Andrew Rice

I'd lay money down that your lies are too upright. Or certainly more upright relative to the rest of your irons. The more lofted an iron is the more the face points left if a club is too upright, so it would show up far more with an L wedge than an 8-iron for example. Get them checked. Sincerely, Andrew Rice

Get yourself a 7 degree lofted driver to practice with and learn to hit it up in the air. This will improve the -5 attack angle and allow you to use a club that doesn't require as much loft. Try it - it works!

First tee - "How much we playing for and why so little?"

Mike, I had a similar thought to an earlier poster - your swing is better than your index! You look to have too much weight back in your heels and that causes the clubhead to get too far inside the hands at waist high going back. Try to get your weight more on the ball of each foot and while the arms can travel deep/inside don't let that clubhead get too far inside in the early part of the backswing. Other than that looks good!

Hi all, I have just seen the three finalists the GC brass selected and was shocked to say the least. I actually had one of the three finalists tagged as one of the three "most painful to watch", while I had another in my top five. While the demo shows they each do will be interesting to watch, I do believe there will be no contest when it comes to the public voting for who they like. I had the presentations by Clearwater, Ritter and Malaska tagged as the three I would vote for. So much for that.... Oh, and what happened to the fourth finalist? Not enough quality entries perhaps. I had not read this thread until today and I did get a chuckle out of the few readers who commented or enjoyed my video - thanks for that! I didn't think anyone would notice. I was also pleased that somebody got my wisecrack about hitting longer iron shots by taking one extra club - nobody ever got that one.

Something else that might be interesting to note is that TrackMan does not measure the clubface, but calculates it. It would be interesting to see what formula they use and at what point it is applied.

When a golfer indicates that they are struggling to hit a fairway wood off the deck I can only assume the ball is not getting in the air, as this is certainly the most common affliction I see. The best thing I can say is, "HIT DOWN ON IT!" The more the ball stays close to the ground, the greater the instinct to try to help it up. Hit down! Watch just about any PGA Tour broadcast and you'll see players taking a divot with hybrids and fairway woods. Tiger actually takes divots with them even when he hits shots off a tee. Here is a link to drill that can done just as easily with a fairway wood. I hope this helps.

Jon, It appears there is a fair amount of elevation in your body through the hit and into the follow through. I would imagine you pick the ball off the turf....? For a more assertive strike practice hitting firm, yet halfswing punch type shots with a very short follow through. The ball should be more compressed and fly lower. You'll appreciate the feel of a really good strike on the ball. As you transition into the full swing try to maintian the essence of the above drill. I hope this helps as it looks pretty good already.

Agree with Zeph - your swing will need time to adjust to the new length of the irons. Stay patient and maybe just choke up a little for the golf next weekend.

As as you're not "starting up trouble again"! I would go with as little wrist as possible ala Steve Stricker. This will serve to keep the bounce working correctly and deter the leading edge from getting stuck in the turf. make sure you use a PW too and not an LW of some sort.

Part of the reason you may have been hitting it left is because your hands have to be very active through impact in order to square the face up. By strengthening your grip you'll hit it left in the early going, but as your hands learn to quiet down, you'll be hitting flush and penetrating irons. And I know you haven't been doing that lately!

You seem to be having a problem with El Hosel! Your move is far better than the results you have been getting. Try putting another ball just outside the one you intend hitting and focus on hitting the inside of the inside ball. It looks like there is too much rotation at the start of the downswing and that is what is getting the arms out and OTT. Try to feel like you are going to keep your back to the target for as long as possible in the downswing. Hang in there - you'll get this.

Lag occurs as a result of good positioning and cannot be 'inserted' into the swing. Get your grip strong and your body in a sound position on the way down and you have no choice but to lag the club into impact. Youtube has tons of drills for impact and hip drive - check it out.

Senor, I think you have a great swing. Your results and ball flight could be drastically upgraded simply by strengthening your grip, which would square a very open clubface. Get that left hand to look like Boo or Zach's grip and you'll hit a few lefts early on, but stay patient and you'll be compressing the ball far better than before! It really should be as simple as that.

