freshmanUTA

Welp, got too cocky talking about not shooting scores above 78. Just shot a pair of 80’s this weekend. Seemed like I couldn’t stop shutting the face and hooking the ball, but my actual strikes were really good. My short game saved me from a god awful score when I missed nearly every green in both rounds. Golf has a funny way of humbling you when you start to get over-confident.

Absolutely. This video was at the beginning of my range session today, and it seems that issue is exaggerated when I hit off mats. I’ve been working very hard at focusing on clean contact and hitting the target and less on actual mechanics this summer. In fact I haven’t even recorded my swing since the middle of September, and I was in a much better spot then. The bottom line is that my hands are just way too far behind me. I’ve been working in the mirror and was working a bit on the range of trying to figure out what makes my position at the top look like justin thomas and trying to exaggerate that feeling while hitting balls. I’m going to need to get a video of the position I’m feeling I get to and what my swing looks like ATM. I didn’t get to record any more swings after my mechanics session because it started raining and was freezing cold so I was trying to just leave. These were meant to be separate posts: Just another update. Dropped my handicap from 4.2 in july to 2.7 now. My scores are going lower and I haven’t had a score higher than 78 since the end of august and I play twice a week. My contact with all clubs his improved an insane amount and my dispersion with my driver is the best it’s ever been. The 7 iron is a bit thin. The main issue I have in my swing ATM is that my hands are getting too far behind me up to the top of the swing. I’ve been trying to exaggerate feeling like Justin Thomas and how he swings basically straight up. I never took the PGA PAT, i was cancelled due to covid. I played the course anyway in the beginning of august and shot a pair of 80’s which wouldn’t have gotten me though. Thats it for now.

Surely the entire club is illegal because it’s shaped like an object other than a golf club

Im still working hard at not having my elbow being stuck behind me. I’ve made a little bit of progress, but I’m still working. My shot pattern has turned from a push fade to a straight push or even a draw. I don’t really like drawing the ball because it brings a left miss in, and I hate missing left. I get more power with less effort with the shallow swing though, so I think i’m just going to sit the face a tad open at address and just stick with the push fade. Everything but the driver and 3 wood have been really consistent but the driver and 3 wood are a two way miss at the moment and I hate that.

Thanks. I will mess around with this. What do you suggest I try? Should I try like a belt or a towel under the armpit or something to keep my arm connected? Also about the posture, I’ve always felt that my mid to upper back is rounded too much. Are you sure that’s fine? I’ve just always seen most players, especially the better players, having a much straighter back. Heres mine: Heres Rory’s: I know I need to straighten up my posture when i’m away from the course as I have a really rounded neck and shoulders even when i’m standing up straight, and my doctor has mentioned that some of the neck pain I experience is from constantly being hunched over like that. But that’s completely different from the golf swing. If you say that’s good posture then I definitely take your word for it and I won’t worry too much about trying to straighten my back.

Im still struggling with toe contact, and I’m not sure why. My typical ballflight has become a push fade. I typically just aim left of my target and the ball starts on or slightly right of where i’m aiming and drifts right. The toe contact is really consistent and I just honestly have no clue what to fix it. I can’t see my instructor for a while because he’s stopped giving lessons during the pandemic, and I don’t want to ask the head pro at my course to look at mine so I’m coming here to see if anyone’s got ideas. Side note, I have terrible posture. I’m studying programming in school so I’m constantly hunched over my computer at my desk and it’s ruining my upper backs posture. I also desperately need to lose weight as I haven’t done anything to manage it and it’s getting out of hand. I have a feeling that Improving my posture might help with contact but I really have no clue.

Even Par through 9. Man what a rush. I wasn’t even hitting the ball that well and I doubled the first hole. I had a few good chips, two good approaches and a couple good bounces to help make par but I guess we’re allowed that now and then.

I think you misunderstood what I wrote. The course isn’t allowed to do group lessons at the moment, were waiting for the okay from the city. We were supposed to get the okay to start on June 1st but they pushed it back another 10 days so we’ll hear on the 11th. At the moment are only allowed to do private lessons and we have to abide by all of the requirements for the virus. Masks, no touching and sanitizing any training aids that may have been used. It’s weird because our clubhouse isn’t even fully open yet we’re allowed to teach and interact with members and local juniors. One of the juniors who came in for a lesson kills the ball and he’s considering doing long drive when he’s older. He’s 5’5 and maybe 130 soaking wet but he swings over 120 mph and gets ball speeds over 170 at 15 years old!!! He absolutely pounds the ball.

Man, I’m stopping by here to just say that tomorrow is my first day off since starting, and I love this job. I’m having an insane amount of fun interacting with members, shadowing and helping out with the few lessons we’ve had and starting soon we’re going to be giving junior group lessons and I’m gonna be in charge of them. The club is still weary about doing more than private lessons because of the Corona Virus restrictions, but I’m hoping we can get group lessons going as helping people improve has been loads of fun. I can’t thank everyone on this forum enough for helping me out, there’s so much valuable information here and it’s given me such an advantage when teaching, and I’ve been able to bounce ideas off the head pro and he’s been shocked at how much I know.

