watty

Thanks for the input, guys. I will keep this thread updated periodically.

I just signed up on the monthly plan and did my first upload. Ready to take advantage of all the knowledge these guys possess. Iacas, you and others are doing good work. I look forward to improving with y'all's help.

I've been Playing Golf for: several years My current handicap index or average score is: 15 index, but it's on the rise. Been shooting around 100 lately. For a while I was down to a 12, shooting in the 80s often, but with a flawed swing. I've since been working on fixing it but have been all over the place in the process. My typical ball flight is: right now I'm so all over the map I don't even have a "typical," but I've always been a slicer The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: the slice and the compensating pull hook It seems my swing is different every day these days as I continually tinker and search. These swings below are an 8 iron, trying my best to focus on weigh forward without doing a reverse pivot (that's been a problem for me lately). Videos:

Any help would be appreciated. I am doing this weird reverse pivot thing and can't stop. Ever since I started trying S&T;, I've ingrained this bad habit. I've followed things here and am impressed with the whole 5SK direction. Anyway, I apologize, I don't have a swing video just yet, but basically, my butt swings out toward the target on my backswing, and then often reverses course on the downswing. As you can imagine, I have lots of issues then. Is there any help that can be offered here without seeing my swing? Any particular drills I should focus on? I've done several drills (though admittedly without much of a plan) from the 5SK thread, particularly the ones focusing on weight forward at impact. I've tried to feel what that position is like, but am still struggling with it. My other big problem is that I massively struggle with moving my upper center forward when trying to get my weight forward. I *know* that's not right, but it's what my body does instinctively. When I try to get forward, my head goes forward. I always feel like if my head stays stationary, my swing bottoms out well behind the ball. So that's a whole laundry list of issues I guess, but any help is greatly appreciated.

I recently played golf with an old doctor in central Texas. He told me a great story about Arnold Palmer. When this doctor was a senior in high school in 1962 (IIRC), he was a huge Palmer fan. So, he sent him an invitation to his high school graduation. Mr. Palmer wrote back, apologizing for the fact that he wouldn't be able to attend but wished the future doctor good luck and also autographed the invitation. So, flash forward to 2009, this doctor was a member of a country club that was I guess owned by Palmer's group or something, and he attended a big banquet type thing and Palmer was there. Turns out, they were actually seated at the same table. The doctor had brought the old high school invitation, and showed it to Mr. Palmer. He looked it over, read it, and being a sentimental man, his eyes welled up a little bit. He then joked to one of his people, "this guy's been with me longer than you have!" He thanked the doctor and signed the invitation again, so now this guy has a pretty awesome piece of memorabilia. A high school invitation with dual autographs from Arnold Palmer, 47 years apart. That's the kind of thing that probably just wouldn't happen anymore.

dak- we have a love/hate relationship, haha... But lately he's been arguing with me over ridiculous stuff that he's completely wrong on, sometimes even crazy stuff like mathematical laws that are indisputable. I think there's something else going on but that's another discussion. :) Anyway, he talks out of his ass a lot but on this one, I just wondered if there was some kind of proof I could show him. I didn't know if they had done a sports science thing or if any instructional videos have included any displays of precision or something. Specifically something about the short game and how they can make the same swing every single time.

In my experience at least 90% of the golfers I have ever been around keep their score incorrectly and/or "cheat" by improving their lies or taking gimmes, or all of the above. It's amazing how few people actually shoot what they claim they shoot.

I was showing my buddy (who thinks he knows everything) the Mickelson shot off the cart path. He was claiming that it was a lucky shot, and of course, knowing golf, I pointed out that for a guy like Mickelson, it wasn't luck. It was skill and he was confident in his ability to hit that shot. So my buddy asks how many times out of 10 would Mickelson hit a decent shot onto the green, and I said 10. And out of 100, I said, probably 97 or 98 would be on the green. Maybe 2 or 3 would have missed, but anyway, he's going to basically always execute that shot. He was also asking how many times out of 100 a guy like Mickelson could bottom out his club in an exact spot, and I said again, basically every single time. He thought I was incredibly stupid. So anyway my friend gets all worked up and high and mighty and telling me how stupid I am, but I am pretty sure I'm right. But I was looking around the internet to see if I could find any support. Anyone know of good links that have info on just how consistent and repeatable a pro's swing is?

