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I know people are gonna hate me for asking this and tell me to get an instructor, and I plan to, but during these cold winter months I want a good book to explain the concepts behind a solid, repeatable golf swing. What are the best ones? Some poking around, mostly on GolfWRX, has led me to these: Impact Zone Swing For Life Ben Hogan's Five Lessons Golf My Way Best Instruction Book Ever Swing Like a Pro Swing Machine Golf (Paul Wilson) 8 Step Swing The Swing Factory The Plane Truth (Jim Hardy) Summit fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 21:33
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 05:48 |
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Anyone ever use GolfTEC? My dad bought me a swing evaluation there which I'm going to tomorrow. Not gonna lie I'm a little worried it's going to be too much analysis and mental tweaks that will make the game less enjoyable. I can keep a few things in my head at once but beyond that it just makes me hit like poo poo.
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Jun 4, 2015 03:44
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Would a ping K style driver be good if I draw the ball? Crossfield seemed to indicate it wasn't for him because it went left too much. I'm pretty bad and golfpoor so the price is appealing.
Summit fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 16:12
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I seem to hit most of my shots "thin" and only get a divot maybe half the time. Not sure how to fix it.
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Jun 16, 2015 04:43
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Nerdrock posted:Picking your head up early, or trying to swing too "hard" contracts/tenses up your arm muscles and makes you pull the club up and skull the ball. Telling myself 'stare at it loosely' makes me not make the same mistake 2 shots in a row (I make lots of other mistakes instead). There's a good chance I do both of these things 
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Jun 16, 2015 15:11
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Smashed my goal for the year of breaking 50 with a 46 (+11)  Previous best was 56 I think and the round before this I think I scored a 64. A lot of things coming together and lots of practice. I'm curious what people think of The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing which is basically my golf bible at this point. This has been my first year of taking golf somewhat seriously (3 rounds last year, maybe one range session, prior to that I hadn't picked up a club in 10 years). Since I started becoming interested in improving in the winter I began with reading (I live in the frozen north, no golfing til spring). I really wanted to start with a very natural swing before getting into the weeds with complicated movements which is what attracted me to Effortless (the name and positive Amazon reviews). I'm basically on a continuous cycle of reading it. What I like about it is it tries to remove a lot of the thinking during the swing. You establish a good setup and then focus on letting the lower body drive the swing. My swing flaw was (and still is I suppose) letting my arms control everything so Effortless really got to the heart of what I was doing wrong and gave me some simple drills to feel what a golf swing is supposed to be. Edit: Also a  from a guy trying to teach (it might have been a lesson based on how they were talking) at the range yesterday: "I'm of the opinion that anyone with a handicap of 10 or higher cannot possibly strengthen their grip too much". Followed by him continually reminding this dude to keep strengthening his grip until the guy was complaining of wrist pain.
Summit fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Jun 19, 2015 |
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Jun 19, 2015 15:16
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I use iPhone's slow mo mode to take videos and it works great. Main problem is getting someone to take the video. Really needs to be at the range hitting a ball to be of any use and I go alone most of the time.
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Jun 25, 2015 03:36
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Chipping is weird. It seems like every person I ask has their own way of doing it. So far I've heard: - punch out with a short chop (works surprisingly well) - use a high loft club and twist it for even more loft to lift it out with tons of back spin (interesting but hard to get the right power with different lengths of grass, seems to take the most feel) - take a pitching wedge and do almost a putting stroke (straightforward but I seem to gently caress it up the most) - load the weight on your front foot, get hands forward, take a short stroke (had reasonable amounts of success, always seem to hit it a bit hard though) I'm reluctant to practice any of these too much because I hate practicing blindly. Who's a good resource for chipping basics? Just need a good intro before I invest a ton of time at the chipping green.
