Scott_K

Killer thread. I haven't read through the entire thread, so I apologize if this was already covered. While doing the right knee kick at address, am I suppose to feel my lower body start to "torque" up by the time the club head is about belt level on the takeaway ? Also, by the time I get to the top my upper left lat is really wound up. Is this what it's suppose to feel like ? When I did this, I felt restricted, but I can definitely feel the weight on the inside of my right foot instead of over my right foot at the top. I'm still able to make my 90 degree shoulder turn, but the top did not feel loose. The start of the downswing through finish feels fine. I feel like I have a smaller/compact overall arc. The dispersion was desirable aside from a few ugly swings. This was my first bucket of balls for the season, but I'd like to know if those tight feelings in the takeaway and the top are correct. Thanks, Scott

I'm probably in that same category. I am far more comfortable with the UP part. It's the down part I usually can't get right. I've been indoor putting all winter and can now read the breaks in my bedroom and hallway. I hope it translates a little on the course.

Depends on monitor. Golfsmith by me has some monitor that sits in front of you and takes 2 pictures. They told me that the spin numbers, launch angles, etc. were pretty accurate and said that they've had different customers claim that the distances (carry and roll) are touch and go by about 20 yards. I am longer on the course then what I saw on the monitor. I think the Trackman is the best out there if you have access to one. I might drive a couple of hours to get time on one. As Sean mentioned, compare with your own gear. Anyone know how these monitors account for different balls used ? Different compressions, etc. ?

I'm reading Stan Utley's "The Art of the Short Game" and finding some pretty good info. I've always played the open stance, open face and kind of cut across the ball from around the 50 yard mark. His approach with the weight on the front foot, pivoting and having little movement in the grip is very interesting to me (seems like most of you know this already). One of the problems that kind of shows up out of no where with the open stance method is an ugly shank. Utley's method seems to take that out of the equation....at least in theory. I'm dying to try this out because there's only so much chipping n pitching I can do indoors without breaking something. I can't comment too much on hinge and hold, but from what I know about it, I do it with uphill pitch shots and I'm pretty consistent with it. I have a bunch of different wedge shots I use that I've learned over the years by trial and error.

I am streaky with my driver as well. I turn my hips way to fast as mentioned above and end up blocking them out to the right (woods). Also, while doing some indoor drills, I noticed that my shoulders get a little out of line at address when I try to put the ball forward. The TM shafts are ridiculously long, so take a look at your alignment. I will admit that I had the black eye'd peas song "boom boom boom" in my head at the top of my backswing last year, so that didn't help. Someone posted this here last year. I found this article pretty interesting, since the majority (if not all) of my lost balls were off the tee. http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instr...sanders_gd0809 I think it's time for me to look into a 3 wood.

A lighter driver can increase your swing speed, but it won't help you rotate further. That comes with flexibility and fundamentals as mentioned above. Also, taking it farther back doesn't necessarily mean you'll hit it further. When I go past parallel, I'm probably less effiient with the torque I built up in my backswing.

I would just ask them at the counter when you first walk in. They probably have some protocol/paperwork/rules about bringing in your own equipment. Every store is different. The golf storess by me have a bin of drivers from the last couple of years. The folks at my Golfsmith are usually pretty nice. If you like the head on your 5900, switching the shaft is definitly an option as mentioned above. The UST ProForce V2 line is pretty popular as I've been toying with the same idea on and off. The shaft is a big factor on your trajectory. I'd try a few different brands around your budget. I think the '07 Taylormade burner is a good value ($150). I had a coupon last year which I don't think was suppose to work, but brought the '09 down to $170, so I just went with the '09.

My hands measures 7 1/2 and 3". I have original regular sized grips on the majority of my clubs. I have an oversized grip on my sw. It feels ok for my sw. I'm leaning towards some kind of midsized grip when I regrip my clubs for the season. I'm thumbing through a golfsmith clubmaking catalog and I see alot of weights shown. Any thoughts on grip weight ?

