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It's strange.. When I overanalyze my swing and try to use "good fundamentals", I actually have a much slower swing speed. When I was just hammering away at the ball, I was pretty swinging as hard as I could... That's part of the reason I'm so frustrated.. It just seems completely backwards!

You could not be any more wrong.

I went to the driving range today and got a 70-ball bucket. I stretched, took some practice swings, and then put a single golf ball down on the grass. I took out a 7 iron, and got myself into the "correct" posture. I put the "correct" grip on the club, and tried keeping everything I had learned about a good golf swing in the back of my mind: twisting my hips on the backswing while refraining from swaying, keeping my left arm straight, bending my wrists, pushing my weight forward on the second half of the swing, turning my hands over, finishing with my chest to the target, etc. I hit the ball fat and created an embarrassingly large divot. The ball sent a powerful shock wave up the club and to my hands. I clearly didn't make good contact. The ball went about 70 yards out and 30 yards to the right. The ball's maximum height was about 25 feet. I took another ball and tried something slightly different. Again and again, I failed to make good contact. Each time, the ball would send a painful shockwave to my hands to remind me just how bad of a swing I just took. This has happened to me so many times in the past few months that I already knew what was about to happen: I was pretty much going to waste an hour and a half of my time hitting the last 60 balls fat, only to destroy the grass and walk away with a lot of pain from all of the shockwaves that travel to my wrists after bad shots. So... I decided to forget everything and hit the last 60 balls as fast as I could so I could get out of there and go home. I took out a 9 iron, and just swung the way a 6 year old who has never played golf would. I just hit it. I think somebody up there was mocking me, because the ball went at least 5 times as high and about 160 yards out, perfectly straight. I got even more frustrated.... I started lining up 5 balls at a time and just started hacking at them as hard as I could. I would start the shot still in motion from the previous shot, WAY off balance with a terrible grip, not worrying about my lower body at all, and not caring about anything. Believe it or not, about 95% of the shots went perfectly straight and 160 yards out... The balls were going so high and took so long to come down that at any given moment, there were at least 3 balls in the air. I made no divots, and I didn't even feel the golf ballsev coming off of the club head on any shots.. It felt like a hot knife cutting through butter. It felt exactly like an iron shot should. So... What in the world should I do? It's REALLY frustrating knowing that I have the ability to hit a 9-iron 160 yards 20 times in a row, but not have ANY idea what is causing it... And even more frustrating is the fact that the more effort I put into developing a correct swing, the more I find that I can't hit the ball at all. I can't even tell you what my swings were like. I bet that my head swayed about a foot and that my left arm was bent about 40 degrees. Sure, it was a bad swing, but it was my body's natural bad swing. And for some reason, I hit the ball better than I have ever done in my entire life. Has this ever happened to anybody before? Anybody have any idea what could have caused this? I'm very confused and even more frustrated... PS: Sorry if there are any spelling mistakes. I'm frustrated and can't really get myself together to fix anything..

He's also selling X-22 Tour irons. Buyer beware!

That's definitely fake, then. 3 new and unreleased clubs for $1?

Gah. I'm so sick of being terrible at this game. I've put the driver/woods aside to work on the fundamentals. I might be going on a trip to Arizona with my girlfriend soon, so I need to be able to keep up with others on the course. I've been working on my grip for the past few days. I only mishit about 3 balls at the driving range today (out of 70), but I'm still not seeing the results that I want. I hit a few good 150-yard 7-iron shots, but for the most part, it was a really frustrating day. Most of my iron shots went to the right about 40 yards. They don't slice or fade, though. It's just my aim... The most frustrating part is that I'm simply not making good contact with the ball. I thought that a correct grip would fix that, but it didn't. I don't get that clean and crisp feel that I used to get with my irons. Like somebody else said, I think my best bet is going in to get some lessons.

140, but I'm brand new to the game. Uniflex shaft.

I went to the driving range again today, and I was hitting the driver a lot further (not necessarily better, though). Apparently, the plastic tees at the range were too high for me. I used my own tees this time, and the ball flew a lot better. How high should the ball be teed up? Thanks to all!

Let me answer all of the questions that have been posted so far: upah: My irons are Callaway X-18R with steel uniflex shafts. They're quite comfortable for me. I sometimes go to Sports Authority, but I generally don't try out their clubs because I know that I wont end up buying from them I want to support the local sports shop, but I can find much better deals online, and I feel guilty walking in there and "using" their resources. lobsterzilla: Ya... If it only costs $20, I'll definitely look into it, then. I'm just self conscious about my swing because I'm so new to the game =( SQ Bimmer: Haha. Ya.. As you can tell, I'm kind of sticking with Callaway for no particular reason other than that my girlfriend plays them. You really think that the 3/5 woods of the same model in a stiffer shaft will play differently for me? To be honest, I couldn't believe that I was hitting the 7-wood 200 yards! Over the past few months, I've been practicing so many aspects of the swing with absolutely terrible results. Somebody came up to me yesterday at the driving range and told me that my hands should be in front of the ball. I don't exactly know how, but it made all the difference.. I went from hitting the 7-wood 100 yards with a slice to 200 yards. I couldn't even make good contact with the 4-iron until today, and I was hitting it 150 yards with 3/4th of a swing. Granted, I bet that everybody on this forum can do that, but it was really exciting for me to actually see results and consistency! That's actually how I found the X-18R's. My girlfriend started handing me a bunch of 7-irons to try, and the X-18R's "just felt right".

