Synthesis

[ubizmo]

Re: Synthesis

I was busy today and didn't think I'd get to play, but about 4:30 I got out and played nine holes. I tried to rewind to what I was doing a few weeks ago, which was some version of S&T with the irons. With the driver and 3w, I tried to incorporate some suggestions from this thread and others. My iron play was excellent, by my standards. Only one shot was thin, and only one was seriously off-line. My woods were not brilliant, but they were better than they have been. Ball flight was somewhat low, considering the clubs I'm using, but not so low as to knock off toupees or anything. cmays, I tried cocking the right knee in a bit, with the foot drawn back a tad. This felt pretty odd, but worked well. I probably hit my two best drives of the day this way. I tried teeing the ball up a bit higher a couple of times, but tended to get low pulls with lots of topspin that way. I got a lot of roll, so they weren't terrible. In general, I worked on coming in low into the ball; there's clearly more work to do.

So, I carded 47 and was pleased with that. I lost 4 balls and took penalties. All four were lost in light rough, but the sun was low and it was difficult to see anything in the glare, and there were also some leaves scattered about. In good daylight I would've found those balls. They weren't OB or in the bushes or anything.

On the whole it was an improvement over my last several rounds, even though it was only nine.

[bill reed]

Re: Synthesis

hi Todd
do you have a big headed driver 460CC. if you do you need to tee it high using really high tees (4") and tee it about 3"s but also stand about an inch further away from the ball, check where your striking the ball on the face when you tee it high. talc on the clubface will show where your striking, i find if i set the ball high with a 460cc driver i have to set up with the toe of the club and not the center of the face, when i make contact it in the center. i have seen a few pros on TV set up on the toe of the club too, don't know if a lot of people do this with the bigger heads now but maybe you should give it a go. i also found i could not get to grips with my 460cc driver till i got the really long tees and was so surprised at the result using them made. i find the center of the ball is best set in line with the top of the driver and with the big drivers thats about 3 inches.
would like to know if other also do this.
bill

[ubizmo]

Re: Synthesis

Although it's another perfect day, I didn't have enough free time to play a round of golf, but I did get to the practice range to try a few things.

First, I hit a few balls with the irons, using the S&T, if that's in fact what I'm doing. To my utter satisfaction, the results were very good in terms of contact, so I concentrated on accuracy, and that wasn't bad either. So I'm feeling pretty confident with the irons, and for me to be able to say that is huge. And although I wasn't trying to get extra distance, I'm getting it anyway, with no special extra effort.

Getting back to the woods (or trying to get out of the woods), I did some more experiments. I tried turning the right knee out just a tad, but that didn't seem to have any clear result. I tried tilting toward the rear a bit, the way I always used to, but that wasn't good. I tried a few other things, but nothing much was working.

I went back and hit a few more balls with my 7i and noticed something. In the backswing, my left leg, where my weight is, naturally bends a bit toward the rear, and on downswing my right leg of course bends toward the front. Through the whole process my weight is "front-loaded." For some reason I suddenly had the idea that this leg action was weirdly "Elvis-like."

I picked up the driver again, swing it, and paid attention to what was happening with my left, leg, which I generally ignore. What was happening was....nothing much. So just standing there, without swinging the club, I experimented with this Elvis move of the legs (yes, I'm sure I was the main attraction at the practice range), keeping my body pretty still from the waist up; little or no lateral movement. Then I took the driver and hit a ball that way. Ahhhhhh....nice ball! Such a simple thing. For whatever, reason, my left leg had become dead when I swung a wood. Maybe it's because when I didn't load my weight onto it I didn't know what to do with it. So I couldn't stay "stacked" over the ball and was basically tipping over in the backswing. Not much chance of "nailing it" that way.

I hit the remaining ten balls in my bucket this way: centered, no discernible weight shift, alternate flexion in the legs, Elvis-like, and got ten nice drives.

As always, the real test is on the course, and in general being able to repeat the performance. I've had more than my share of practice range mirages. But it sure felt like I'd solved a problem.