TM drivers...

I already mailed one in and i thought it was funny how in the rules for entering without a purchase they pretty much make it impossible for you to prove that you mailed them an entry letter. If Sergio (by some remote chance) wins the Masters, I wouldn't be surprised if TM somehow loses half of the mail in entries. Apparently they purchased insurance against this as well and have a policy out in case Sergio does win.. i wonder how much the premium was for that.

I don't think that the enormous amount of time that some people are claiming that it takes them to play 18 holes compared to the 2 hours it takes for others is due to slow play, I think it has more to do with where you are each from and the amount of people that are showing up on a given saturday/sunday morning to play golf. I know that if I goto my local muni course, it will be virtually impossible to finish up the round under 5 hours if it's a nice day and tee time is anytime after 11am (yeah it sucks). But if I go out on long island to a semi private course, I can definitely finish up play under 3 hours. It's the same thing as a traffic on a highway. There are times when there is no accident, no broken down car, and nothing obviously impeding the path, however traffic jams still develop. It's because there are so many d*mn ppl on the golf course.

open your hips a little faster on the downswing and your draw will start out even more to the right and end up on target... if you want to get rid of the draw just weaken your grip a little bit... if you start out by weakening your grip you can actually control your fading and drawing with how quickly your clear your hips in the down swing which I think it pretty cool.

If it feels right then it's not a change. No matter what, the majority, if not all, swing changes that one makes to improve one's swing will feel weird or wrong at first. You can ask almost any teaching pro and I would say that 90% would agree that all changes will feel uncomfortable at first.