gir

If you haven't already, you could try a lower trajectory ball like the Bridgestone e7. Since I hardly got any roll out of my drives, I figured my driver trajectory was too high. I then tried the Bridgestone e7 ball out and got a little extra distance with a lowered trajectory.

I used to try and think about taking a divot and "hitting down". Thinking like that and consciously working on hitting down never really helped me. For me, hitting down has been the ends, or the results, of a good swing. I can't work on "hitting down" anymore than I can work on "hitting it closer to the pin", or work on "lowering my handicap". All of those thing are results from swinging properly. Hitting it properly comes as a result of working on the right swing mechanics. Sorry if that's not much help. But yes, it's accepted with little argument that the correct motion of the clubhead is to hit the ball first then take turf after the ball. The clubhead should still be descending in it's arc through impact, reaching a low point after the ball. Have you had a chance to read Bobby Clampets Impact Zone? If you haven't read it yet, it's a good read if you're currently thinking about hitting down with a descending blow. He describes how tour pros bottom out about 4 inches in front of the ball and as the handicap goes up, the bottom of the swing progresses further behind or to the right, for a right hander of course.

can't forget the extra stiff shaft flex too.

LOL. You had me laughing with the camaro bit, and by the champion mesh short bit I was rolling. The worst part about that guy is he can on occassion bomb a couple drives 280 or so throughout the day. That's usually the only shot he has in the bag.

I wouldn't reccomend a beginner to get s58's, but the eye2's are a fine club for someone starting out. Heck even the s58's are semi cavity back and supposedly not that hard to hit. The eye2's are essentially GI irons. That Adams tight lies set looks real nice too.

At that price you could go for the ping eye2's. They're older than 15 years though and cosmetically they look dated compared to more modern designs, but performace wise they're fine.

I play D2's and they check for me around the greens. I don't have to account for much roll out. I tried the Gamers and the D2's spun more for me around the greens. Which is great because they're cheaper and come in boxes of 15. I find it's helpful to play the same ball for consistency in the short game.

They're legit. They can offer lower prices because they don't have as much of a markup to cover their retail store overhead such as money spent on rent, employee pay, etc.

When I first started playing, using the grip out of 5 lessons got me hitting quality golf shots right away. Where as before I read 5 lessons, I did have an interlock grip, but beyond that I knew nothing of how to grip it, and even my good shots were very weak. But once I started using the grip in 5 lessons, my shots immediately became 100X better and more consistent. Now three years later or so, grip changes don't have as drastic or as an immediate of an effect as they did then. I can have a correct grip and still hit it very poorly. But when I first started, there was a drastic difference in shot quality for me once I had an acceptable grip.

I feel your pain. It happens. When I first started playing, I kept getting better and better. For a couple years, the more I practiced, the better I got. So I decided to get semi serious about golf and try and practice regularly, figuring if I really wanted to get good, I was going to have to put in the time. For awhile the trend continued, and I kept improving. My swing was starting to feel both effortless and automatic. I was shooting low 80's and looking to go lower, and was generally optimistic about my game, thinking that if I kept improving at the rate I was going, I could even think about entering some little local amateur tournaments in a year or two. Then one day my game just started deteriorating, and it got real bad over time. The more I practiced, the worse I got. It was completely frustrating and I'm just now starting to recover from it. It happens to all of us. Take some time off and then go back to fundamentals like you were starting all over again.

I practice in a nearby field. The field has an old abandoned volleyball area that has grown in with grass that I use as my green/target. I can hit full shots up to about 150 yards. I usually hit about 50 balls or so, then I chip/flop my misses onto the makeshift green. My shortgame has improved quite a bit this way and is actually now probably the stronger part of my game, with my full swing being the weakest part.

sweet, just added it to my que.

Never heard of such a rule. Now that I think about it though, I took the GF with me out to the driving range a few weeks ago, and later the pro there asked me if the girl I had with me was my GF, and if I was teaching her to play. I just took it as him being friendly, because he usually is, always striking up conversation, trying to build good relations with the customers, but now that I read this thread, maybe he thought she was a student of mine or something and was going to tell me not to be teaching. Hmm.

Not really. For every so called "average" golfer who hits their 7 iron 140-160 there are 10 hackers/beginners/non golfers out there just because it's a nice day or are tagging along with a golfing friend who are lucky to get their 7 irons airborne let alone 150 yards. You ever play a cheap muni on the weekend?

never seen a drive below 240 - where do you play - on the tour? Come play with me, I'll show you a bunch below 240. lol.

Recently I've only been driving it around 200-220. But my swing is all out of funk, and it left me a few months ago, and I've been rebuilding it here for a few weeks. When I was swinging well, I was in the 250-270 range. They say the average male drive is 200 yards and the average male 7 iron is 150. The driver seems about right, a tad high maybe. The 7 iron 150 figure seems very high. Based on what I see out and about, I'd say the average drive is around 180 and the average 7 iron is 100-120.

oh - first I was going to say that I hate unsolicited advice, especially when it comes from some clear hacker. But seems this guy knew what he was talking about, so that's better, even though you still get the creepy feeling that you're being watched. Basically, I guess we're talking about the grip here. I've found the right thumb towards the left of the shaft helps with freeing up the wrists so they can hinge. If the thumb is over to the right, or on top, I've found that my wrist hinge is restricted by the flexibility of the thumb.

I'm pretty standard - about 150 give or take.

I think a 300 yard drive is in anyone's bag - even a lot of women. For men, I think much larger distances are possible, like up near 400, if they really swung it close to 100%, and they struck the ball on the sweet spot with right technique, and the proper launch angles, spin, and all that. I think when they tell people to swing at around 80%, most people really swing it around 50%, let alone anywhere near 90% or 100%.

I've been working on this the last few months. Find where your swing bottoms out, then place the ball back just a bit from there and make the same swing, and you'll be hitting it on the downswing. I've found some forward press with the shaft and the hands ahead of the ball helps a downward strike. I've found it's not something you should really be conciously trying to do, it's something that can be dialed in with your setup, and you just make your normal swing, and it happens on it's own as a result of sound fundamentals creating a sound swing.

You can always go to ping.com and go through their online fitting. I think it's technically called a static fitting or something like that. They have you put in your height, do a wrist to floor measurement, and some other information, and it spits back out to to you a lie angle and ping color code. You can then go look for some used clubs with those specs, or use that as a starting point. That's what I did.

I love playing alone. Most of the time, I'd rather play alone. Sometimes I just don't really feel like getting into small talk about where I live, what am I doing in school, where do I work, blah blah. I just wanna work on my game. And then plus when I hit bad shots, I'll be pissed, and in no mood really to be joking around. But if I'm playing well, then having people around is ok, ha.

While I agree that a pro makes a ton of better shots than an amateur and has more shots in the bag, I highly disagree that pros don't constantly make mistakes, it's just their mistakes are good shots for the average player. If they didn't constantly miss shots then they would birdie every hole and when's the last time that happened?

I believe the only club you want with a backwards lean, or the hands slightly behind is the driver, of course to hit it on the upswing. The 3-5 irons, the hands can be ahead as well, or as far back as being even with the ball where the shaft is vertical. Generally, you definitely don't want any backwards lean, excepting the driver.

Of what I understand, the short-mid irons want some bit of forward press to encourage a descending blow. The long irons want to be even with the ball, or they can have some forward press too. And the driver wants to be even or slightly tilted back to strike the ball on the upswing or bottom of the arc. I think the general rule of thumb is that, excepting the driver, none of the clubs should have the shaft tilting backwards at address.