self diagnosis

here is a little tip on diagnosing what the problem is on the range. If you go out and take ten practice swings with no ball they will usually look very similar, one will not look like tiger, another like daly, and another like fyrk. Your body has a swing of it's own and will repeat that pretty cosistent. So what that means is that if you set up the same everytime then you should swing pretty much the same everytime.

so why do swings seem to very so much? because the set up varies. take 3 balls and place one in the front of your stance and hit it, then hit one in the middle, then one in the back and you will see how different you had to swing in order to make contact, also you will notice the shot pattern was very different

so when you go to the range if your shot pattern is very differnt then you need to look towards your set up because it is obviously flawed and not consistent
but when you get to the point where your misses are the same, for example a consistent push to the right, then this would be a good clue for you to look towards swing mechanics
there are excptions to this of course but for many people it would be a good place to start

As the old adage says "If you can repeat it you can fix it"

Regards
Brian

I was consistently hitting slice/fade (off the fairway). I adjusted my setup many times. Then I started pulling the ball, pretty severe at times (maybe much of the time). No matter what I did in my setup I could not find "straight" with any consistency, though my contact with the ball had improved greatly.

Finally, I made one adjustment at the top of my swing - wrist hand movement where there should have been none - lined my club face up to target (I had been closing and opening it to try and compensate) and wallah I have finally broken 100 four games straight and broke 50 consecutively on a front and back nine for the first time this weekend. If I had not three putted 6 of the first nine holes in one game I could have easily shot in the low 90's. So I feel that as my next goal 90 isn't too far away. This, after only seven months of playing the game. I started at the young age of 58 and have been playing for a long time, now that I'm 59 .

So yeah, I'd say you are right on the money shootin.. BTW, that cupped wrist has made me a better chipper and pitcher than many of the better players that I play with. I've seen some pretty good players putting from 15 feet off the green just to keep from having to try and hit a chip shot. Thanx again shootin..

__________________
I would suggest that any golfer who says they've never thrown a club is either a liar or a poser. To all of you "gentlemen golfers" out there, respectively..
Jim

Hi Shooting .
This is a very astute observation you have made and also very highly accurate.
whenever somebody comes to me with a fault they are experiencing , i ask them to describe their set up. They tell me of their grip position, posture, alignment and so on ,but when i ask them where the ball was positioned , 9 times out of ten they cannot say for sure.

i always check my ball position as part of my pre-shot routine and would advocate others do the same

cheers shootin

Spot on shootin.

I have had several problems that I thought were major recently. On both lessons my coach found errors before I even started the swing that were causing the problem. Key was ball position in the last lesson.

So now if I start pulling/hooking the ball I first check the ball position and normally find I have the ball too far forwards thus my wrists have released too early.

I believe the majority of swing faults are caused by bad setup, posture and alignment. Without a solid and consistent base there is little chance of a good consistent swing. APlease anyone correct me if I am wrong!

My pre shot routine now covers all the elements I fail on and stick to it. Once I have done this I feel free to make a swing without swing thoughts. It has made golf so much more enjoyable not having to thing during my swing, just relax and hit the ball.

__________________
JCBDB

Great reply jc.
I don't know what h/cap you play to ,but i bet it will be falling soon

cheers pal

Thanks, the handicap is 20 but hitting early/mid 80's consistently. Unfortunately my club is 150 miles away and I have played no golf at the club for over 3 months.

I have been accessing my scores from recent friendly games on other courses and worked out that working on my pitching (distance control problems) and putting (just a problem) I can save another 6 shots a round.

So I have split my practice into an hour of putting one night, an hour 100 yrds and in the next and one night on my mid/long irons and driver (which is really working on the basics discussed earlier).

Expect to be shoting mid 70's before the winter.

Oh - plus I have a great instructor at long last.

__________________
JCBDB

This is were a consistent pre shot routine comes into play, having a routine what you can trust will get you into the same set up position everytime!

thanks for the positive contributions to the post guys, I know that I struggled for many years but once I got into a routine set up the results follewed. It is funny cause if you look on video my swing does not look much different, except for a couple of things, but the consistency has changed a lot