Dead Driving

[sandmac]

Hey guys. Pretty new to golf. Been playing regularly for a 2 months now.
I'm still very much building my swing...

I'm a bit worried because my driving has just almost completely fallen off.
There seems to be no reason.

When I first started I could always get solid contact and sometimes just drill it past others who have played for years and have much better clubs. I did have a slice though.

Recently, I started to increase my consistancy and distance by relaxing into a swing and focusing on squaring at contact.

Suddenly last weekend my driving just died. If I hit the ball it either died early or hooked left about 50 yards. Pathetic. This never used to happen. Hit the range again today and apart from 2 drives that were just booming and straight, the hooks and rolls were still there. Ughhh!

Does this ever just happen? Again I'm new to the game.

Help?!

[Ian Hancock]

Re: Dead Driving

Sandmac,

It takes lots of patients and time to build a good solid golf swing, you may catch one and knock it past your mates, however you will notice that they will be more consistant even if they are shorter off the tee.

After only two months you will rely soley on hand eye cordination and a little confidence or lack of it as the case maybe.

Work on the fundimentals mainly set-up and posture of your body, if you don't start right it will never work. Try to be patient and work hard with the shorter clubs to engrain a good solid swing, only then work up to the driver, which is the hardest club to hit, yet requires less wrist action and a smooth transition. By this I mean the big clubs are longer and need more time to come back to the ball, so to achieve a good swing with a driver you need good rhythm, engrain that with the shorter clubs.


Good luck and be patient it will come.


Ian.

[rubch]

Re: Dead Driving

I'm in a very similar situation. When I first started using my driver, every shot was long and straight. I just focused on getting my hands around (right over left) so square the clubface to avoid the slice. Then all my shots started pulling and hooking severely.

What I think happened was that at first, getting my hands around was unnatural, and I had to focus on it to accomplish it. Now, it's natural and I was getting my hands too far around. I saw a teaching pro, and he noticed that on my backswing, I was not opening the clubface enough. I was not cupping the left wrist enough. As a result, I was over rotating the clubface through impact.

As I've begun to open the clubface completely on the backswing, my shots have straightened out. I'm still working on having that become natural.

Basically, it takes time for your body to get used to certain motions. When it does get used to it, though, it might reveal other parts of your swing that you need to work on.