Cool. I have played the Black 3 times. Once was two years ago, about a month after the Open. Then we played it again twice last summer. COMPLETELY different course from one year to the next. The year of the Open, the greens were perfect and the rough was unbelievable and the fairways were the softest I've ever seen. The following year, it was still amazing but you could tell they weren't spending the time and money that they had in the previous year. The rough was thin and short, not very penal. The greens weren't as nice. Hopefully they'll start having the Barclay's there every year and that will force them to keep the course in better shape year round. I've never played tournament golf, so for me, the most nervous I've ever been on a golf course was the first time I teed off on the first hole of the Black course. I couldn't even feel my arms. It's an amazing place. I'm hoping to find a way to go back this year. And in my opinion, it's worth it to have a caddy. We sprung for one all three times. Two of them were good, one was wasn't, but man, not having to carry anything as you walk around and having someone give you the yardages and help spot your ball is a huge benefit.

ttt

Any leads would be appreciated.

Thanks for the responses. Feel free to keep them coming. :)

I've tried that. I've tried just doing punch shots to at least get the impact squared up, and I'll be doing ok, but then I can't make a full swing out of it. Very annoying.

Honestly it's gotten so bad lately I'm not even sure what's happening. Another odd thing is that literally every day, I go out and my first 4 or 5 shots are good, and then comes the first bad one, and from there, it's gone and I don't hit another good shot the entire day. 3 or 4 buckets worth sometimes.

So I started S&T; a while back, and it went well for a while, and then a couple weeks ago something happened, and now I literally can't hit the ball. And I know sort of what's wrong, but I can't fix it. I've tried and tried. I have literally hit thousands of balls in the last 3 weeks, and I bet I've shanked 90% of them. So here's my issue. I don't know if I have over-taught my brain the importance of moving my hips forward and having a forward shaft lean, but long story short, I can not square the club face through impact. My shots are low dribblers that start right and slice right. I'm so desperate not to flip at the ball with my wrists that I find myself keeping my hands well forward at impact, but when I do that, my club is just staying wide open all the way through. Is the fix just as simple as doing a conscious rotation of my left forearm through the hitting zone?

The book is good. It has become the hip thing to rag on it and talk about how dumb it is. An old instructor was interviewed in Golf Digest last month (or maybe it was two months ago) and he said that that book kept him in business. The original poster in this thread is just copying that. Is Hogan's book the end-all authority? No, but it's a good book. It's helped many people.

"Not to mention I consider myself above avg athletism (4.5 40 35"vert)" 4.5? Seriously? I hope you played major D1 college football or basketball... And at 6'3" with a 35" inch vert, you should be able to do just about any dunk known to man. I am 6'0" and 10 years ago had about a 32 or 33" standing vert and could dunk like crazy, so at 6'3" with longer arms and a higher vert, you seriously should be doing two handed reverse windmills and stuff. So just curious, can you?

My goal is to shoot 75. Two years ago my goal was to break 90, and I did it with an 83, last year the goal was break 80 and I did- just once- with a 78 (on a par 70). So this year, however I can manage it, I want to shoot a 75 or less. That's it. No other goals.