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Jun 27, 2015 15:41
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drat, that is a great video. Thanks! Edit: I like how this guy explains things. Sadly he only has 3 videos up. :\ Summit fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 20:15
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Josh Lyman posted:Those are all different "short game shots", but there's only 1 thing we call "chipping": Interesting. I asked a few of my buddies and even some people around the putting green who were chipping and they were showing me their chipping, not short game. That said they are obviously not pro golfers and I'm not about to argue with Phil on this one. All of the pro stuff I've seen so far has been that fixed wrist technique so I'll stick to that for sure. It was interesting how different every person I asked was doing it. These were all just off the green style chips too.
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Jun 28, 2015 00:13
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Season is pretty much over for me since I only get out after work and sunset is now 5pm. Was a pretty good year all in all. Just started at the end of last year. This year I tried to get a 9 once a week, usually paired with a range warm up. Made it to the range every 2 weeks or so and used the simulators quite a bit at Golfsmith. Started out shooting around 60 in March, lots of shanks and driving just off the tee box. Ended the year having scored below 50 five times: couple 48's, couple 49's, 46, and my current best a 44. I still have a troubling tendency to push shots to the right and I can't figure out what I'm doing that causes that. It doesn't happen all the time but I started to notice it setting in more towards the end of the season. It's beginning to become a bit of a pattern. I made a couple of slow mo videos in the hopes that someone can point out some obvious thing I'm doing wrong. These were shot by my buddy with an iPhone so not the same shot, but they are back to back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj1euBYkaqM This one actually flew very well. Probably a ton I'm not doing right though so I figured I'd show it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPTIpp0PjY This turned out to be a great example of the problem. Shot went wide right even though I didn't feel anything off while I swung. Really it felt like I did all the same things as the side view but for whatever reason it did not get on a straight flight path. If I slow it down it looks like the club face is very open. Something is off in how I'm timing things.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:37
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So you actually consciously control the club face throughout the swing?
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Nov 5, 2015 22:28
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Spent some time at the range trying out different things including that bag drill. One thing I noticed is I have really good control of my half and 3/4 shots. Feel very comfortable and like I have control over what direction they will take. Then I move it to a full backswing and I don't really know how to initiate the downswing nor do I feel much control at all. I don't know if I'm just psyching myself out or doing something differently but that was my major takeaway.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:24
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Update for those that gave me some advice (regarding hitting right a lot). Did some checks on my alignment by setting up about to hit and then putting a club at my feet to check. Yeah, I was way off a lot of the time, and always to the right. Really need to look through my shoulders to get alignment correct. That helped significantly and is a pretty simple thing to do. The other thing I worked on was getting my clubface lined up. I found the tip about getting your wrist back into position (I believe the visual was pointing a wrist watch but I don't wear one) very interesting. Obviously will require a lot more practice but I went from hitting more right than I wanted 80% of the time to around 10%. I seem to be naturally doing a fade on my good shots which I'm okay with. Aiming just a touch left of target to accommodate and I was getting some shots right on target.  All in all was a good range session. I'm working on the feeling of the wrists. I know someone said they can sense how their clubface is angled but I really don't have that level of feel at this point. Thinking about my left wrist and getting it back to where to started helped a lot. I'm a little conflicted cause I don't want to overwhelm myself with swing thoughts so my hope is that the wrist thing becomes more feel with enough practice.
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Nov 10, 2015 00:04
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EnsGDT posted:I played in LA today. It was mid 90s, I put on sunscreen four times and drank 5 liters of water, and I still got god drat sun burned. Next time I'm getting a cart. Is it winter yet again? You just live in the wrong place is all. It snowed in Minneapolis this morning.
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Apr 7, 2016 16:19
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Start of the season has been soul crushing. Practicing more but doing worse. Part of me just wants to take a week off just to let the frustration dissipate, part of me knows I'll just come back as bad as ever. When I hit a bad shot which is depressingly often I have no idea why or what to do better next time. Even been taking lessons but I am way worse now than I was before even with the swing faults I had. Golf.
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May 13, 2016 01:40
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Is the SkyPro a good alternative? Been eyeing one but afraid it's a silly gimmick.