Wow, is that true? That’s crazy. I guess I have to work harder than I ever have. I’ve been focusing a lot on driving/tee shots in general and wedges from any range. The course I’m qualifying at is not easy by any means, but my length off the tee gives me an advantage that I want to utilize to the max. I wasn’t aware you could become an apprentice before the PAT, but I know that my position is based on me passing the PAT within 1 year from my first attempt, so I’m hoping I can at least give it a really solid go the first time and not embarrass myself. I have a tendency to get in my own head and start hitting bad shots. Thank you. I appreciate the kind words. Honestly, no. There’s enough wooded land there that if a ball does go through it’s not going to hit anything or anyone. None have ever gone through, except the one that popped through and made the hole to begin with. I recorded this in slow motion but for the life of me i can’t get it to upload to youtube in slow motion, I’ll post again if I figure it out. I’m just taking a 60% swing trying to emphasize shallowing the club out. I start my first day as an Assistant Pro on Monday and right off the bat I’m shadowing the Head Pro in a lesson with the club champion and then we’re heading out for a playing lesson with a junior golfer. In between that I’m going to be learning the ropes of the management side of the golf course, I’m excited but really nervous as well.

76 during a job interview! I was interviewing to be an Assistant Golf Professional and played lights out. Driving was spot on, Iron play was good and my short game saved my ass quite a few times. I had 2 birdies, a few too many bogeys and I missed a few putts for key putts to save par, but I got the job!

Cool news! I have accepted a job as an Assistant Professional working under a PGA professional and will be working to pass the PAT on July 31st, and hopefully begin the PGM program. At the moment my position is only temporary based on my performance on the PAT, but I have been working hard on my swing and all aspects of my game. After dropping my handicap to 5.8 last year, and tying my personal best of 76 in a round of golf with the head professional, I feel confident I have the ability to pass. I start 2 weeks from Monday and I’m looking forward to it!

I ran the idea of toe contact being because my head is moving away from the ball on the downswing through my coach and he says it’s a very real possibility so I should take a few swings where i feel like i’m intentionally getting closer to the ball at impact. My heads still moving a bit but it’s very subtly moving away from the target less than it was before. I guess I just need to keep working on the feeling. This is with the 7 iron and I haven’t had any issue with contact, but when I was swinging with my 5 iron I noticed that regardless of being thin or not the contact was generally in the center of the clubface rather than off the toe.

Ping iBlades. They’re not off the smooth part of the face, but definitely off the toe. It’s the weirdest thing I know.

I don’t know what’s going on, but every single club other than my 7 iron since working on shallowing the club are toed shots. But, the weird part is that they feel really pure. Like, club twirl and don’t watch the shot cause i think it’s really good level pure. Then I look at the club and it’s right out of the toe side of the grooves. I’ve attached a photo of the wear pattern on my 7 iron and my 8 iron. My 8 iron pattern is typical of the pattern of the rest of my clubs.It trends high and towards the toe, but most are very solid. But they feel absolutely no different than the shots that I hit that are straight out of the toe of the club, other than the fact that the ball flies shorter and tends to go too far left. 7: 8: Its a bit harder to see on the 8 but you can still see it’s out of the toe. Like I said, these shots feel great, as if I middled the ball perfect, but they fly shorter and tend to go too far left.

Still working on the shallowing motion. I still feel like I can’t swing 100% or else I come over the top, but it’s really getting there. I like the positions i get into. I feel like my backswing should be higher/steeper, but I’ve been hitting the ball really well recently and I don’t think it causes any issues.

Thank you! Celebrating by bashing balls into a net!

I played golf a few days ago, and was doing really well too.. I was +1 through 9 with two birdies, a double bogey and a bogey and obviously the rest being pars, this is one of the best scores I’ve shot through 9 in the last year. And then... I hit something in the ground, it was metal but I couldn’t figure out what it was, and it left a decent dent in my iron (which the course offered to fix free of charge). On top of that, I really jared my wrist and it was very painful for the rest of the hole, though I continued through the round and immediately after hitting the piece of metal I shot 2 quadruple bogeys in a row, then followed by two bogeys in a row. So, I sat at +11 through 13. We hit a small backup because the greens crew was doing work on the green of the par 3 we were on. They waved us on but since the course was empty and I was hurting, we told them to finish up what they were doing. About 15 minutes later they thanked us and we feed off, and I birdied that hole and the next. Brought me back down to +9. The rest of the round I wasn’t swinging right but I shot par, par, bogey to finish with a +10 82. Since then, I have felt completely fine, but been kind of scared to hit golf balls and my shots have all been pretty weak.. Not making good contact, really thin. I have some pretty poor luck..

Here is a normal full swing with a 6 iron today.