Ok, so I FINALLY read this whole thread. I came to S&T; like many of you. I never made solid contact, and through lots of practice and a technical way of looking at things, I still gradually improved and got my index down to about a 12, but still knew I wasn't doing it right. I also noticed that I always seemed to make the best contact when I would do punch shots and really exaggerate the forward lean. So I would see the S&T; commercials and it really sounded intriguing, but like many people, I assumed that it was a fad b/c not many people used it, and a lot of people criticized it. Finally I decided to think for myself and do some research and decided that Mike and Andy are correct, THEY are the ones teaching it right. So I bought the book and DVD's. Got them about 2 weeks ago. Immediately noticed some good things, but still had some struggles with consistency at the range. Finally took my camera out and noticed two major flaws right away. VIDEO IS INVALUABLE. Without video I wouldn't have known that my hands were not going inside and that I was still swaying to the back, even while focusing on avoiding that. So with video helping me, I focused on really keeping my hands in and not wasting power by swaying any, and lo and behold, had the best range session of my life yesterday. Even the driver was long and straight. Struggled with the 3w and 5w, but everything else was going long, high, and mostly straight. Consistency was pretty good considering how new this stuff is for me. What I have found is that if you just do what they tell you to do, it will work. This is how most things tend to be. Just do exactly what the instructors say, and REALLY DO IT. And it will work. Sometimes that's easier said than done because you think you're doing it, and you're really trying, but video will show you that you're not doing it. So use that video camera, and be intentional about doing what they're telling you to do, and it will work. See, I was going to post videos of my swing and ask for advice, but once I filmed my swing and watched it, it was so obvious what was wrong that I was able to identify it and then really focus on it. So I didn't even bother posting. Not saying I won't in the future as the differences become smaller and harder to notice, but point being, when you can see your own swing and compare it to a "right" swing, it gives you so much more benefit. I have one more range session planned then I get to sort of test the new swing on a crappy pasture golf course on Friday, then a few more practices and then I get to play a real round at a nice course next week. Can't wait to see if I can take it to the course.

I'm making the switch to S&T.; I just ordered the DVD and book. I had always been intrigued by the commercials, the way they talked about how their method causes your swing to bottom out in front of the ball every time. That's always been my problem. Fat and thin shots, not very consistent. I had also noticed that my best shots were punch shots where I was really shifting forward and leaning the shaft forward. Well, after learning more about S&T;, I realized that is likely the swing for me. I got Foley's DVD first and some things in there immediately helped me, and then started going through some stuff from the official S&T; guys. Once I finally straightened my right leg on the backswing, my contact started improving. I've only really worked on it for one day, but I can tell this is going to be the swing for me. After seeing my swing on video last year I realized that a huge problem for me (and a big reason I don't hit it far) was that I'd sway my hips to the right on the backswing, then come over the top with my arms on the downswing. Weak slices, as you'd expect. Staying stacked over the ball keeps me from doing the hip sway and keeps me in a powerful position. It also makes it easier to swing from the inside. I have a long way to go, but for the first time, I feel like I know the swing for me, and that I know it will be consistent once I put some more time in. Very excited.

I just got the mine and watched it yesterday. For reference purposes, I'm about a 13 handicap who has broken 80 one time, I know next to nothing about S&T;, although from reading I've done on here I know that apparently Foley teaches a similar swing without calling it S&T.; So, all that said, I thought the DVD was just fine. It wasn't life changing, but it was good enough. I absolutely found it helpful. iacas is, in my opinion, being way too hard on it. It almost feels like you just have a personal thing against Foley. I don't know your history as I don't spend a ton of time on this board but it just seems like you're out to get him. You keep saying this DVD is basically worthless for the average golfer. Well, I'm an average golfer, and I have no history with S&T;, but I found it very helpful. Would I like more info? Definitely. But that doesn't mean I couldn't understand what he was talking about. He kept it simple. That's not a bad thing. Of course for some people, maybe they think it's inadequate. Some people also probably think it's great. I personally think it's pretty good. Point being, you can please some of the people all of the time, and you can please all of the people some of time, but you can't please all the people all the time. So just because he hasn't done the impossible (make a perfect production) doesn't mean it sucked. And yeah, I noticed the fact that he is funny with his words, throwing in extra words, sometimes using them wrong (I have a journalism degree so yes, I notice), but it's not that big a deal. I think most golfers, certainly myself included, watch a DVD like this because they want to get some helpful tips on how to swing a golf club. And maybe some drills. This DVD had both. For me, that's enough.

Bobby Clampett's book "The Impact Zone" is a great read, and the whole book is about making sure the low point of your swing is about 4 inches in front of the ball. Learning that took several strokes off my game.

There are tons. The best I've played and certainly recommend are Rio Secco and the TPC courses. Revere Lexington was also a great course. I am heading out in a few weeks and will get to play the Badlands and Paiute Wolf which I've heard are great too. But anyway, there are tons.

Just go the day before in the morning and walk up and take the first available twosome. There should be spots open. We played a few weeks ago two days in a row and we never had to camp out. Just walk up in the morning and take whatever afternoon tee time is available. There won't be a ton of choices but there should at least be a few.