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May 27, 2016 05:07
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There's nothing wrong with a firm grip but if you're causing pain I would loosen up a bit. Personally I find when my grip is tight the increased hand tension works into my wrists and forearms and I struggle letting the club head release naturally. I hit my best shots with the most minimal grip pressure possible. That's just me of course but my point is it's not necessary to strangle the club to swing it.
Summit fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 18:15
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cheese posted:I was looking for some information about putting and it, like the rest of golf, seems to have a ton of often widely different opinions. How do you guys separate the bullshit from the good info in golf, or is it less about good info and more about what works for you? I've been going down the youtube rabbit hole over the last week and I think I'm doing myself more harm than good looking at all of these different instructors and videos. For every Monte Scheinblum who I look at and go "Ya that seems to make sense" there is some guy talking about "natural biomechanical swing" that does 7 things different (and says I will hurt myself if I play golf like Monte).
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Jun 17, 2016 22:12
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daslog posted:Something sort of clicked in my head tonight so I went out and hit the range. I basically did the low and slow back swing maintaining the triangle and then I just let momentum carry my arms up the rest of the way. Then I just flicked my wrist back a little to cock them and let centrifugal force do the rest on my downswing. I just let my wrists do their thing passively. I could not believe how fast the clubhead went. This resulted in me hitting some bombs. I like reading your posts because you're in a very similar place as me and on the same journey of learning how to swing. I started out not too long ago shooting 120's with an arm dominated swing that I had no hope of controlling. I'm slowly working in more lower body movement. I'm down to the 95-105 range at the moment. I would say the feeling you're describing makes perfect sense to me — I too am working on keeping my arms, wrists, hands, etc. completely passive. It's certainly not an easy transition. Despite long being aware of my arm and wrist overuse I'm still working on it actively every practice session. Since I'm very much a 'feel' person I've come up with an analogy that might be of some use: Without a club, hold your arms out in front of you and move them back and forth smoothly in a circle. That's essentially an arm dominated swing. Now, do the same thing but spin your body and let your arms fly freely. I know I personally can generate a lot more speed this way. The path of my arms is pretty much the same too but it's maintained with centrifugal force instead of my arms holding everything up. This makes it highly repeatable since I'm not consciously doing anything to control it. It's a very simple demonstration of the power of the body turn, both in power and accuracy, that's helped me get in the right frame of mind.
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Jun 21, 2016 22:29
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daslog posted:So again my own best judgement, I decided to work on the casting today. A random youtube search turned this up. This was helpful to me. I have been making some changes to get my take away less inside and achieving better alignment at the top but was struggling with how early to get my wrists set. She said to basically have them mostly set by half back and that made many things sync up better. Pretty much nailing the two things I was working on now.
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Jun 30, 2016 16:05
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I keep my own handicap. It's a simple enough thing to calculate with a google spreadsheet and I'm not a member of any club. Seemed like you had to pay to get an official one. Does anyone actually give a poo poo if it's done this way?
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Jul 2, 2016 18:59
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daslog posted:Thanks for the feedback. What I want to avoid is hitting a lovely 4 hybrid that costs me additional strokes when I loving it up. I'm a newb like you so take this with a grain of salt but I would advise the opposite. I always use the appropriate club for the shot because I want the in-game exposure to everything in my bag. I used to feel intimidated by anything with less loft than a 6 iron which is a terrible way to start a golf swing. Granted it was challenging at first but now that I've hit some decent shots with those clubs I have a lot more confidence selecting them. Doesn't always work out but at least if you've had exposure to those clubs you can blame it on not executing your swing plan vs. dreading the club. Nothing sabotages my swing quite like low confidence before I even step up to the ball. --- Anyone got some advice for getting good with the driver? It feels like the weakest part of my game right now. I'm typically driving around 210-230 on my straight drives which is pitifully low considering I'm only 29. Granted there's not a ton of roll where I live and it's been wet but I know I'm leaving 20-30 yards easily in just how I strike. Ball flight is way lower than it ought to be. I hit my irons nice and high but the driver I get a very penetrating ball flight. I don't know if I should be setting up differently or what. It feels comfortable to move the ball up slightly (off left toe vs left ear on irons) but beyond that I'm trying to swing the same swing. Maybe I just need more time with it. I'm using a beginner friendly Ping 10.5 driver so equipment certainly isn't the problem.