I saw Kostis chirping that Poulter's le g was no good and I saw the announcers talking along similar lines about Dustin Johnson's arm and wrist position up top during the AT&T.; (BTW, Poulter's leg is exactly like Sam Snead's was and DJ's wrists looked just like Tom Watson's did in his prime!) When will golfers and instructors get it? You don't need to be perfect to have success - just obey certain laws of ball-striking. We are all so caught up in the look of all these golf swings and the facts are that looks mean squat ! Find out what you need do to make the ball go, swing in your own unique style, and give it a rip. Just like pinky Poulter!

There has never been, nor will there ever be, a great player who does not slide the hips to the target in the downswing. Imagine a pitcher in baseball not stepping to home plate? This is the most important part of the golf swing - get your hips and weight forward at impact, so that your hands can be ahead of the ball and you can deliver a descending blow. The hips should actually 6-10 inches closer to the target at impact than they were at address. Keep in mind that what a player writes and feels might be different to what they actually do, so take what you read carefully, but you can always count on what you see.

The plane drops due to the mid-section driving over onto the front foot. You don't even need a club to test this. Stand up, take your arms to the top, drive your hips to the target and look where your arms track down.....

I would call One-Plane or Stack and Tilt types of swing styles. My advice would be to work towards achieving a proper impact position, but do it with your own swing style or form. That's what all the greatest golfers have done.

Good question, because this is where the golf swing is made - impact! Firstly, the bend in the shaft is merely due to the curvature and type of lens on the camera you are using, so don't change any shafts or worry about that. Secondly, it looks like you are almost hitting up on the ball. I would recommend hitting some halfswing punch type shots with the ball well forward and really work to keep the trajectory down. This will get the arms and hands further forward at impact. Your body is well positioned, but the hands and arms are lagging and thus you "scoop" the ball into the air. I have had the pleasure of teaching your countryman Ian Woosie a few times and it is amazing how well he is able to lead with the hands!

I must commend your instructor! None of the great players ever got to where they got to with constant video "surveillance". Once you have something that is relatively functional in place then it is time to go out and learn how to play with it. If you saw Dustin Johnson's clubface and arm position this weekend at Pebble very few of us would have predicted the outcome, but that is an illustration of how function outplays form any day of the week! BTW - if you look at old pictures of Tom Watson at the top, his wrists and clubface were not that far from where DJ had them. Forget about perfection in the swing and start working on what works for you. Giving up the vids will help you do that sooner than you think.

This dialogue should be read by everybody on the boards! Well said guys. We would all be so much better off as golfers by simplifying our thought process. More is very seldom better.

The thing that I notice is the backswing seems to be a little too slow. The transition into the downswing takes too long and that is why your balance is a little off. Most Tour caliber backswings take around 0.75 sec and yours appears to be over 1.00 sec. Try to speed things up a little as this will give your body less chance to get out of position. Don't rush, but just pick up the pace a little. Just my 02 cents.

There are primarily two factors involved in creating and perhaps more importantly, maintaining lag: Body positioning leading into impact - the downswing must be initiated with the lower body as the weight is driven onto the front foot. Clubface - a golfer will never allow lag to be maintained leading into impact of the face is weak or overly open as this would lead to a shank. Thus, I would say you need to get your weight correctly positioned at impact and couple that with a square clubface to be a better 'lagger'!

I would also try to strengthen your left hand grip. It looked a little weak to me and I believe it is part of the reason why your arms seemed to want to seperate from your body in the start of the swing. To get a feel for what Eric means about when he says deep, deep, deep try this drill: Set up without a club in your hands and your back foot about 6-8 inches from a wall. Now make a slow backswing with the arms until you find a way to get to the top without scraping your knuckles along the wall. The only way to get to the top is to have your arms working in quite aggresively towards the body. Here is a link to the drill that I posted on Youtube: Your swing looks solid - keep on working.

V1 is the way to go - they have a premier version that is great!