How right I was back in post #4 when I said that....




I haven't played for months now. Can't wait to get out again.

I've been trying to tweak my swing recently but with mixed results.

I wanted to do a better job of getting the ball into the air and my instructor suggested I adopt a stronger grip and cock my wrists more on the backswing. It certainly works - I can now get a lovely arc and ten more yards on my 3-hybrid - but it's brought back the straight fade I've been long fighting on my driver and introduced a pull on my irons.

So I'm going back to my weaker grip but trying to keep my left thumb right of shaft centre. That way at the top of my backswing I'm not trying to over bend my left thumb. But the results are still a bit variable. The driver fade is just an annoyance but a random pull on my wedges costs strokes.

Yes, you were right. It seems stupid now that i've played for so long and never actually learn how to do things properly. You just assume that by playing you will learn but if the fundamentals are wrong then it's never going to change.

Though i'm very happy with the new kit - if only because i'm less embarrassed to be seen with it going round the course

£40!!
Tell me that wasn't per half hour

Well done though!

I bought a new driver yesterday after a few swings on the simulator in the Pro shop.
I had a T/M JetSpeed.
My Pro had a T/M R15 at £199.
I got him down to £169 and I used a £30 voucher from our Sunday comp.
So, quite pleased at £139.
Took it out for 18 holes but couldn't judge improvement on distance as. It was blowing a gale .... and directly at us on every tee!

Last night I played 18 at my home course (Cherwell Edge). Got round in a record 2 hours on my own. Despite the speed I scored well. If it wasn't for a slight drop toward the end I'd have broken 90. Tempting to blame that on lighting since I didn't finish until quarter past seven.

The trick to my new swing seems to be making sure that my right elbow stays close to my hip on the down swing. Also with the driver moving my gaze off the ball and slightly right and down at the start of the downswing seems to help. In effect I'm looking at the end of the swing path just before contact. I got some stonking drives and several excellent shots with my 3-hybrid.

I'm still coming up short on putting distance though. I really need to work on my green speed estimates.

We had a strong wind a couple of weeks ago. Every time it was a head wind it blew frequently and randomly. When it was a tail wind of course it stopped blowing for a while

That was for a 45 min session and 15 min sit down where he explained what was going wrong. I'm planning to do a 9 hole lesson with him which costs £90 but should last 2.5 hours.

That's good value. We can pay £25 for 30 mins with Pro 1 or £20 with Pro 2.
I did bag a "special" of 10 for £100 and have four left.
I've stretched those well over a year as too many too soon is counter productive.
I've also had lessons with all three Pro's and found that one is really best suited to my learning style.

I played 9 holes on Friday and 18 yesterday.

It's a bit strange at the moment as I now have a completely different set up routine and am having to concentrate a lot of each shot. My driving is now more consistent in that i'm getting distance every time (if not in the right direction!) and my pitching is much better. However my long irons and recovers were absolutely awful.

It's a little odd in that with my much improved tee shots and pitching my score didn't budge at all - still hit 116 yesterday with two maximums. Maybe it will all come together at some point.

Awful in what sense?

Do you ever do a post-mortem? I do. I try and go through each hole by memory noting which shots let me down. Then I know where to target my practice sessions. Of course if I was organised I'd write each shot and the result as I played it but that ruins the fun of the moment for me.

I played 18 yesterday and had mostly okay, some good drives. Pretty handy on the fairway as well. Green work was poor to terrible. Eventually scored 103 and lost two balls.

I really struggled to adapt to green speed. It seemed like the greens played normal speed in one direction and slow in the other. I know that's always supposed to be the case but I've never really noticed before. On one hole I went two yards past the pin uphill (and we're talking a proper slope here, one you can see from the tee) but on the return shot I was half a yard short

Maybe it was because they'd not been used for a couple of months. They'd also just aerated them but that's not been a huge issue for me before.

hitting the ball farther but not necessarily in the right direction isn't always a good thing

it can just get you deeper into the trees

keeping the ball on the short grass is the best way to bring your scores down, it will just take time if you have made some technical changes for you to get used to them and for "muscle memory" to start kicking in

once your swing starts to feel more natural it should be something you repeat more often and the accuracy will follow

I was literally duffing my 4 and 5 recovery about 20-30 yards for most of the holes. I hit them cleanly maybe 2 or 3 times. My 5 and 6 irons were slightly better - but only going 120 yards odd.

Thinking back, my main issue is that my second shot is always bad, regardless of the situation. Doesn't matter if i'm in the rough or on the fairway with 150 yards to go or 40 yards from the flag. It must be a psychological thing . Also in my defence it was extremely windy!

