GamerJG

from what i saw, i would recommend shortening your backswing and not go past parallel. i would swing a little quicker but keep your tempo without overswinging. in other words, slower back, build that coil, then let it loose coming down without jerking the club down to begin the downswing. like a previous poster recommended, keep your left arm straight a little farther into your backswing which will probably restrict the length of your backswing(i believe this is a good thing). you said you tend to slice but hit some straight. your setup looked good, but your feet were aiming way right from my view. this is very common and can be corrected fairly quickly. i recommend a slight draw. aim slightly right of the target. keep your inside takeaway, and swing through on an outside path, with your face pointing just to the right of the target on the followthrough. a wide backswing arc and big shoulder turn are the key, build up a nice body coil going back, then just let the swing unwind and develop a lot of club head speed on the downswing while locating the back of the ball with your eyes. this will keep you from lifting up and not completing the release at the bottom. you'll stay down and through the shot and finish with your hands nice and high on the follow-through. good luck, your swing seems to have nice potential. hope this helps

i misunderstood, i saw the avg for the golf team +3.5, thank you.

you need to post a swing where you actually hit a golf ball to really be able to critique the swing. nobody swings the same with their practice swing. and if you are a +4 handicap, why do you want feedback from anyone on here? i'll be honest, i'm a little skeptical that you are a +4 but that doesn't matter. if you really are a +4, then i want your advice. from what i saw on your practice swing, i see a lot of swaying back and through.

absolutely. i have the tendency to sometimes not make a good shoulder turn which makes it more of an arm swing and more upright. making the good shoulder turn is one of my major swing keys.

sometimes that happens to me on the course if i'm paired up with people that distract me. a couple times this season i went to the course swinging great, then when i'd play with a couple people that were either rushing me or having no course etiquette(hitting out of turn, talking during swing etc.). i just couldn't concentrate and completely lost my swing and got frustrated. i tried like crazy to ignore it and find my swing again but nothing worked. it really was strange that would affect me so much. golf is such a game of great concentration and i understand when players need complete silence and people to stand still. any little thing could throw you off.

my favorite was hammock creek in palm city, fl. i played it when it first opened many years ago. it's a jack nicklaus design and was beautiful to play. the courses i want to play someday are pebble, bethpage, sawgrass, and muirfield village. augusta would be great but i don't think that will ever happen.

i would just keep it clipped on my belt...when you use it, just clip it back on. you won't lose it unless your pants come off lol.

2 eagles: 1st one was a hole-in-one my first year playing on a short par 3. second was a chip in from right in front of the green on a par 5. hope there are many more to come! they feel so great.

i have the same type of swing as you(inside-out, slight draw) and i have this problem on occassion. i would guess that for those sporatic swings, you just were standing too close to the ball or just not watching the club to the ball(i do this all the time if i don't make myself). you can fix that very easily by checking your set-up position and start to focus on the back of the ball when you start your downswing. good luck

i would have to guess that your deep divots are caused by one these things: 1- you have to fix your grip and make it weaker. 2- you have to check your whole set-up to the ball, stance, ball position, body alignment. 3- your swing plane is too steep and need to have a flatter swing. try these things and it should solve this problem. it is good to take a divot, it's much better than trying to pick the ball off the turf but just make some adjustments to make the divot shallower. good luck!

those are great tips, thanks.

one thing you can check is that you are not slumping over your shoulders. instead you tilt your spine down by bending at the waist to where your arms are hanging down comfortably. to check your posture, you can get into your address position and take your right hand off the club. while hanging it should meet right below your left hand on the grip if it is correct.

that's great that teeing the ball lower helped you. if you are trying to hit a nice slight draw, that works really well for every club but the driver. some even like to tee it lower with the driver but i'm not a believer in that. the reason is that with most drivers today alot of the "sweet spot" is in the upper part of the clubface. i like to tee to where half the ball is above the clubhead. that way you can launch the ball with a nice higher trajectory and get a lot of carry. but everyone is different and that may not work for them.

i use ball position depending on which length club i'm hitting. i use reference points on my upper body because some people have different width stances. i stand about shoulder width apart 7in or so with all clubs except driver which is about 9in. then to position the ball, with short irons i play off my left eye, with longer irons, off my left ear, with fairway woods, off the inside of my left arm, driver outside my left shoulder. if you widen your stance, it gives you more lateral movement and you get more leverage and speed of the clubhead during the downswing. but this can restrict your backswing and make it more difficult to make an inside-out type swing to hit a slight draw. this system i use is from noel thomas who wrote a book called "golf swing master key" which i use and recommend so i don't want to pass his research off as my own. i just really believe in it. if you narrow your stance too much, it will limit your balance and you probably won't get as much clubhead speed.

i've been fighting my grip ever since i started playing golf. it doesn't feel comfortable until you just work at it over time. i have the tendency to let my left hand creep to right and get stronger but i know this and i have to fix it occassionally. every instructor or pro i ever heard of advises against a 10 finger grip. i tried an interlocking grip after that and i didn't like it either. i use an overlocking grip, which locks the right pinky in between the index and middle knuckles of the left hand and that works for me. so as long as you are hitting it great now, then stick with what you're using now.

i just watched phil mickelson's "secrets of the short game" and he talked some about this in his putting section. it's something i never really thought about. i think he said you have to get the putter to where it has 4 degrees of loft at impact to get the optimum roll. he also said that the critical part of putting was getting the clubface pointing directly on line together with your hands through and toward the target after impact. easier said than done huh?

