from the home of golf..............

[The Highlander]

Hi, my name is Shaun and im a golfaholic from Scotland.

I have been playing the game for just over 5 years now and like the rest of the golfing population and Arnold Palmer I believe that golf is without doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented but sometimes its can just be a stupid game anyways!

I have had a handicap for three out of the five years I have been playing and last year saw me reduce it from 23.6 at the start of the season to 13.2 at the end of the season, I did hit 12 dead at one point but I struggled to play to it right to the end of the year.

I worked hard on my swing over that winter and came out fighting at the start of this year, two gross 76's in early May saw me get all the way down to 11.4 with two competition wins in the bag already, my game was on form and I was brimming with confidence in it needless to say. Throughout this year as my first year in the mens I competed in our clubs seasonal matchplay knockouts for the first time.

Although my handicap wouldn't budge off 12 in the medals, I was playing some of my best golf in my matches and made it through 4 rounds to reach the final, I played very well but got beat on the 18th with my opponent making a superb up and down from the rough, my ball striking had been great all day and my opponent even praised to me that I'm striking the ball as well as any single figure golfer I just need to relax a little more and learn that the putter is just as important as striking the ball well with woods and irons.

However, just when I thought the days of old when I used to have to fiddle so much with my swing to keep up a good standard of golf were over the rounds from then on after have just gone from bad to worse. The dreaded snap-hook has become a far too familiar shot. It has gone from maybe one or two a round to pretty much every time I hit a wood.

It was only a month ago that I was effortlessly knocking 3 woods long with a slight draw up onto the front of our short par 4 3rd and 4th greens. My woods are just not worth hitting now that they are so hooky they are almost unuseable and even my irons seem to lack that convicting ball flight I had developed. As you can imagine a number of weeks like this has not only effected my handicap negatively but there is no confidence in anything I do with a golf club whatsoever at the moment.

Anyways introductory essay over, I'm just looking for some tips on getting my game back to the way it was before the end of the season and my patience are both up, with the way I am playing right now they are both coming up too soon at this rate. I will take this to the appropriate part of the forum.

I look forward to your comments and joining in on the forum.
Thank you for reading.

[Nikonut]

Welcome, I have relatives in Scotland

[ejdahl21]

Welcome to Shottalk.

[FATC1TY]

Welcome..

My advice, is to buy a new club. It's obviously the club causing the snap hooks.

[halifax_golfer]

I had bad snap hooks for almost half the summer . I know exatly how your feeling!. I've beat the hooks, but my scores havn't come back down much yet as my confidence took a real big hit with all those hooks.

I felt that it was due to my grip, and someone on here nicknamed "SUX" gave me a good tip on taking my grip. He said to grip the club with my top hand, Fingers under the grip of the club as if I was reading a note I wrote on my hand. Then close the fingers and wrap the rest of the hand over. This felt wierd to me at first, but was producing a slice as a miss instead of a hook. Slices are a lot more fun to hit (IMO) then a duck hook, problem is that I lost a bunch of balls adjusting. Since then, I've been using his grip taking tip in my pre-shot routine, and I've really found something that works well for me, I have a slightly weak grip now, but I really know that I can release like heck through a shot and not hook it too badly. Problem now is starting it out on the right direction, but I'm having a lot more fun hitting the ball high, solid and in the general right direction.

You might wana try this out to see if it helps you, it helped me BUCKET loads. I always had hooks with my irons (only been playing for 5 years aswell), and now I play a nice straight shot with more height then ever. Just thought I'd throw something out there for you to try out.

I really feel bad for you though, and hopefully you can get it sorted out faster then I did.

Welcome to shottalk