yanni

@MarvChamp I think for y 72 year old this is very good as far as I can tell. And you are right about the irons. It does not really matter how far they go. Its more important that they are consistant.

I can hit the ball pretty solid now slowley (when I have a good day). And I can swing the club without the ball fast enough for a start. Both together does not work yet ;) This just takes some more time I guess. The main thing is I finally enjoy playing on the court after all those frustrating fat shots, thin shots driver misses. I really concentrated on my swing mechanics, took lessons and practised a lot on the range (which most people do not seem to do). I changed my swing all the time and optimized things. While this was very frustrating at times and I felt that I was starting all over again, its starting to pay off now.

My pro is focussing on inside out all the time. Its his favourite topic which he focussed on from the beginning. He is showing me this on video all the time and explains my swing path. So I actually understood pretty early how not to slice. This is the only problem I never really had ;) And this is really something you cannot learn "online" in my opinion. And if a slice occurs (very seldom) I know how to solve it. Actually I am working on how to hit some nice draws now. You are right about the lag. Even if its extrem the wrist should still be loose. My main problem is still hitting fat from time to time. But it got much better. Adding lag also helps a lot with the fat shots in my case.

Ok. I just added 5mph to swing iron 6 swing. So I am at around 82mph max for my iron 6 now. 1) I read some info where people said one should accelerate the arms very late in the down swing. While this is correct I did this too late. Close to impact already. This way the club could not gain enough speed that way. Now I already start pulling with my left arm earlier but still some time after my weight shift and body rotation starts. I would say the way I did it before was at around 80% before impact. Now I am at 50% before impact from the start of my dowswing. 2) I bought a Swingdyde training tool three days ago. This forces me to add tons of lag to my swing. I feel the lag this way is very extreme. But I tried it with the max lag I could do and that added another couple of mph. 3) I tried to to put some weight on the left side of my right foot and not move the right leg at all. This added another little bit of mph and felt way more stable than before. The biggest thing with this improvements is that I can reach this speed not only when swinging with max effort but also when swinging quite loose. I am quite positive about this whole thing now. Probably I will add another 3-5 mph in the next month with some further swing optimizations. This would give me around 85mph for my iron 6 and around 95mph-100mph for my driver. I will never be a long hitter. But this proves that it is really possible to add some distance just with the right technique and some changes. Proper driver fittng will probably also add some yards later on. And of course I have to learn to hit it dead center now ;)

I have one of those swing speed radar devices. I am trying little tweaks like more wirst hinge, more stable body, the swoosh drill (helps a lot). All this gives me some gain in speed. I have not done any body exercises yet. Max speed for iron 6 is around 77mph. For the driver its around 90mph. I don't expect that I can gain something 20mph. I think some of this speed is just given. But something like 5mph-10mph would be really great as this would get me in the area of average golfers swing speed. I am playing for a year now. I was wondering if you guys did improve over the years or not at all? If yes by how much ? Or were you fast from the beginning on ? Did practise speed drills ? Or does time just make the body looser and builds up certain muscles ? Thanks...

This makes perfectly sense. As a piano player for example you never would practise a tune at full speed. If you would do this you never would learn to play it. You would focus on a certain aspect (just right hand first)) and practise this at 30% speed until 100% perfect. Then you would practise the other hand. Than both hands together. If this works out 100% you would add a little speed and play it at 40%. I was doing this totally wrong in golf. What I did I do? I hit 100 balls the same way with full power and was hoping this would change something. Somehow I thought the more balls I hit the better I would get. And of course I thought I have to swing at full power so my distance would increase. And its totally correct. What you cannot do at slow speed you cannot do at full speed at all. Actually my pro even told me to practise slowley. But I somehow did not really get it. Actually he told me from the first lesson on "don't swing to hard!". But I did not believe him. I did somehow improve but actually it was wasted time and energy now that I think about it. Focussing on certain issues and practising slowley gave me a very big boost. Of course you can and should add "power" drills and hit at full speed. But not 100% of the time. Most people I see on the range do just that. Hit some balls at the same speed and swing as hard as possible. No drills, no tempo changes nothing. Look at the big guys like Woods when they are doing warm ups at the range. They swing extremly slow and seem to focus on something.