a "thoughless swing" sure would be nice. i surely haven't gotten there yet. i see pros that still have swing triggers in their practice swing. look at mike weir, he makes that inside trigger move right before he hits a shot. it's amazing how you can really never take fundamentals for granted in this game. i guess thats what gets us all hooked. we feel there's always something we could work on the next day and it keeps our mind interested.

from what you are saying, i wouldn't recommend what he is telling you. i believe most of your power comes from creating a wide arc on the takeaway with a big shoulder turn, then a nice lag when you start the downswing coming down on a steeper angle then you made on the backswing. it's like you are coiling your body on the backswing, then letting gravity unwind your body on the downswing creating a lot of force and clubhead speed. when you create this wide arc and big shoulder turn on the backswing, the momentum should automatically make your wrists hinge at the top without any conscious effort on your part. as for the grip, i don't recommend a 10 finger grip. it's funny, i actually used it when i first started playing because it felt comfortable to me but it isn't the way to go. don't get down about feeling uncomfortable with your new clubs. with practice time, you will get much more comfortable with them, especially when you get some good thoughts with them after great shots. also, i noticed you are really taking in alot of different tips to improve your game quickly so you can make a team. remember, stick to one method that works for you, then tweek around that. if you're thinking about too many swing thoughts at once, you may not get the results you're looking for. keep it simple, just let it fly. good luck

i've had some of the same problems ryan. i used to fade the ball with inconsistent results. some days i hit it like a pro but found it hard to time it and repeat. so i changed my swing completely from outside-in fade to inside-out slight draw. i was hitting it great but sometimes i would have the same slight over the top hook. i saw a tip that i'll share with you that could help. first off your body alignment may be off so constantly check that. second, if you want to hit a slight draw(couldn't tell by your post if you are trying for a draw or fade) focus on hitting the inside quadrant of the ball(left side if you are looking from behind the ball) with a inside-out swing and follow-through with your clubface pointing slightly right of your target. if you have that push high ball to the right, then do the opposite, right quadrant of the ball. i think it could also be that you body alignment is off. maybe your feet and shoulders are lined up to different spots and you are conpensating for that during your swing to fix it subconsciously. try to make sure everything is lined up to the same spot with your feet maybe lining up a slight bit open. try to experiment with this on the range but don't hit to many balls with your driver consecutively because when you get fatigued, your swing will start to go all over the place. try to switch between a high lofted club for some then driver then high loft club, back and forth. then you will start to swing the same with both. let us know if you figure it out, hope it helps.

the first thing that came to mind was your shaft may not be right for you but you have a stiff shaft so that isn't the problem. i would think maybe your ball position is too far forward or you have a different swing plane when hit the driver. when i'm hitting the ball perfectly, i have a slight draw with all my clubs but the driver. i'll occassionally hit a draw with the driver but not when i'm hitting it perfectly. when i really catch the driver solidly, i have a straight ball or slight fade. it is very strange and hard to know which flight to align for. i'd recommend experimenting with your ball position and check your body alignment with the driver. also mess around with the height you tee the ball. you might find that if you tee it higher or lower, it may fix the problem.

he does talk about all the differents lies and its one of the best parts of the dvds. for each lie, he tells you step by step how to hit the shots with slo-mos to show you. i love the fact that with the dvds, they include a booklet with all the lessons in outline form that you can bring to the range or the course for easy reference. i recommend you pick up this dvd, i got it on ebay new for $10.

i just watched it today and what a great instructional dvd! it reminds me of "golf my way" by jack that was the first video i used when i started to play golf. i've always been a big phil guy but i was impressed with how he was able to teach what must have taken him a lifetime to learn. he made everything seem so easy to understand and i'd never get this information without this. NO ONE teaches the short game like this. go get this dvd now!!

i agree with you to a certain extent. i think of maybe a handful of thoughts that i know are the right ones for my swing. but when it comes down to it, you have to just swing the club and hit the shots without too much thought. it's like you are mentally disabling your body which makes it impossible for you to make a correct swing. but i do believe you have to think of certain body parts or "triggers" for your swing and everyone is different. the problem with learning everything by feel is that you can lose your mechanics and it will take a lot longer to fix just with feel. with feel, you may not even realize your mechanic are faulty. i think its a combination of feel, mechanics, and not overthinking. isn't this game fun?

absolutely, there are great pros that hit fades. actually they can work the ball either way with great results. but from my experience, most average to below avg players naturally hit fades that become slices. a big slice will kill your game. as you know, when you read articles and instruction, most of what you hear is, "how do i fix my slice". this can be fixed immediately by simply playing for a slight draw. there is no one right way to swing but i find that a draw is the simplest and most easy to control swing. we are not arnie palmer, lol. i played a fade for years with inconsistent results and had trouble with alignment all the time. the timing was just too difficult for me to repeat without hours and hours of practice time. the draw takes much less practice time to see consistent results.

honestly i don't recommend this swing path. i'd recommend the opposite, an inside-out plane which will create a slight draw. this is an easier shot to control which should give you the consistency you are looking for. good luck. ps-you might not be taking it back as outside as you think. if you take the club back lower to the ground and widen you swing arc it may just feel more outside when in actuality it's not. try to get video of your swing from behind and see if this is the case. taking the club back lower while getting good extension but slightly to the inside is the way to go imo.