Help?

[danielson2047]

Hello, everyone. I got a problem. I've been golfin now pretty regularly since early spring. My driver is comin around nicely, bout 150 yards and straight (shut up 300+ ers). I can hit my wedges, 7 & 8 irons straight, and putting is getting better everytime out. Problem is here, i can't hit anything under a 7 iron (2,4,5,6 5w). i keep topping the ball with the irons and the 5 wood is just not right. any swing adjustments or alignment tips ya guys can give me? i'm gettin a new set up clubs here soon with some hybrids. (my clubs are like late 70's - early 80's style, don't know if that makes a diff) thank you for any input.

[Davebud]

That makes a difference, and regardless of everything I have heard and read I believe there are at least 6 different swings in golf,

1)Driver
2)Hybrid and Fairway Woods
3)Long Irons
4)Mid Irons
5)Short Irons and Wedges
6)putter

[ezra76]

Those clubs require more of a sweeping strike than a downward blow. Try a wider swingplane and more of a sweeping motion. Don't get too discouraged though, just about everyone has a lot of trouble with those clubs starting out. More forgiving irons and hybrids in the long irons will be much easier to work with.

[Davebud]

Had a couple more thoughts, start with the 7 iron and work your way to the 4 iron. My 6 iron gets more play than any other iron in my bag, except maybe the 9. I have been told that it should be my 7 iron, but I just groove the 6 so its the one I hit off the tee on par 3's and from 170 to 140, I can't get it out to 170, but I can leave myself close from there, at 160-150 I am on the green with a solid swing, and I ease up just a smidge from 140 and its right there. Once I get the 140 to 110 area down with the 8 or 9 iron I will be master of my fate. From 110 to about 80 I am a little sketchy with my PW, sometimes its good and sometimes its not so good. From 80 in I am back in the saddle. I think once you get the idea of where you are relative to what clubs you are comfortable hitting this game is all yours.

[cypressperch]

here is the other side. I am referring to the question of whether or not there is ONE swing that fits all clubs. A lot of great golfers, Hogan and Nicklaus come to mind, have written that every club is swung in the same manner. That idea is, at best in my way of thinking, a very broad generalization. With all clubs (putter a partial exception), the club is swung with the shoulders coiling back while the club is progressively brought up, and then the club comes back to the ball with the shoulders (Oh, and do not forget the hips are also in motion.) uncoiling and the arms coming down. So as John Jacobs says, you have two turns and a swish. Getting these synchronized in a smooth, powerful motion is what finding one's swing is all about.

So the generalization is true and useful. But as the club becomes shorter, you stand closer to the ball. As you stand closer to the ball, your swing becomes more upright. Your angle of attact is greater with a more upright swing. Most instructors (not Jack) will want you to position your ball farther up in your stance as the length of the club increases. The angle in your right wrist at address and impact is greater with wedges than with the driver. I like to coil until my back faces the target with every club, but my arms do not come up nearly as much with the wedge as with the driver. At the top of the swing, the driver's shaft will be parallel to the ground, but not so with shorter clubs.

Because of driver length, the clubhead moves from the ball close to the ground and on the target line longer than with shorter clubs. With a wedge, you should swing the club back low and on the target line initially, but quite quickly compared to the driver, the club starts to come up. It also comes inside the target line, but not too much since with the shorter club, you are closer to the ball and the swing is more upright. If you were to swing the club too far inside you will have the club behind you too much, and all sorts of bad stuff will follow, and one of these problems can be the shank (I know what you are thinking, but one of my missions in life is to at least put a dent in the inordinate fear we have of a mere work!).

Regardless of the club used, you do not want the arm swing to race ahead of or lag behind the body turn. If you stay "connected", you will be doing something that can prevent either of these two faults. When Vjay puts head covers under his armpits, he is insuring that he will be "connected". His arms will have to stay synchronized with his shoulder turn, or the covers drop out. When Hogan wrote that the elbows should stay closer to one another throughout the swing, he was talking about "connection."

So get alined to the ball using the railroad track image. Find your best tempo and do not rush it. Stay connected through impact. And be ready to hit all of your clubs solid and straight. (I know. Easier said than done.)

The very best of luck with your game. Sincerely, Cypressperch

[Davebud]

Cp I sort of get what you are saying, but here is my quandry, as my clubs get shorter my angle gets steeper, my take away gets shorter and my stance narrows. Also my grip seems to creep slightly more and more over the top with my left hand. All of this leads to a somewhat different type of swing.
It's sort of like baseball where there really are 5 different full swings, Homerun, pull, drive, straight through, and drag. They are all variants of the same swing, but you are changing what you do enough to produce a different result, and in that respect it's a lot the same as golf.

[cypressperch]

"The golf swing is the same for all shots." To me this is only true in a very general sense. More accurate would be the statement, "The golf swing is SIMILAR for all shots."

When we start to look at the swing's particulars, I agree with you that we really come up with a different swing for each club. It is actually more swings for each club when we start to talk about shaping shots with different clubs.

Also, there are certainly different swings involved with different short shots. I have three different shots based on what happens with the wrists, whether or not they **** or not going back, and whether they release or not coming back to the ball. Yes-yes means the wrists **** going back and release coming to the ball with the result being a high, soft landing shot. Yes-no means the wrists **** going back, but there is no release (angle in right wrist is retained) with the result being a low trajectory shot that releases and rolls. (if the ball is moved up a little in the stance, the ball will check up fairly quick rather than releasing. This provided the leading edge of the wedge nips the ball well below the equator.) No-no is like my putting stroke and this becomes a very good chipping stroke if you make a somewhat descending blow. (Actually, there is a fourth stroke the no-yes. It has very limited use and is hard to hit. I may be one of the few people to use this shot since I have never seen it discussed in any book. If you have a real fast, down hill chip, and you want to hit the weakest shot you can which has some backspin, this shot will work, and it works better than a flop at close range. I am rambling, as usual, but I have just covered four different swings in the short game. This is just one of many ways to prove that the old idea of one swing for all shots is wrong, or at best, very misleading.

Again, we are on the same page. Sincerely, Cypressperch

[Davebud]

Cool, I was given to that impression, but as is the nature of forums, it is easy to read to much or to little in what another person has posted. So basically I was just seeking confirmation.