Titleism

I'd go with club designer, it'd be pretty cool to be in the shoes of Bob Vokey or Cameron.

Work on your takeaway to keep the club on a proper swing plane. Image #5 Mark posted above is a great resource, work on your takeaway until your club is in the same position as the yellow line he drew pointing directly away from your target. This is what they mean by adding extension, or elongating your swing...plus it puts you on plane! If you rewatch your DTL video, the position of the clubhead during takeaway is INSIDE the plane coming back down. To be a more consistent golfer, you want to reverse this. The plane coming down into the ball should be slightly inside the takeaway plane...or very close to it. This is why I'm pointing out pic #5 because if you can get in that position at that point in your takeaway, you're halfway to success. Try to visualize this concept in your waggle. Always happy to see new excited golfers, best of luck!!

Glad to see your enthusiasm! If I may make one suggestion, since you seem to be a baseball player type I would try to think about the golf swing being more like pitching or throwing a baseball rather than swinging a bat. It is no coincidence that pitchers who throw 95+ mph have a sweet and slow windup like a takeaway, and use their body to hurl the ball using their arm as leverage. It is similar to golf in that you use your body to hurl the clubhead using clubhead lag as leverage to multiply power. Best of luck and swing easy!

Back nine with Paula Creamer would be my pick.

How far do you usually hit 4 iron? You'd mentioned 240 driver and 185 3H I'd guess 175-180ish for 4iron. 60 yd gap can be substantial, but just play your game and things will develop the more you practice and play. Obviously there are a lot of factors involved here...but my initial response is to ask if you're trying the FW off deck with ball more in the middle of stance and/or weaker grip? If you do tee-up a 3 or 5 wood tee it up low like an iron, not super high like a driver. Something to think about nonetheless, and taking a lesson or three is a great idea IMO. Swing easy, good luck.

9. buying their own equipment

/thumbs-up. Nice post OP! Lol, that's just priceless. :)

nice vid Steve. It helps me to think there are 2 separate arcs being created, one on the backswing and another on the downswing. The lowest point on the downswing arc is several inches past the ball, which is why divots come after ball contact and full extension occurs after ball contact. It also means you're hitting down on the ball, one of the secrets to consistency and control.

Were you hitting on a mat or on grass at the range? Tee'd up driver?...or iron? If a mat, you think you were hitting them fat? To expand on left hand pronating, I tend to hit shots off to the right if I pronate my left hand too much on the takeaway. This means an opening clubface on the takeaway, and requires great timing to square the club on impact. If I try to keep the clubface a bit more closed on the takeaway (ie. more square to the swingplane), it straightens out my shots without having to worry so much about timing the release properly. During the takeaway when the shaft is parallel to the ground, an open clubface will have the toe pointed straight upwards. Try playing around with the amount the left hand turns to the right (pronation) on the takeaway vs not turning your hand at all (to varying extremes and see what happens). Also, if you're hitting on mats, it'll be more difficult to figure out what went wrong since there aren't divots to examine.

Do you know if you're possibly making ball contact with the hosel at impact? If not, I suggest paying attention to the amount of left hand pronation going on in the takeaway.

I think this is a great question with really good responses. Golf is difficult, no question about it. As with anything difficult, you get out what you put into it. It looks easy, a lil white ball that doesn't move, swing a club...right? Wrong! Let's take bowling for example. Seems easy, roll a ball down a lane and get all the pins down. Watching it on TV is like a joke because it seems so easy. Seriously though, how often will a beginner, or even an amateur, break 150 on a consistent basis? To have a consistent bowling stroke or golf swing, you need solid fundamentals and a good understand of what's going on. However, the sun shines on a dog's a$$ every once in a while and shooting an 85 or bowling a 200 can and will happen. But inconsistently. (for the record, I am a terrible bowler ). Feel free to PM if you wish, and I can try to help steer you in obtaining a proper swing. However there will a cost if you decide to go this route, because Chingali's post stating "Golf is just one of those things where you take one step back and then two steps forward, but you have to go through all of the steps to reach your final goal" is very true. Either you'll have to commit 110% to obtaining a sound swing or stick with what you've got and work very hard on your short game. To answer your questions: How long did it take you to get consistent? After rebuilding my swing, it took about a year (read: 1 New England season) to get comfortable and consistent. Did you steadily improve, or have you had experiences like mine where your game basically flatlines?? Prior to my swing rebuild, I played for 10 years with a sloppy made up swing. I certainly plateaued, and was the reason for the rebuild. With the new swing, it's infinitely easier to tweak your swing here and there and I like to think I improve everyday with practice. Any tips for pushing through the garbage days? You clearly care about your game, otherwise prolly wouldn't have asked this question. The easy answer is to have another beer. The proper answer would be to leave your driver in the bag. Tee off on mediocre par 4s with a 5 iron (one you are confident with) to keep the ball in the fairway. As a matter of fact, don't tee off with anything larger than your 5-wood for the rest of the round. Good luck!

