Help. My swing fell to bits today.

Playing my home course today.
Have been playing a fade for a few weeks after deciding that this was my natural shot (I have a One Plane Swing).
I drew the ball for a while but it could be inconsistent.The fade was more reliable and took no real effort to produce.

Today ...

Divots going left of target.
Ball swinging 20 yards left to right.
Loss of distance resulting in 3 lost balls.
Worst round of the year (I won't embarass myself with telling the score. Suffice to say it was over 85 but not as bad as 90 ,which for me is shocking).

Worst of all was my driver (usually a very reliable club).
Ball starting low and cutting hard resulting in no distance whatsoever.


HELP!

p.s. All help will be greatfully accepted and acknowledged.

__________________
Ping Hoofer 2

SMT O2 9 degree
Callaway Steelhead+ 5 Wood
John Letters Tu 22 degree Rescue Wood

SMT 303 CB2 4 to PW
Dynamic Gold R300 spined.


SMT Durometer Green 51* ,55* ,59* Wedges


White Hot 2 Ball Putter

Titleist ProV1

Well, xix, I'm currently struggling with this as well. It shows up swing-to-swing, and I'm not sure why. The only thing I can figure is that I'm choking the clubface open, and it's acting more like a toe-push, with great clubhead speed behind it.

So, my only suggestion is to try relaxing your grip.

I find my One Plane Swing works much better when I focus on still hips, and turning the shoulders properly.

Xix,

There is a mental side to this.................................forget it don't do anything and just go out and play through it, if your swing is normally ok which it sounds like it is, then just play.

It does sound like "over tinkering" to me to a point where you not really sure which way to start the swing..........


You know i'm right......!!


My advise is just set up well and let it go without any thought at all for a while.


Hope this helps


Ian.

Get your back to the target on the takeaway as soon as you can. Don't restrict the hips yet. Anything you can do to get you to turn away from the ball is going to help. Don't even worry about sliding. When you get your shape and distance back, then slowly work back to your normal positions.

If the divots and ball are starting left, then I think you are coming across the target line from the outside. Try a visual aid. Put a plastic ball or rubber tee just outside of the target line and to the right of the ball. Hit the target ball without hitting the visual aid. This helps me bring the clubhead more along the target line.

Thanks for all your replies.

Things got a bit better when I decided to (as advised) set up well and concentrate on "just hitting the ball" as my swing thought.
I felt I was getting my back to the target very quickly doing this and the swing started to resume it's former self.

The bloody cold weather here isn't helping either .

I went through this recently with my One Plane Swing and I found that it came down to lack of shoulder turn. That seems to be the most important element in the 1PS. If you don't make a really full shoulder turn, but still try to turn your arms fully, it all goes pear shaped.

That makes sense and ties in with the "back to target quickly" advice from Greg.

Turning my back to the target as fast as possible forces me to make a full shoulder turn.

I believe I was trying to "tinker" too much with my swing which resulted in getting a bit lazy in my turn.

Hopefully ,thanks to the help given here ,I can get my swing back to what it was (i.e. looking like an octupus in a washing machine).
I have emptied my head of all but one swing thought (which wasn't that hard as my head is generally empty ) and I'm swinging a lot better as a result.

__________________
Ping Hoofer 2

SMT O2 9 degree
Callaway Steelhead+ 5 Wood
John Letters Tu 22 degree Rescue Wood

SMT 303 CB2 4 to PW
Dynamic Gold R300 spined.


SMT Durometer Green 51* ,55* ,59* Wedges


White Hot 2 Ball Putter

Titleist ProV1

Quick update on my swing problem.

Played today and ,after a bit of a duff 1st tee shot ,I hit fade after beautiful fade for the entire round.
Divots are still going a little bit left but the ball is ending up pretty much where I'm aiming ,which is good .
I've managed to empty my head of all thought and am just letting the club hit the ball.

Thanks to all who replied and helped me with this problem.
GTO comes up trumps again .

When you say your divots are left, do your divots start before or after the ball? In the One Plane Swing you actually want the divot to go left after the ball. This is because the swing is rotational on a natural in-square-in path. So you want the clubhead coming inside straight after the ball. Don't try to extend down the line.

If your divots start before the ball and are pointing left then that is a different story as you've come from the outside-in.

On http://www.oneplanegolfswing.com/ there is a video about 'swinging left' and making your divots point left.

My divots go left "AFTER" the ball has been struck.

To be quite honest I now don't have a clue if I'm swinging on a single plane.
It certainly feels like I am but I would have to video myself to be sure of it

All I know for certain is that the ball is pretty much doing what it's told to do and that's fine by me.

I've emptied my head and it seems to have done the trick .