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Aug 18, 2016 23:48
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torgeaux posted:Very basic tip on driver versus iron: http://www.golftipsmag.com/instruction/driving/impact-driver-vs-iron/ Based on these tips I can accomplish everything needed just by some small setup changes? That would be fantastic.
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Aug 19, 2016 14:53
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On a related note I've had two times when I wanted to let a single play through but both times as they nearly caught up to me/my group they started playing extra balls, looking in the woods for balls, and just generally loving around so there was not a smooth opportunity to let them tee off ahead. Hopefully they were just out for a relaxing round and didn't care.
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Aug 22, 2016 22:01
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On the bright side you know what to practice. I've gotten the 3 putts down immensely by practicing lag and 3 foot putts exclusively.
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Aug 26, 2016 22:33
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I was on track to beat my dad handily this weekend. He's always had this horribly flat swing that looks like someone shooting a hockey puck. From the way he's been talking to me about golf over the past few months (he moved onto a golf course a year ago) I thought he must have changed things but it looked exactly the same to me. So I think there's really no way I can lose, even being far less experienced, when my dad is swinging like that still. I'm not good by any means but I've got an easy 20-50 yards more driving distance and I'm putting decently. I'm basically playing bogey golf and he's chunking around struggling to find the magic sauce to make this weird swing work. I had a big lead on him approaching the last few holes. We get to a simple par 3 and he hits it into the frontside bunker. I make it just over the bunker and my ball embeds itself into the top lip grass above the bunker. As we're driving up I tell him I'm going to look at it but might take an unplayable lie and move my ball back for a 1 stroke penalty. He thinks I'm crazy for not going for par and kind of implies taking an unplayable in this situation being against the rules (it's not of course). I have been so good about playing conservatively in those weird situations rather than going for the hero shot that finds worse trouble. But it doesn't look too bad as I'm standing over it and he's encouraging me to just go for it. I let him influence me and decide I'll try for it. I'm standing in the bunker, my ball is outside of it about waist high. This isn't a shot I've practiced and it feels weird with the ball so high compared to my feet. First swing the ball doesn't even move, just buries deeper. Second swing same thing. Third swing dislodges it but it's so deep in the dirt it just falls out into the bunker. It's a tall bunker but I barely get it out then have to chip it onto the green and I two putt for +5 on that hole. I'm still annoyed thinking about how stupid that decision was. I knew it was going to be challenging even if the ball wasn't waist high with me standing in sand. I should have taken the unplayable, chipped it onto the green and gotten bogey.
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Aug 29, 2016 17:02
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Yeah, he totally got into my head. Good game dad 
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Aug 29, 2016 18:19
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Halo14 posted:I think you need to focus from the ground up. You are swinging off your feet and this causes inconsistency as you've described before. Try to get a stable base and slow things down to keep balance. Yeah I agree with this 100%. You are practically falling over at the end of some of those driver shots. I would bet anything you're much more stable with the short irons which is why they feel so much easier. One thought I like is to swing my long irons and driver the same as my 9 iron (with some minor setup adjustments due to length of club, but same speed, feel, tempo, etc).
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Sep 1, 2016 13:18
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I might be in the minority on this but I think weight shift is overemphasized in golf. Sure you need to do it but if you've played any sports at all it will happen pretty naturally in my opinion. Trying to force it will probably mean you're overdoing it and ironically losing power. If I asked you to throw a ball far I wouldn't need to bring up weight shift to most athletic people. Same thing in my mind.