I meant that I'm trying to find enough clubs so I'll have a full set I already bought X-18R Callaway 4-PW irons, and they work really well for me. If I were to buy woods right now, I'd definitely get 3 and 5 Great Big Bertha ii woods from Callaway Preowned. I'd buy them in regular flex, but don't really have a justification for that other than that I'm an average height male. I love the feel I get with my girlfriend's 7-wood. If I were to buy a driver, I'd get a "matching" Great Big Bertha ii Driver in regular flex. As before, I can't justify this as I've never actually hit this driver. I just like the feeling of the matching woods :)

I've been "playing golf" for about 3 months. I try to get in a session at the driving range once or twice a week, and I play a small par 3 course every few weeks. I've only been on a real course once. I'm trying to build up a set, a semi-reliable swing, and some confidence so that when I do go out, I wont slow down the pace too much :) For the most part, my hitting up to this point was incredibly inconsistent, and quite disappointing. After making some VERY necessary (and very rudimentary) adjustments to my swing, I got myself down to the driving range to try out my luck earlier today. My hitting has improved immensely once I made the change, and I'm really excited about it. However, I noticed something really strange. I consistently hit the 7-wood about 200 yards, with no noticeable slice or hook. The ball felt good coming off of it. With the driver, however, I could only hit the ball 150 yards, and it was horribly inconsistent. I would pop the ball straight up (~90 yards) a third of the time, hit a straight shot (~150 yards) a third of the time, and hit a slice the rest of the time. Now... Both the 7-wood and the driver are my girlfriend's, so they're clearly not optimized for my swing. The 7-wood is a Callaway Great Big Bertha ii Fairway wood with a ladies flex shaft, and the driver is an old Cleveland Launcher 460 CC with a senior flex. Here lies my problem.. I'm trying to build my first set of clubs, and I don't know what shafts I should go for. I can't really afford a club fitting, so that's not an option. The results at the driving range imply that I should be using a ladies shaft However, the driver, which had a stiffer shaft, felt more "wobbly" than the wood did, so I wasn't really sure what to make of that. Anybody have an explanation for this? What shaft should I try looking at? My irons are uniflex, and they work pretty well for me. That just adds to the confusion, though Thanks!

Hmmm... Interesting. That's actually a wonderful way to explain it. I didn't think of it that way. The swing that Iuse (now that my hands are further up in my swing) feels a lot more natural, so that's good to hear. Thanks!

First, I'm completely new to golf. I've been hitting around for a few months, but hadn't had any lessons yet. I was hitting at a driving range today, and a nice gentleman offered me some advice. He told me that I had a nice athletic stance, a nice grip, and that I rotate nicely... However, he said that my hands, my head, and the ball were all in the same plane. He told me that my hands should be in front of the ball, and my head should be behind the ball. I made the adjustment, and he was nice enough to give me a few balls to try it out with. After the adjustment, my swing feels a lot more natural, and I hit the balls more consistently. I tried the new swing out with a pitching wedge and a 7 iron. My distance with the pitching wedge didn't increase, but the height is completely different. With the new swing I was trying out, the ball goes 3-4 times higher than it did before... I also made nice contact with the 7 iron and hit it 150 yards out pretty straight, which has never happened to me before. I know it sounds lame, but I still haven't found comfort in hitting any irons until now. So here are my questions.. First, why have I never heard of this before? It seems like the kind of thing you tell somebody who is trying to hit a golf ball for the first time, and not somebody who has been messing around with the game for so long... Is this a generally accepted way to set up your stance? Secondly, how far in front of the ball should my hands be? My hands were about 3 inches in front of the ball, and my head was about 2 inches behind the ball. Thirdly... In every video of Tiger Woods I see on Youtube, his hands are behind the ball. Does he do this for the driver only, or for all of his clubs? Sorry if this question is the equivalent of asking what 1 +1 is on a graduate level mathematics forum, but it seems pretty important. Thanks!

Correct serial numbers do not guarantee authenticity, especially lately. Real serial numbers are easy enough to get a hold of nowadays. Plus, the one iron with the serial number could be real, and the rest of the set could be fake. I went through the same thing with my new X-18R's that I got off of Ebay. Fortunately, the X-18R's are just cheap enough that I don't think counterfeiters even bother faking them. The irons that I got off of ebay didn't feel as good as the irons that I tried at the store because I'm extremely new to golf, and my swing changes from day to day. When I do manage to swing correctly, I do get that feeling that struck with me when I tried the irons at the store. Honestly, I'd definitely look into the matter a little deeper. I can see how you could have a few bad swings here and there, but if you didn't feel the same way at all (not even once), then something is wrong. I don't know about Mizuno, but Callaway irons can be sent to a factory where they are checked for authenticity. Check to see if Mizuno does the same thing. Good luck!

Keep the chipping net and the other net. The other stuff is kind of a waste.