I am not talking about 5mph here but probably around 50mph (with 7 iron) and probably 60mph with the driver. My max regular speed will probably be around 75mph with iron and 85-90mph with the driver. So its not super slow motion but just an very easy swing. I think the main difference is that I don't to try hit at the ball this way. I am just lifting the club slowely and let it go. My turn is very slow at the moment. As soon as I speed this up everything else will speed up. I will try going faster later.

Yes I have to start slow and accelerate when coming closer to impact. But this is my next step. The key is not to rush the downswing and waste all the energy at the beginning. When I really have this down I will add more speed.

Took this swing thought the court yesterday. I lost some yards with my drives. Other than that I was way better with any club. Even with the putter. Swinging slow and always with the same tempo really puts you in some relaxed state of mint which makes the playing much more fluent. Also when swinging slow I was able to see what caused my shots going wrong and can work on this on the range next time. When I was just smashing the ball I had no idea what was going wrong I just was trying harder and harder and it got more wrong. I also checked what the other players (high handicappers) were doing. I could see already during their practise swing if the ball was going to be OK or not. Whenever a player was doing an aggressive practise swing this meant he probably would miss the drive, slice it or whatever. Whenever he was doing it relaxed and fluent it seemed to work. To sum it up. Yes I am loosing (quite a lot of) distance with the drives. I would say at least about 30 yards since clubhead speed is not very fast. But in total I was gaining a lot since all those drives were straight and well hit. I was gaining more with hitting them straight and shorter than from hitting them far in the wrong direction or not hitting them at all. With the irons I played past the flag which never happend to me. My feeling was I was hitting them at least one club longer. if not more. This happend cause I hit them way more solid than before. I will continue to swing like that for some time now and than gradually will speed up the complete, fluent motion. This does not mean I will return to smashing the ball as far as I can or rush the swing.

I was at the range today. Playing off the mats worked without problem. When I practised on the grass everything got much harder. I would say 50% of the shots were OK. The other had difference errors like shanks, slices, hitting fat, hitting thin etc. Some went very far most not. Some went left some went right... At the end of the session I did the swing which what I would describe as 40% of my usual power. This really felt extremly slow. And guess what happened? I hit around 90% of the balls perfectly. Very solid, no single slice, very straight. And the distance was not less compared to my 80% shots.. I would say if count all swings I hit those further than the balls I played with 80% of power. After training I measured my swing speed. All with my 7 iron and wrote down what I felt. This was with a low cost speed meter. So in reality it might be more. But this does not really matter now. My max speed is 75-80 mph. I would call this 100% 65 mph I feel as 80% of my power 50 mph I feel as 60% 45 mph I feel as 40%. This really feels ultra slow. Almost like slow motion. I think one roughly can say that 10mph less speed gives you around 20 yards less distance. When swinging with 45mph-50mph this would be 15mph less than what I would call a 80% feeling and actually I would consider this as very slow. 15mph will give me about 30yards less distance which is quite a lot. I had the feeling though that in reality the difference was much less than you would imagine. I was hitting those ultra slow balls pretty far since I hit those dead center and made great contact. I think I will continue practising very very slow and will only speed my swing up when I get the same consistency when swinging faster.. Does anybody else practise those ultra slow swings or even play like this on the court ? Actually I remember I played like his on the court once and it was my best round. I should mention that I play for around one year now...

