unoiron

Whenever I play with a really strong left wrist I tend -if anything- to hood the club too much at impact. A push is definitely not the problem. So... could it be that your push isn't grip related but something else? Maybe your blocking?

Sounds like you have a pull hook, which is different than a hook. A pull hook will occur when you come over the top with the club face hooded at impact. The ball will start left and then hook like crazy. If you keep your arms in front of your chest on the backswing, downswing, at impact, and on the follow through, you should start coming into the ball from inside to square. There is a drill called the 9 to 3 that, if done correctly, can greatly improve ball striking and get the club face moving on the right path.

I highly recommend committing yourself to lessons. What might take you years to figure out a golf pro can tell you in two minutes. I would suggest you find a pro you trust and do pretty much anything he/she says, no matter how strange or awkward it feels. Pretty soon it will start feeling "normal" and you'll be hitting it better than ever. I'm working with a pro right now and seeing lots of improvement. There are days when my swing seems to fall apart, but after some time on the range the pro will get me straightening back out and my understanding of the golf swing only strengthens. A one step back, two steps forward process.

If you are making a full shoulder turn, getting your arms back that extra 1/4 is not going to make a significant impact on distance. But, having said that, I think this might be what is happening: When you make a 3/4 swing your arms are probably still out in front of your chest, where they should be. When you try to go that extra 1/4, you are bringing your left arm flat across the front of your chest, so that it would cover any writing across the chest of your t-shirt. In order to make good contact, consistently, you need those arms back in front of your chest forming a triangle at impact. So that if you swing that extra 1/4 and bring your left arm flatter across your chest, you need to get it back out in front of your chest before you start turing your chest (arms out in front of it) down through the ball. It's a timing issue. When you're going for that extra 1/4 your arms aren't out in front of your chest at impact; they're either out ahead of your chest or, most likely, lagging behind. Hope this helps.

About his PW being 45 degrees... I think that is a very good point. His 3 iron is only slightly stronger than a traditional 3 iron (21 instead of 23 degrees) but his PW is 5 degrees stronger. In all honesty, it's a 9 iron with an extremely low center of gravity that helps it achieve PW height. For his skill level, 202 yards for a 3 iron is pretty damn good. And there are plenty of scratch golfers who hit their 3 iron 200ish. Which means it's accuracy, not length that accounts for his handicap.

I've worked hard to develop a setup that produces a natural draw and allows me to play a fade when its called for. Every once in a while (like today) I'll start fading everything. It's not a bad shot, it'll still hit my target, but it's definitely unintentional. Unintentional shots, no matter how good, drive me nuts. That's when I've got to go through my checklist to see what's off. Today I was getting pretty lazy with my shoulder turn (it was 48 degrees and I was wearing multiple layers), and this almost always has a tendency to make me hit it left to right as I come into the ball square to inside as opposed to inside to square. If you make a good shoulder turn it makes it a lot tougher to slice the ball. I think as you get better you'll develop these checklists and will be able to self-correct.

I don't understand your poll.

The one thing I've learned is that what I think I'm doing is not necessarily what I'm actually doing. I've also learned that consistent instruction is incredibly important. Cobbling bits a pieces together from various magazine articles - written by different instructors with different swing theories - can really mess you up. I'm through with struggling; a teaching pro was definitely the way to go for me. We'll see who gets down to scratch faster!

What do you mean by "know" your swing? Don't you really only know a 12 handicap swing?

I tried to self-teach myself for ten years. The best I could do was low 80s with a rare round in the 70s. I'm not sure why I resisted taking lessons for so long. Sheer stubbornness or stupidity. Anyways, once you find a good pro who strikes it pure, my advice is this: Do anything he/she says. Don't question it. Don't fight it. Don't get frustrated and start reverting back to your "old" swing or trying some new tip you read in a magazine. In fact, stop reading or watching anything instructional until you've ingrained your new mechanics. You're going to ask yourself, "Can this be right? Is this guy some kind of kook? Is he just messing with me?" Maybe, but just keep doing it with the thought in mind that whatever you were doing before sure as hell wasn't working. Then start hitting it pure.

If you have your irons dialed in enough to know that you hit your 3 iron 202 yards, you should be at least a 10 handicap. This wasn't a helpful comment.

I fly my MP-14 6 iron 180 with DG X100 shafts.

Yikes. I wouldn't be so quick to start calling people idiots. I have a hard time believing you went to law school. If you did, you'd probably know that under FRE 408 and 409, any evidence of a payment to settle a claim or for medical expenses is inadmissible . You'd also know that most states model their rules of evidence on the federal rules, i.e., it's not getting in.

I don't know of a single jurisdiction that would allow this to come in as evidence. OP, if you're concerned, please seek real legal advice.

As someone who went to law school, I'm enjoying the responses in this thread! I think everyone intuitively has the right answer (although they've arrived at it with the wrong reasoning). If a hypothetical situation like this had popped up on my torts exam during my first year of school, I would have run through a couple of pages of analysis before coming to the conclusion that Defendant Duffer was probably not liable. Edit: I am most definitely not giving legal advice. Laws vary by state, yada, yada, yada...