Antneye

After months of struggling with the driver I finally got it going off the tees and had a 46-47 split yesterday. Only 1 penalty stroke and no triples on the day. Putting killed my chances of getting into the 80's (course is known for its tough greens). Best round I've had in a couple of months.

This smells of a thinly veiled brag to this short and dumpy 50 year old 🙂

Welcome!! You came to the right place for game improvement. Don't be bashful. Start a swing thread and hop right in!

I wouldn't call this a drill, but I can share what I do when it comes to putting. I am a horrible reader of greens, but my speed control seems to be a strength of mine. When I putt before a round I spend very little time trying to hole putts. What I do is try to find the flattest section of the putting green and then I simply putt different back-swing lengths. My default lengths are back to my right instep, about halfway to the instep, and to the back of my right foot. I take note of the length of each putt and then adjust my distances based on how far/short they are rolling. Since I try to stick to a pendulum approach (equal distance back and through) this helps me to controls speed. Once I have a feel for backswing length to distance I try to sink a few putts of varying lengths. On a typical paced green a backswing to my right instep is around 16-18' for me. On slower greens it might be 13-15, or 19-22. I adjust accordingly and pace every putt off. Seldom do I find myself blowing a ball well past the hole or way short. Breaking in the proper direction? That's a whole different story 😞 Your distances will likely vary based on your overall stroke, but I think it is important to baseline these things to help you out on the course.

One other thing of note related to my swing. When I was looking at my recent videos I noticed that my right instep was slightly lifting off the ground at the top of my back-swing. My amateur diagnosis was that I was getting my weight on to the back side of my right foot rather than loading it on the instep of the right foot. I stayed very conscious of this and tried to feel that weight on the instep and then push off that instep on my downswing. The result, I think, was that I was able to get my hips moving towards the target rather than simply rotating and spinning out which typically leads to big pulls for me. I felt that my swing was much more in to out and I was hitting very nice draws or balls that started a tick right and tended to come back a bit rather than slicing out to the right. On the day I hit only a couple that were wide right and both of them were blocks where I just never got my hands to the ball. This was my most enjoyable round of golf in months and I feel like I am back on track. Who knows what my next round will bring, but I feel so much more confident right now. I can't thank everyone enough for the help that I have received through this thread.

Definitely sticking with both feet flared. My center pivot was the best it's ever been today.

Ended up going 47-46. Would have accomplished the no 7's challenge for the first time ever if not for a blocked drive on the par 5 18th. I needed to chip in from about 50 feet to save bogey and ended up lipping out but made a 7 footer coming back to save double. The greens on this course are very difficult. If not for the greens I would have got into the 80's. Best consistent contact I've made in ages!

Thanks for the help guys. I'm sitting on 11 with a three group backup on a par three but just played my best nine in a while. Bogey golf is my goal for now and I shot 47on the front (which is the tougher of the two nines). No idea what the back will be like, but my ball striking is the best it's been in months and I am keeping the driver in play so far. I'm very focused on my steady head. Working in the axis Tilt and its been working well. Only gripe was two skied balls.... Might have to lower my tees a bit. Only one pull and one very unlucky bounce on a drive that was slightly pushed up the right side but should have had a better result.

@Bob Mac pretty much all of the above. I mix it up between hozel hits, toe hits, and dead on the sweet spot. Results are either pushes, slices, pulls, snap hooks or dead on down the middle. I think the inconsistency in the head movement is the main culprit.

I'm very familiar with that thread, but I'll go back and reread it. I do a lot of mirror work already and it looks good in the bathroom while I'm waiting for the water to get hot, but put a club in my hand on the course and my head just starts going down and forward at the top of my backswing. I'm convinced that is the reason for the wild variation in my driver. Every other club is passable for me to become a consistent 80's golfer. Even if I put the driver in the bag I have the same issues off the tee with any club regardless of how good I can hit it off the deck.

@boogielicious thanks. Your pic of my FV at the top captures exactly what I'm asking about in relation to my left knee. I know it needs to add flex in the backswing, but is it breaking down too much? I feel this is why my head is moving so much towards the ball.

Yes. His ball flight section is absolute rubbish. I think he may have edited it in some of his later work.

I skipped ahead and will come back and read the rest of this debate when I have more time. I just want to say that there is nothing wrong with taking snippets from multiple sources when working on your swing. I am a big fan of the work of @iacas and the rest of the folks on this board. I also happen to like Paul Wilson's work. I don't, for a second, think that my arms are dead when I swing. However, the feel that Wilson describes is one that helps me not to start the swing with my arms. That feeling of "leaving my arms behind when I start the downswing" has helped me to smooth out my transition and get less OTT. That coupled with the great info on this site has helped me to swing the club better than I ever have even if I am still struggling with my score (predominantly due to my driver as can be seen in my swing thread) Bottom line IMHO is that you can learn from multiple sources each with different teaching methods. Wilson's books are built around a feel (or marketing concept), but most of what he teaches is very similar in terms of grip, posture, etc. I don't think that detracts at all from the more technical instruction we get here. I am very technical, so while swing machine helped me it just wasn't enough to get me over the learning hump. But I certainly was helped by his instruction.

I am extremely frustrated with how backwards my results have gone, but before I get into the new swing I am posting a reference for where I started out and I think we can see clear progress. I need to look at the progress just to keep myself sane and know that I am making improvements. For the most recent swings I need to point out that I had not yet started working on the Axis tilt that @iacas mentioned because I had not yet seen his post. I will definitely be working on that and also re-reading the driver thread. Here are the things I see. Advice, as always, is welcome. Head: For the life of me I cannot stop the head moving forward and down towards the top of my backswing. I do repeated wall drills but it never translates to having a club in my hand. My left knee: I know I need to have my right leg straighten and the left leg start to flex, but I think I am overdoing the left leg and it is a major culprit in my head going down. Thoughts? I just saw Iacas answered another Q of mine asking for a drill on this with the suggestion of putting a stick against it....I assume we mean a stick pressed up against my forehead? Sorry, not visualizing this. OTT: I still see a hint of over the top, but I think it is vastly improved. Hands: I use to be leading with my arms in a major way and getting them out in front of everything. It seems improved. Anyone have any thoughts? Why am I so inconsistent still? How do I fix that damn head?!?! Original Now:

I did a search for wall drill and landed here but I could have sworn there was a wall drill thread to combat your head moving forward and down towards the ball. This is something that I have been working on for over a year and cannot eliminate from my swing even with repeatedly doing this exact drill (only with my head starting about a quarter inch away from the wall). I can do it just fine with my arms across my shoulders (my head never hits the wall as i come through my turn to the finish). but a golf club in my hand and I am still darting down and towards the ball (although not nearly as bad as seen in my first swing thread post) Is there any other drill out there to help eliminate my head going forward?