A large portion of golf is exactly this, in my opinion!

once you have the fundamentals in place then about 90% of it is

as far as the question above about approach shots, its about identifying the shot you want to hit and then committing to it

if you are standing over the ball worrying about whether you are hitting the right club or not 100% sure the type of shot you want to play then most likely you wont commit to the shot and that uncertainty will lead to poorly executed shots

I'd agree with that. Never hit a shot unless your 100% sure of the shot your are trying to play. If you are not certain or have a couple of different thoughts in your head when over the ball then step away, go behind the ball and go through your routine again. Picture the shot you want to play in the head and then address the ball.

I've played some of my best rounds of golf actually wondering if the ball will actually go where I'm hoping it will go and often being astonished that it did.
I play with a guy who I can easily out drive but he will always tee off absolutely dead straight at moderate distance.
I often ask him if he misses the excitement of wondering where the ball is about to go as you rip it.

i was always more than happy being boring

course i played at was quite a short course but with small-ish greens and accuracy was always more important than distance. during the summer when the ground got quite firm it wasn't just a case of getting your drive on the fairway, you had to be on the correct side of the fairway or you would have a hard time holding the green

I had this problem when I started. Turned out that I was reverse pivoting. It's actually quite a good way to hit a driver and in my case at least didn't affect my wedges. I'd have expected an instructor to spot that immediately though.

On the off chance you have the same problem I cured myself by thinking I should throw myself toward the target after ball strike. I still hit the occasional duffer but now they go at least 100 yards and longer clubs can go over 150 yards. Not what I want at the time but not disastrous either. My duffers have also changed. I used to top the ball but now my fault is that sometimes I'm hitting it a bit late. When I duff one there's usually a ball shaped furrow where the divot should be

I used to reverse pivot when I started playing, it's easy to sort and very common with beginners or high handicappers.

It can cost a lot of distance when your rotation and weight shift arent in sync.

I went back down the 9 hole course yesterday evening.

My first drive was straight and about 50 yards from the green. After a poor pitch, knock on and then 2 putt I finished up with 5.

My second drive was straight and left me 230 yards (par 5). I hit my 3 wood the sweetest i've ever done and ended up 20 yards from the hole. Knock on and 2 putt gave me par.

Then it all fell apart. My drives were slipping left and whenever i tried to hit any club it just took out a divot and went about 20 yards. I hit two maximums in a row before pulling it back to my usual 6s and 7s. Every single pitch I did was about half the distance it should be - which considering that pitching was the best part of my game on Sunday was infuriating.

really just comes down to time, got to be patient

practice is all about muscle memory and imprinting on your brain how to execute a shot

when you are standing over a shot your brain recognises from previous experience what it needs to do and how hard you need to hit the shot, the more often you have done it the more accurate that becomes

its one of the reasons where shots when you cant see the bottom of the pin or there is some sort of hidden hollow between you and the green are alot harder as what your eye sees and thus what the brain recognises is not the true distance and you have to try and remind yourself to take account of that difference

hope that makes sense, not sure if i am explaining it right

Yeah, i know . . practice practice practice.

But this wasn't a case of misjudging distance or shot strength. This was me taking a chunk of the ground under ever ball I hit on the fairway - and I mean every one from the 3rd hole on, no matter what I changed.

Oh well, back to the range this evening, where I physically can't go under the mat

Hope it goes well for you. I'm going on the course again tonight. I went yesterday but gave up at the 9th because the course was just too soggy and I wasn't learning anything useful. I don't use the range very often these days. Now that I'm a member of a club it costs nothing to go round anyway and several people I know have said that the best way to improve is on the course. A couple of things to consider:

* Playing off a mat is not the same as playing off the ground - especially if the ground is damp. Mats can hide the fact you're hitting fat. This time of the year is a great for finding that out :-/
* Since switching to mostly grass play I actually struggle more with mats.

My problem is on and around the greens at the moment. I'm hoping it's down to green condition but right now my speed is way off. I used to be a reliable two putter or chip and one putt with the first shot usually being an 'almost in' leaving an easy 2nd. I seem to be struggling to read the slope and still have a tendency to rush through the putting to get to the next tee (which is just stupid)

Well irons were going well at the range but driving was a bit poor.

That can happen..and arguably it's a better way round as you use your irons more. Have you ever looked at this website?

"Notice that you do NOT need long irons, hybrids, fairway woods, flop shots, or, most of all, a driver. For high handicap players, the driver adds more strokes than it saves by a huge margin. Yes, hitting driver is fun (sometimes), but you’ll notice that this is not a plan for having fun on the golf course, it’s a plan for breaking 100…which is fun all the time."

Can't say I've ever done that but it's a valid point

Last night was pretty good for me. Everything was working 'okay'. Even my green work was okay, back to what it should be. Makes me wonder if my recent issues has been more down to dodgy greens than me. They've either been wet, aerated or almost bare. Last night my speed was mostly spot on and I genuinely felt confident.

I came away with a 94 but the last two holes were played badly (fatigue probably) and I lost two balls.