I agree with @Buckeyebowman. I was practising my swing on the range yesterday and was putting some business card in front of the ball. Very pure ballstriking almost no mishits, straight ballflight I swept the card away every the time. I was focusing on my swing and the card. Then we got on the court. First hole perfect ball striking I was able to focus behind the ball and on my swing. Then second hole I made a mistake with my driver (know the reason now). But anyway my confidence was getting smaller. 200m to the hole. So I got my hybrid out "I have to hit this ball 200m very hard now". I still tried to focus behind the ball and the shot was OK. But far from perfect. From now on from hole to hole ball striking got worse. At the end I even hit in the ground in front of the ball with my sand wedge which never has happened to me before. My head was going "You have to hit this ball now!" No loose swings as on the range before. And no thinking about the loose swing going to the target. The more frustrated I got the more I focussed on the ball. I was noticing in the end I was focussing in front of the ball and on my swing but when I made the actual downswing my eyes got back to the ball which leaded to terrible shots. I noticed the eyes really jumped. What this means to me. I have to practise to change my focus now every time on the range and make this a priority. I also tried widening my focus which really helped. But its a different task to this on the actual court it seems.

I have problem hitting a divot behind the ball when actually swinging at the the ball. It has much gotten much better but I still happens from time to time so I am hitting the ball fat. I am doing a practise swing where I hit a divot (on practise green) around 10-20cm after the ball. Everything works great without the ball. As soon as I step up to the the ball my mind seems to change. What really helps is to keep concentrating holding the lag angle in my arms. I am trying focus on a point behind the ball in the grass but this seems incredible difficult for me. My subconscious still focusses on the ball. As soon as I don't focus on the ball the contact gets much better. But this does not always work and seems to be very hard for me. Any tipps how to solve this problem ?

Interesting. I can think of some examples. 1) Swing very fast or slow (also with the driver) 2) Practise on different surfaces like grass, matts etc. 3) use very heavy clubs or light kid clubs 4) Do full or half backswings 5) Play balls in a row very fast or slow 6) Switch the clubs on every swing (actually this is what you do on the court) 7) Play the ball to the left, middle, right 8) Pitch short and long 9) Practise short and long puts I can image this will help more than playing 50 balls with an iron 7 in a row.

I think there is a difference between playing the guitar & tennis and golf (which I all do). 1) Guitar. Everybody knows it will takes years to play Hendrix songs (you can substitute this with your favourite guitar hero). Everybody knows they will never play as good as Hendrix (again could be anybody) 2) You practise serves, forehand etc. very slow and relaxed. In the actual tournament nobody does everything with 100% power. Nobody expects to play like Becker (again substitute). Nobody expects to have his technique or power. 3) In golf everybody seems to think after a few lessons you will swing like Tiger and have a similar power. Of course you swing with 100% power to get to the distance Tiger has which makes everything just worse. Of course you somehow know that Tiger is better. But you think if you just copy his swing you will be as good as him (especially if you are not 16 but 40 years old) At least this is how I think about golf. But I try to change my mind ;)

This is 100% me. As I wrote above my pro recorded a video with and without the ball. Pretty night and day difference. As soon I do the swing with the ball the weight shift does not happen any more. I don't really understand what the reason is. Somehow my body thinks its wrong to move into over over the ball. He recommended that I should swing with 20-30% (!) of my power and not do a full swing. This actually improved my striking 100%. The swing is still not 100% as without the ball but way closer. The funny thing about this is I hit the ball way further and very consistant with the 30% of power as compared to something I would think about as 80%. Which I normally do. With the 80% the balls was sometimes a bit longer but most of the time all over the place. Many times way shorter. I really don't quite understand this. I am swinging with almost no power (clubhead speed probably is at least 15mph slower) but it seems the good contact equals this out totally. When doing a full sing with 80% power I think may my shifts away from the ball much more which makes it more difficult to move in the ball again.

Had a lesson with my pro yesterday. I tried to improve everything he told me in the last lesson and I was practising the swing at home. Main problem was my hands were way behind the ball and I had no weight shift. He was doing a video of my swing in my lesson.. When I saw the video I was really shocked. It looked terrible, I did nothing right. I asked him to do the video again without the ball. This time everything looked almost perfect. He did not really have a final advice how to solve this problem but told me that many people suffer from this. He mentioned focusing more in front of the ball as a possible solution. He also mentioned that I made a lot of swing faults in the past. With this "wrong" swing I still managed to hit the ball "somehow" with some compensated movements at impact. When I do the correct swing now my subconscious still tries to hit the ball the old "incorrect" way. This could be another reason. Focusing "on the whole" like on the swing, ball flight etc. and not on the ball probably could be a solution. I will try that. This is whole topic for sure is a mental problem.