Heres a video of me hitting a stinger 4 iron today. These are the first couple swings after about a month of sitting around doing schoolwork. I had a weird transition in my swing path where when I started playing I was over the top, then I became far too shallow and it was causing inconsistent clubface delivery, a hook that I couldn’t get rid of,and I was literally incapable of fading the ball. All this sucked because I HATE missing on the left side of the course. So, I’ve been working on getting steeper in both the backswing and downswing. I think my backswing is pretty decent, but I’m a little steeper than Id want in the transition. Granted I’m trying to compress the ball and keep it low, but I still don’t like the position I’m in. Time to get back to work to start 2020.

Looks like the baseball player plants his front foot and pushes backwards, instead of driving forwards and finishing on the front foot like the golf swing. A baseball players weight is forward only about 40% and they quickly push and lean back to put all the speed they can into the ball. This would potentially work for a long driver teeing the ball up like crazy, but it would only ever work from a position where the ball is off the ground.

I’m gonna get straight to the point: My local golf shop is having a blowout sale of ping products and they’re selling the G410 3 wood for $195 + Tax. They have a Tensei CK Pro Orange in store and I was hitting it well. Now here’s my question, that Tensei CK Pro Orange is the same shaft that’s in my driver, but in my 3 hybrid I have the Tensei CK Pro Blue. Both are TX flex. I hit both equally well, but one is off the tee and the other off the ground. I can’t try the CK Pro Blue in store but I can buy one and have it sent to my home with the blue shaft. Should I try to match the 3W shaft to my 3H, or my Driver? Should I stick with orange since I was hitting it well in the store? Thanks

Now that my season is done, I would like to reflect. My driving Fairway Hit % in the beginning of the year was less than 40%, to end the year it was 63.5%. My target goal was 65%, and if you remove the drives before I got my new driver it moves up to 66.4%, but that is cheating myself. I need to improve this stat. My average GIR was 7.8. This is bad, I really need to improve this. However, my best rounds of the year were all over 12 GIR, which shows that when I’m on my game, I’m hitting greens. My Average score on par 3’s was 4.186. I really need to improve my par 3 play. My average par 5 score was 5.546. I’m not mad about this, but considering my length off the tee and with irons, I would want this to be at or under 5. My average par 4 score was 4.915 This is just abysmal. I shouldn’t be averaging nearly a bogey on par 4’s. My average score in tournaments was an 89. 75. My average score out of tournaments was an 80.66. My goal for tournaments was 85 or better and my goal outside tournaments was under 80. I hit neither. These are the only stats I keep at the moment. I had a few rounds in the 90’s and 2 rounds over 100. The 90+ and 100+ scores were all in tournaments, save for one round of 91 I shot on my schools course. All in all, my short game improved a ton, my iron ply improved a ton, my driving was the biggest overhaul, and my mid range wedges gained a fair amount of accuracy and consistency. I don’t feel I’m far off of being in the 70’s or better. I typically give myself plenty of birdie attempts, and I can recover well.

Last day of the year for golf. Ended it kind of sadly. Long story short, I was 2 over through 15, had about 5 birdie putts that I missed, made 2 birdies, had about 4 insane recovery chips that I still don’t understand how I pulled off, and 4 bogeys that honestly shouldn’t have happened. 2 were 3 putts from on the green, one was trying a stupid hero shot and drilling a tree, and the last one was a flubbed chip. 16 Tee I wildly miss the fairway with my fairway wood. It stings extra bad missing the fairway when you try to lay up, so I let it get in my head and decided to try yet another hero shot, drilled a tree and back into the fairway. Gun the yardage, 154 about an extra 10 uphill, so about 164. Torn between an 8 and a 7. My 8 goes about 164 max in the warm if I really up my tempo, and my 7 typically carries 178 in the warm, so I decided to play it safe and grip down on a 7 iron and flight the ball higher in the air so it carries shorter and stops better. Proceed to fly the green by about 10 yards because I absolutely poured the ball. Lose the ball in long grass behind green, return to previous shot, penalize myself for losing a ball and grab an 8 iron, then proceed to come up well short. You can see where I’m going with this. Finish with an 8. Now 6 over through 16, Finish 3 putt double bogey, and then par to shoot 80. Oh well, shit happens sometimes. Up until that point I was playing well. 11 GIR is a pretty good stat, but 11 GIR and only 7 being par or better is not good. Edit: looked at scorecard and realized i actually shot double bogey, then par to finish. Kind of stings worse.

Last summer when I started playing tournament golf, I couldn’t hit my driver to save my life. Horrendous hooks, seemingly no matter what I would do. Finally, I got tired of it. I told my instructor that what we were working on just wasn’t working and Id like you take a look at my driver because while my swing was visually getting better, the results were not. To make a long story short, I got fitted for a much stiffer and 20g heavier shaft and my driver is debatably the best club I have from 5-Driver. I just enjoy hitting it now. Much higher and more penetrating flight, longer average carry and MUCH straighter on mishits. This last tournament season my Fairway% was 63.5% and when I missed, I typically didn’t miss by much. I highly recommend working with an instructor and, probably most importantly, getting fit. The wrong shaft/head combo can wildly throw off your game.