Frustration to the Nth power...

[tailStrike]

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to vent a little here. I've been playing golf off and on for nearly 10 years now and caught the bug again this year and have been hitting the range pretty heavily. I'm trying to hard to build a repeatable, strong, and accurate swing, but it's just not coming together for me.

My tendency is to hit my irons relatively strong and hook my driver pretty consistently. After watching a couple of instructional vids, I decided to hook up the camcorder and take a look at my swing and discovered that my setup with the driver was pretty poor - my legs were straight and I was bending mostly with my back, rather than hips, leading to a rather odd take away where my arms would come straight across my body on the inside before they turned and moved upwards.

At the range I forced myself to keep my chin up, bend at the knees and hips with better posture and create a swing with my driver that felt more similar to swinging an iron. I straightened the driver out and hit more straight 200+ yard drives than I had had produced in a long time. However, today I hit the range and the same technique produced SLICING!!! Part of me wants to think that I'm now swinging a little faster and my shaft is too soft, but I know that's just wishful thinking. I just don't understand how no matter how long a play this game or how much effort I put into it, I never seem to get off of this plateau of sub mediocrity. Ugh!

To top it off, in previous seasons, I was capable of placing my short and scoring irons pretty close to the target, but I was spraying them along with everything else. Just waiting for the golf gods to bless me with some sort of epiphany, but it's been a long time coming.

Kyle:dead:

 

[mont86]

Welcome Kyle,
Can't give you much advice except hang in there.

 

[mddubya]

Yep, Mont86 pretty well nailed it. Keep practicing, and maybe take a couple of lessons. Perhaps another persons perspective will help? Good luck and welcome to ShotTalk.

 

[Eracer]

I'm in the middle of a 6-month, 15-lesson plan, and I'm just now starting to be able to repeat a decent swing. I've been playing for 30 years, and like you, have been mired in mediocrity all that time. One thing I've learned is that what you think you're doing in the swing is seldom what you are actually doing. Watching yourself on video is a step in the right direction, but trying to fix something you think you see on tape is very often a step in the wrong direction.

See a pro. Or at least post your video here SwingAcademy.com and give us a link, so that the teaching pros here can give you some pointers. They've been awesome in their willingness to help us for free. Take advantage of that, then go to a pro. And get your equipment checked. Sometimes fighting the wrong or improperly fitted equipment can be the worst thing you can do.

 

[chemboy2]

Welcome to the board!

I think others have hit this on the head with suggesting lessons. I took a five lesson plan that turned my game around (went from hoping to break 100 to consistently breaking 90 and I'm still improving). I think video lessons work best as they give you visual feedback on what you're feeling. They also give you visual check points that you can continue to reference long after the lessons are over.

 

[tailStrike]

Hey guys. Thanks for listening to my whining. I was in a bit of a mood when I posted that. I should consider myself lucky to be of good enough health and financially able to play golf at all.

I think I will look for a pro to get some lessons. I think that simply watching instructional tapes can be problematic, due to the obvious faults of lack of personalization. Probably end up trying to fix things that aren't broken. I think some of the putting instructional stuff I've watched has helped, though, along with some of the pre shot routines I've picked up. I'm shanking the ball much less now.

I'm within 30 minutes of a Dennis Myer school, but the rates are too steep for me:
<tried to post link but can't until I reach 15 posts - dennis myer dot com>

Half Days​

Full Days​

One Day School

$225​

$325​

Two Day School

$395​

$595​

Three Day School

$550​

$850​

Four Day School

$695​

$1050​

I think I'll look around some.

 

[Eracer]

I think I prefer the slow approach. Rather than overload yourself with an intensive 2,3,4 day school, why not take a lesson from a local pro? If you like him or her, then sign on for a lesson a week, or every two weeks. Work on integrating one swing change at a time. Maybe take five lessons, then take a month off, trying to integrate the changes into your on-course play. Then go back for more lessons and work on new things.

They say that golf is a game of muscle memory, and that it takes a hundred repetitions to ingrain a new motor skill - even longer if you have to change an old and incorrect skill.

Get help from a pro. Take your time. And most of all, believe you will get better.

 

[West Coast Duffer]

I had a prettty bad day today and pretty frustrated aswell. you will see many threads on this. you just got to stick with it and it will come.

 

[tailStrike]

I think I prefer the slow approach. Rather than overload yourself with an intensive 2,3,4 day school, why not take a lesson from a local pro? If you like him or her, then sign on for a lesson a week, or every two weeks. Work on integrating one swing change at a time. Maybe take five lessons, then take a month off, trying to integrate the changes into your on-course play. Then go back for more lessons and work on new things.

They say that golf is a game of muscle memory, and that it takes a hundred repetitions to ingrain a new motor skill - even longer if you have to change an old and incorrect skill.

Get help from a pro. Take your time. And most of all, believe you will get better.

That's definitely the way I want to go. I certainly don't think a 5 day course can fix my game .

 

[tailStrike]

I had a prettty bad day today and pretty frustrated aswell. you will see many threads on this. you just got to stick with it and it will come.

Yeah, it's the good holes that keep you coming back. I sank a 12-footer to birdie a par 5 today - that was probably enough to keep me smiling through another month of hacking.

 

[swingsmooth]

Eracer's made a good point

It's pretty common to make a change in a lesson and then have it take a few weeks to really work on the course. Take some lessons and work on solidifying fundamentals. If you start having problems always go back to the basics grip, alignment, stance etc. A good teacher will help you develop a pre-shot routine that will reinforce the fundamentals every time you set up a shot.

 

[tailStrike]

Just went by the course and scheduled some lessons. The rates were very reasonable ($100 for 5 30 min lessons or $25/piece).

 

[footballking732]

Just went by the course and scheduled some lessons. The rates were very reasonable ($100 for 5 30 min lessons or $25/piece).

Thats a great first start.

A little off topic but id be willing to bet that you are either a math major or have a job in math. Just a guess based on your posts with Nth power and integer references.

 

[tailStrike]

Thats a great first start.

A little off topic but id be willing to bet that you are either a math major or have a job in math. Just a guess based on your posts with Nth power and integer references.

No, but close I guess. I have a BS in computer science, which did require a bit of math .

 

[footballking732]

No, but close I guess. I have a BS in computer science, which did require a bit of math .

:laugh: Ok well close enough. My mother has a BS in computer science, her first job(be it a long time ago lol) was at IBM. She always tells me the stories about how crappy the computers were back then.