I was really afraid to go to the court cause I would not hit anything. This way cause I was training on the mats all the time. This is what I realized now.

When you are hitting fat I think the club kind of slides on the mat.

This was also the case on the one where I practised. But we also have one close with higher grass where its more easy to hit. But I thought if I can hit the ball on the dirt I will be able to hit everywhere ;)

I fixed my issues now. There were 2 reasons 1) A swing fault. I was swinging with my hands too far away from my body. During impact my right elbow was not close at all. So the swing arc was totally off behind my body so I topped the ball all the time or hit fat. For some reason this worked on the mat. No idea why. But it was totally wrong. So I was not topping the balls at all now after fixing this. But sometimes I felt I still hit the ball a bit thin. This I fixed with the next step. 2) I was a bit shy of not "destroying" the grass. So know I forced myself to actually really hit into the ground during my practise swing. Even with this force I was not destroying anything really. When you do this you will feel it in your hands. I was practising on very low grass, almost just sand at some areas. This will get you a feeling that is much harder than on the mats and at first is a bit irritating. But now I am actually looking for this feeling and this improved my shots even more. When the grass will be a bit longer like on the actual course I think it will be even more easy to get the ball airborne. What I also did when practising with my longer irons is to use a very tiny bit of my tee to give me the confidence on really hitting the balls on this short grass. When this worked out I removed the tee. I was practising on mats for month and I should have moved to grass way earlier. Lesson learned. The mats do not feel like to actual golf course at all.

I am hitting iron shots OK on the driving range with a mat. Distance is good and most of the ball strikes feel really solid. On the actual golf course and also on a driving range which has grass I cannot hit a single ball solidly. Mostly I seem to be topping the balls. Sometimes I also hit into the ground before the ball. But not too often. Does or did anybody have the same problem ? Is this more of a psychological problem?

I agree that 5 KS probably means it probably the "correct" way. But the focus on this as a keypoint may lead people into a wrong direction.

Its true. You don't see that. But this is due to the fact that they do other things right I think. So if you do the rest right your head won't move a lot anyway. When I look at my head (on video) its pretty steady. Once I start focusing on "hold your head still" the follow trough does not work anymore. So I think if you look at your video and your head is moving like hell there is something wrong. For example maybe your weight shift is very extreme. But if you force yourself with something "hold your head still or you will top the ball! " this could lead into problems. Also all those other golfers will tell you "Oh you topped the ball. Hold your head still!" In my case this is not the problem at all and does not solve anything.

I will still take lessons with a pro. But I think his "swing ideas" ans basic thoughts somehow make sense to me. But this also totally depends on the person. If I were 16 years of age and very athletic maybe his whole approach would not really fit me. But with over 40 and having back problems and totally overthinking everything this "simple" and "natural" idea helps. His golf swing does not look very athletic or dynamic. But I am to old for this anyway. I also checked out the 5SK concept now. Those concepts are a bit similar due to the fact that they both concentrate on very view topics which I think is good. Even if Shawn has over 700 videos he has very view basic concepts he repeats all the time. The one thing in the 5SK concept which I am not sure about is "Keep the head steady". Shawn (and many many other instructors) have a different opinion about that. When I try to keep my head steady I have big problems with swinging through. Shawn (and many others) think topping has nothing to do with moving your head but with not shifting your weight and casting. From what I tried so far this is true. Keeping my head totally steady gives me a hard time to do my backswing and follow through.

@Alfriday. This pretty much describes how I feel about the videos. And you don't have to watch all his 700 videos to get the concept ;) The concept is pretty straight forward actually. Thanks a lot for the list. This helps !