I'm totally diggin' Tour Tempo right now. It's showing me how my irons are pretty solid, but my driver backswing is too slow. Never thought I'd work on a faster backswing.

jlund, There was a thread here a few months back that recommended this place in CT. I know I'd benefit from a shaft change, so I might head up there if the things I'm doing in the offseason don't help me control my dispersion. http://www.sterlingfarmsgolfshop.com/page/554-22387.htm

Fair enough. I didn't give the Cleveland a fair try. I think it sounded a little off to me, but might have been one of the Nikes. Haven't tried any of the FTs, but the Diablo would have been my second choice. I didn't give the Titleists or R9s a fair try either mainly because of the price tag.

That's some sweet accuracy. I probably avg. like 4 or 5 per round last season with this new driver. I figured going to a stiff would help my dispersion, but the TM stiff doesn't seem to stiff. It's also only 49 grams, so it's light as a feather. Try it at a store for laughs, you'll probably hit it really long.

I believe you could. You should if you can maintain your accuracy. Long balls aren't that great in the woods.

I think I understood the initial post wrong. I was looking at distance of the hands to the body and thinking if there was one which is better. When they're too far away, the it looks like the golfer has to reach for the ball. Two extremes that come to mind are comparing someone like Furyk and Creamer. Furyk's hands are like hairs away from his body while Creamer looks like she's reaching for the ball. So this is how I'm interpretting this now. Looking down the line, my setup has an angle between the arms and shaft. However at impact, the left arm straightens out. I gather it straightens out because at impact, the body is starting to turn towards the target with the hands lagging behind in order to supinate the left wrist. At impact, the arms and shaft are now in a straight line (or close to straight). Does the left shoulder turning help get the arms and shaft to straighten out then ?

My arms are not inline with my shaft. I feel like I'm able to get more consistant contact and power when it's not inline. I go by the basic "get into my stance and let my arms hang" method. In doing this, the grip tends to fall naturally (maybe 6-8" from my body?). The torque generated from my body is most efficient this way. When I put the shaft inline, I have trouble finding a comfortable distance between the grip and my body which leads to inconsistent contact. I also feel like my arms have to work too much to generate power instead of using my hips, body, shoulders, etc. I don't know which is better or if there is a "better" one.

Thanks. I know I should get fitted. I bought my driver off the shelf last year just to get myself back into golf. They said that the indoor yardage was not that accurate, but the SS, ball speed, la were pretty close. It isn't a trackman, which is now something I'm reading up on as it seems to be the best out there. I may have to drive a couple hours to find a fitter who has a trackman and someone I'll feel comfortable with. I know my shaft is too light and feels a little on the "whippy" side. My current trajectory, or at least the one I aim for, is the penetrating flight out of the box with a mild rise to the apex, top out and then come down. I feel that is the most controlled shot I have when I hit it. They usually have a baby fade affect when I get a hold of it. I'm also rethinking my trajectory with the discussion going on in the "hitting up on the ball" thread. I don't remember what it looks like on the monitor.

Figured it wasn't that simple. Dang. I know I need to get fitted, but still reading up on that stuff. Very interesting as this is helping me understand my driver shot. Two main things I played around with last year was the tee height and ball position. Getting into this new world of 460 cc drivers, I had a number of people telling me I had to tee the ball higher because the face of the club was taller and the sweetspot was higher (My previous driver was a TM Burner bubble from the late 90s) So I did this last season for the sweetspot reason, but also to help me with the conventional wisdom of "hit up on the ball". The problem with this is it makes my tee shot go too high. When I tee it up a little lower, the ball has a more penetrating flight which leads me to believe my attack angle is flatter. The last time I checked, my launch angle was 9.8. Moving the ball forward in my stance. I feel like I'm reaching for the ball a little too much and not getting all of my power into the shot. Also, I'm noticing that my shoulder alignment is open at address when I have the ball to the left of my big toe. I caught my poor shoulder alignment a few times last year which explains some of my horrid shots off the tee. So I'm interpretting the ball position as negatively affecting my distance and dispersion. I lost an avg of 1.3 balls per round last year and ONLY with my driver.

