Seeking improvement advice

Hi everyone,
I would appreciate some smart advice on my game in general.

About myself and my game:
I am 43 years old and I have been playing for about 3 years. Currently I have a handicap (EGA) of 20.1. This year I'm consistently shooting low 90's rounds. The one and only time my swing speed was measured was about 2 years ago, and then it was about 90mph.

I always was and always will be stiff as a stick: When I bend down to my toes until it hurts I still have about 20 cm (8 in.) to the floor.

I have always been obsessed about a lack of distance. When I hit my short irons well the ball flies pretty high. The 8I goes about 115 meters. I can still hit a decent 7I, but beyond that I'm in trouble.
For longer shots I hit a hybrid 4I (carry about 140m, if I hit it well!!! ) or 2I (150m). Of the tee I often take a 3W (Cobra with 15.5°, offset). If everthing appears to be in place the longer 3W shots go about 170m (carry).

Recently my natural shot is pretty straight or a slight draw (with all clubs, not only with the offset 3W) , but I'm also pulling a lot of ballf left, and I know that I'm aligning correctly!. Basically I cannot play a fade even if I want to.

The course I play is not very long (5500 m), very hilly, plenty of sloped lies in the fairway.
With the exception of unnatural weather conditions, the course is pretty soft, so I generally have to play shots of about 140m or more into the green on most par 4s and 5s, which means that I have to take pretty long clubs, especially when it goes uphill (which is often the case). In these cases, because I do not hit these clubs well, I try too hard and mostly pull or hook my shots.

Short game:
On good days I make about 50% of my up-and-downs opportunhities.
I make a reasonable number of long puts, and on average I have about 3 3-putts per round, although recently the number of missed 2-3 footers has significantly reduced. I definitevly suck in the sand, especially distance control is a problem.

My overall feeling is that playing really conservative and improving my short game could improve my score to bogey golf or slightly better. But it seems to be soooooooooooooooo boring, because it almost rules out greens in regulation and consequently any birdie or easy par chances.

What should my expectations be? Should I just give up hope on gaining any length and just keep the ball in play?




MY Clubs:
3W Cobra SZ 15.5° offset
2I Cobra Baffler
4I Cobra Baffler
5-9I Cleveland TA7 (steel shaft)
Wedges Cleveland 588, (51°, 56°, 60°)
Putter Ping Crazy-E

Hi FKL

Question for you. On your long game do you think you swing at the ball using your hands/arms?

I know for a fact (!!) that I have to make a cncious effort to rotate my shoulders and not swing with my arms and hands.

This is true even for the short game, pitches and chips. Otherwise the ball goes left.

The funny thing though is, that the the shots which feel best, fly longest are more likely to go left and draw, even when the turn is (what I think and feel) correct.

OK, thats good. Do you feel like you rotate the hips before the shoulders? If you were to take a practice swing and stop at impact where would you say your belt buckle was pointing (if say 9am was your target line?)?

Where im goign here is you mention you pull a lot of balls left and you rotate your shoulders. Im guessing you come OTT and arent clearing your lower body but every now and then you manage to get quick hands and hit a draw albeit not very far .. would that be a fair assesment or am I way off base?

If my target line points to 9am (belt buckle points to 12am at adress), then at impack it points to somewhere between 10-11

So the ideal would be for it to point at 9am at impact. You can see this in this article with the tour players

http://www.golfonline.com/golfonline...148865,00.html

If you have the time and inclination to practice over the winter try and learn to rotate through impact starting with your hips/stomach. Try and feel like its your hips/stomach turning hard left which will whip your hands and arms through. This will feel STRANGE to start with and you may find it difficult to start with but trust it and keep your hands soft. At impact you will feel a bent right arm, a flat left wrist and a cupped right wrist. It will feel like you are going to swing way left but you wont. Do lots of practice half swings first, then take a short iron and a teed up ball and just start turning through and making decent contact .. you'll find after a while you will should hit the ball far further than you are now but be prepared to be patient. It took me about 6 months to get my upper body and hands out of the swing.. to learn to trust it .. now I dont think about it as its so ingrained

Here are 2 great drills to help

Right Hand Drill - http://members.cox.net/gregjwillis/LESSON1.htm
Impact Drill - http://members.cox.net/gregjwillis/LESSON3.htm

And I would add another one. If you can find a wall or fence, line up facing the wall with the club just in front of the wall itself. Take a practice swing (slowly!).. if you come OTT or use your upper body first the clubhead will hit the wall (OTT). If you use the hip turn/rotation you will see that you will miss the wall -path will be in-to in

Hope this helps and is what you wanted?

It sounds reasonable, and I'll definitevly try the drills.
That the whole turning sequience is out of sync was on top of my list.
It took a while to get my shoulders to turn, now to the hips.....

I've learned already that changing things take quite some time. My subconcious self has not. So I am prepared to become frustrated at times

Thanks a lot, and I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Good luck!

Keep us posted