I'm not a big fan of the forward press, as I believe it messes with my takeaway (disrupts triangle too soon, getting the club too far ahead of the hands). My setup has the shaft pretty much vertical, and promotes a "swing the bucket" type of setup. I would say that the forward press may be the culprit to your draw, as it may be closing your clubface at setup. Just a thought. Typically your setup is a good indicator of how you'll hit the ball. Perhaps your posture (too upright and tall) caused you to hit thin shots, and as you got warmed up and more comfortable, your posture eventually corrected itself for the rest of the round. Only thing I can think of since you were lights out for last 15 holes!!

I've played the Red course before, how much more difficult is the Black? Curious to know, I'd like to give the Black course a go this year.

My bag is a mush of various brands. It's not important to me to have matching clubs, but I'm sure they'll all eventually be Titleist clubs.

The move from the top is essentially unwinding your "coil" in reverse order of the actions that got you to the top. The order of movement in the backswing is top-to-bottom. This means shoulders/arms/hands first as a single unit, hips naturally follow shoulders by turning right, and finally weight distribution will naturally favor the right foot since you're near fully turned to the top at this point. Assuming you've gotten to the top properly, all actions are in reverse order in a bottom-to-top fashion. This means from the feet upwards. First thing is weight gets shifted to the left foot along with a possible hip slide to the left (as described above can be achieved in various ways by BNguyen), then the hips turn left which automatically pull the shoulders/arms/hands along for the ride. As illustrated with Fisher's post above, the movement of weight to the left side before anything else is crucial. There are 2 important actions going on at the top which initiate the downswing. 1. The arms/hands are still moving "upwards" near the "top position" as 2. the weight is being shifted to the left foot. This is creating swing lag, and is a powerful position full of potential energy like a coil wanting to unspring itself. (except the coil is your body) In other words, the feet are already starting their shift leftward starting the "downswing" before the hands get to their apex (the inevitable top of the swing). Think of how you'd snap the end of a wet towel or crack a whip...it's a similar concept. However, all this crap is useless unless you have a good grip, address, posture/setup position, takeaway swing plane, tempo, balance, etc etc. Hope you're able to make something useful out of this post. Cheers.

Aha! That'd make sense. Since your shoulders were pointed to the left from where your hips were aiming at address, I'll bet that your takeaway was too far outside. The takeaway is one of the most crucial part of the swing, the 2-3 feet when you start your upswing is extremely vital. If you takeaway on the outside, you'll more than likely come into the ball on an outside-to-in path. Glad you sorted it out.

my goal is to sneak away from work at least 5 times this year to play golf. /cough other goal is to break 80 at least 5 times.

I am a golf freak, and thinking of golf is what I do for a living. This addiction is supported by "working" as an accountant by day. I am an accountant/budget analyst for a non-profit institution.

Lay up to a better position, ie. the 100yd or 125 yd mark, where-ever you can hit a full swing sand wedge or PW. I rarely ever find myself hitting from 20-90 yds away on a par 4 or 5 unless I try to drive the green on a short par 4.

I do mats for confidence, and grass range for the real practicing. If you're on a mat aiming for a target not in line with where the mat is pointing, step off the mat and rotate it so that it is pointing to your target.

Amen! If I may be picky in wording... An open or closed clubface is going to promote a flighted fade or draw.

I tend to dip my head a bit on my takeaway, but it comes back up on the downswing. Horrible habit and I cringe everytime I see it on video. If it's not timed properly, I'll miss hit it, which is bad for consistency so I work on this a good deal. I believe it is a flexibility issue. I dip down a bit to compensate in getting my hands higher to the top. I typically practice my swing without a club in front of a mirror. The most effective way I've found so far is to put a mirror down on the ground in front of you (mirror side pointing up so you can see your face) as you make practice swings. You can pick out the head movement easier without having to lift up your head if you use a wall mounted mirror. Work on flexibility. Also work on not taking your hands too high to the top. Good luck.

Also the type of irons you play will make a difference. It's much easier to shape a ball with a forged blade vs a cast iron...although it'll be harder to hit cleanly and consistently. That's the main trade-off. I noticed a huge difference when I upgraded from oversized cast irons to the 690.CB in terms of workability. Ronald, that is the way I setup to hit fades and draws as well.

I'm in the school of thought that both hands need to work together. One drill I do is swing 2 clubs, one in each hand, trying to make full swings so the clubs do not touch each other. This way, you can feel exaggerated forces in each hand and as a result, have a better feeling what each hand is doing.