How does this affect the overall flight of the ball ? When I'm hitting my driver well, I usually have 2 overall ball flights (or what I'm able to see). 1) My ball goes out about 1/3 of the way (piercing), then seems to rise and peak, then come down. 2) The ball just seems to go straight to the peak (without the rise) and then comes down. Does this suggest that I'm hitting slightly down or level in scenario 1 and slightly ascending in scenario 2 ?

I read some where that the burner irons and others manufacturers are bent a little on the strong side compared to irons from the 90s. I just looked out of curiosity and the burner 7 iron is 3 degrees stronger and a 1/4" longer than my 7 iron.......hmmmm my 7 iron is used for my 160 yard shots.....hmmmm If your current pings are +1.75" and you're going to go longer than a stock burner set, then that makes sense......grip it and rip it.

I agree, get your launch angle, spin rate and other numbers checked out. I didn't do a lot of research when picking out a driver. I hit a bunch of drivers and based my decision off the SS, carry and overall distance. I didn't know what the LA and spinrate numbers meant at the time. The Burner was producing the best results for me (longer and higher SS). After using the Burner for a season and researching, the overall shaft length and weight is probably why it was the driver with the highest SS/distance. I'm fairly pleased last season as I was able to fudge my driving by changing balls and adjusting my tee height to get my desired trajectory. I'm working on a few different things in the off season, so I'll wait until I can hit balls again to see if my changes are enough to tolerate my current shaft. So far the signs are that I need a heavier shaft to help control my dispersion. Since you're pumping your irons out there pretty far, I suspect you're missing yards with your current driver setup.

I got my version of tour tempo from amazon (book and cd). If I feel the need to buy more, I'll check out the website. I think the book and cd are pretty solid start. I'm about half way through it and finding some interesting things about my backswing. With my driver, my backswing is too slow. My 7iron is around that 3:1 ratio. I'm starting with the 27:9 sound track (21:7 just sounds insane right now). I've always been told that I have nice tempo, smooth swing, etc. The strongest part of my game is my ball striking with my irons, while my driving is streaky. There are a few parts where he talks about how a handful of swings by Tiger, Phil, etc were off by a few tenths of a second and it dramatically affected the outcome of their shits. I'm trying to do this indoors without damaging a ceiling fan, so there might be a subconscious block that's inhibiting my normal driver swing. I'm dying to go to the range and try this, but it's too freakin' cold in NY !

My irons still look pretty new. I played them for a few years after I bought them and then took a few years off until last season. I do have some marks, scratches here and there, but they're usually because I hit a rock or something. I have a ding in my 6i from a rock in a bunker. When my irons were new, I use to carry around an old iron for when I was in the trees or had some bad lie just because I didn't want to scar my irons. I clean my irons after every round with just water and a toothbrush.

I find the tempo of my 4i and 3i feel a little "lazy". I have a slightly different swing with those 2 clubs. It's more of a sweeping type swing with a shallow divot compared to my mid or short irons. I rely on the added length of the shaft to compensate for a "faster" swing feeling. Try this, put a long iron (or any iron) down on the ground and step on the club head so that the shaft and grip point up into the air. This will show you a rough trajectory of the ball. I don't think it's the actual trajectory, but I read it some where and found it interesting. It helps me convince myself that the ball will get airborne and gear my mind to the point of letting the clubhead do the work.

I don't have the book, but it sounds like he's talking about the takeaway. The significance of that is that it will help you get to the proper position at the top, so that the shaft is parallel to the target line. I've been studying AK's swing lately on youtube. There's one where they draw the lines to show his feet, knees, hips shoulders and eventually his shaft are all parallel to the target line. I'll have to see where he is when he hits this point of his takeaway. Interesting topic as I'm reading through Tour Tempo and this kind of jives with the Y drill. It's helped me realize that my shoulders get a little out of whack once in a while when I don't pay attention to my setup and takeaway.

The range I go to has the mats from the pic above. This helps when I work with my irons since it has a decent amount of give.