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Sep 2, 2016 09:50
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drat that's a good round. Good to see you're enjoying it again. I had a weird round on Saturday where I was hitting well but straighter and longer than I usually do so I kept blasting it into the trees. Kinda hard to be mad but I posted my first round above 100. It was a tough course with a bunch of long dog leg par 4's which were a real bitch. I'm not confident enough with my driver to cut a dog leg so I had to hit to the corner which often left 200+ to go.
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Sep 13, 2016 01:06
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Nope they were par 4's and there were 3-4 of them on the course. Those holes weren't very fun to play. It felt like you needed to cut the dogleg to have a chance at GIR so I was playing for bogie at best. Probably an easy course for someone with a good driver though.
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Sep 13, 2016 04:18
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I can only imagine how much seeing a non white golf ball at Augusta will troll the old fogies of the golf world.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:40
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I mean... realistically most brand GI clubs are going to work great at that level. I don't know if I'd even recommend trying to optimize beyond what feels right and gives you some confidence.
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Apr 20, 2017 02:04
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I will echo that there's no magic bullet once you're too close for a full swing. It's all feel and the real artistry of the game makes itself known up close. Some people like to use one wedge for everything. I assume they deloft that wedge if they need to hit low. I like to get my ball rolling as soon as possible as I find it much easier to control distance that way and it helps to be aiming at a closer target (just on the green). If you're of that mind look into the rule of 12 and adjust from there. Neither method is really better and they both require a lot of practice to be effective. Biggest piece of advice I can give is go easy on yourself. It takes time to develop the necessary feel to be a decent at pitches/chips and even the pros make mistakes constantly.
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May 18, 2017 20:34
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Warning: Stupid post by a stupid bad golfer who doesn't take lessons. Do not follow, see an instructor instead. --- I feel like I just unlocked the secret to swinging a golf club (for me and how my body/mind works) and it's amazing. For a younger guy I've always had below average distance because I could not swing a club with my full strength and expect good results. I've always struggled with being over the top. I just could not figure out how to get my swing more inside. Usually I would have the sensation of running out of room. My "fix" was to slow things down immensely, which really didn't solve anything but made my awful slices less dramatic. A lot of the advice about being over the top describes shifting your weight solidly and letting your arms just "drop". I have a pretty active lower body, never struggled with committing to the weight shift. The drop was interesting and a good thought but I always struggled to commit to it. It felt like I had no sense of where the clubhead was if I let my arms get that noodly and my mind had difficulty letting go to that degree. I was fortunate enough to come across a few videos that seemed to hit on a lot my problems that described trying to go the other way: speed up the arms. This really works! (again, it works for me and my issues) The drill/feel I've been using is to imagine chopping a log outside your rear foot i.e. chop straight down after completing the backswing and then turn HARD. This seemed absolutely ridiculous but I can swing hard now - really hard - and just crush the ball with a light fade. I've discovered "the slot" (never understood wtf that meant til now) and it's so liberating to finally figure out how to get into a position where I can actually freely swing the club without fear of a ridiculous banana slice.
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May 27, 2017 20:15
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Kameh posted:I wonder how this will play out. Huge donation to MADD, heartfelt statement, redemption story gets underway, Tiger wins 2018 Masters? It's funny how, no matter how many tournaments he misses or gently caress ups occur, we still pine for Tiger's return. I'm right there with you of course, those Tiger years were electric for golf.
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May 30, 2017 01:54
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How does a mat help with practice? I'd be worried about practicing bad swings without some sort of feedback mechanism of seeing the ball flight.
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Jun 2, 2017 20:28
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Unsolicited advice is the worst. No matter how bad someone is playing, unless they ask, ignore their mistakes and try to have fun.
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Jun 5, 2017 00:51
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 05:48 |
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You wouldn't actually try to hit out of that or a bog for that matter. You take an unplayable lie for 1 stroke. So yeah it's very much like a hazard. A tough course with hazards everywhere sounds like a good challenge for these pros, not sure what the issue is.
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Jun 12, 2017 22:22
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