i cant friggin drive

[cantgolf]

i am a lefty already golf challenged..lol...but anyways i can hit irons from the fairway but i can never get on the fairway...when i drive the ball it instantly goes way left or goes straight for a few yards and then goes way left..most of the time ob...what am i doing wrong from the tee box i can not figure it out..am i coming up or not finishing my shot i have not idea..is their any drills i can do to hit a straight drive...i can get it out there but just not straight..if i
have another round of 4 straight penaltys from the tee box i will quit and bowl..lol
please any help will be appreciated
thanks in advance

[bonzi_532]

Re: i cant friggin drive

Sounds like you could use the right hand drill, just apply it to your left hand

[cantgolf]

Re: i cant friggin drive

ok what is the right hand drill and thanks for the response

[ph_kingston]

Re: i cant friggin drive

Ok, well the ball is basically going in the direction your clubface is pointing which means its open when you hit the ball. At address, where is your front foot in relation to the ball? It should at or just inside the big toe, give or take an inch or so. If it's father back than that then you're not giving the clubhead chance to close back onto the target line and hence everything goes left.

[bonzi_532]

Re: i cant friggin drive

Sorry not the right hand drill, this one:

http://members.cox.net/gregjwillis/LESSON3.htm

[LowPost42]

Re: i cant friggin drive

This, my left handed friend, is a slice.

It's caused by coming out-to-on along the swingpath.

If you view the ball at address as a clock with 6 at your feet and 12 as far away from you as you can be;

Your swing path should be from 9 to 3 (or even more like 8 to 4).

However, your swingpath is more like 11 to 5. This is called cutting across the ball, and is caused by a number of things.

One cause is trying to hit the ball. Another is overswinging (having too much backswing). This puts the trailing shoulder out of position, and often leads to a trailing shoulder push (this is your left shoulder, cantgolf). This puts your arms and club outside the 'line', forcing you to pull your hands and club back in if you even want to hit the ball (coming from 11 o'clock) and naturally releasing through (at ~ 7 o'clock).

Try making a few swings with your right arm only. Hold the club, make your normal takeaway, and use only your right arm. It will feel very, very strange.

Do it about a dozen times, then add your left arm to the club. Now make the same swing, and let your left arm hang limp (let it fold up on the backswing, and keep it 'dead' on the downswing).

Hit a few balls this way, and you'll probably notice less (or no) slice.

[powerhungry]

Re: i cant friggin drive

I would recommend practicing some intended hooks and draw shots so you can see the opposite of what you are doing now and what makes a ball do what it does in flight. Then hitting the ball square and straight should be easier to comprehend.

Of course you should be trying to find out what is making you slice in the 1st place. It could be a number of things. Do you slice the ball if you hit at 50% of your maximum power or during a half swing? You may be swinging from the top of your swing with too much emphasis on your arms and not enough on the lower body.(weight shift + rotation)

One thing seems certain and that is that you are impacting the ball with an open club face. To solve this remember that you must rotate the wrists along the swing. You can focus on your thumbs pointing to the sky at 50% of the back swing and again at 50% of the follow through after impact. This rotation should occur naturally but, you may be forgetting to bring the clubface back inside the ball to target line after impact with the ball. I used to do this myself

Hope this helped,
Good luck!

[cantgolf]

Re: i cant friggin drive

i would like to thank everyone that responded...what i found out is concentrating more on set up posture and slowing my swing down that my slice is nearly not as bad...but i do hit the ball anywhere from 25-75 yards shorter on my drive...will i be able to increase speed over time and distance or should i just stick with this since it works right now...
thanks

[BDR444]

Re: i cant friggin drive

^^^ YES you CAN get rid of slice.. usually it is just the result of bad tempo and timing...

but yes, cantgolf, it sounds to me like you are trying to hit the ball off the teebox. It's a mental problem. If you can hit good off the fairway but not the teebox you are trying to hit the ball down the fairway. I've long had this problem... and I'm not sure how I honestly fixed it. But what I used to do was instead of looking at the fairway, I'd imagine that I was standing on it instead of the teebox and I was going to lay up like it was a par 5. when i did that I wasnt trying to hit the ball

[cantgolf]

Re: i cant friggin drive

ok i hit the ball straight only 1 out of 3 times now with bad distance...
i am thinking of getting the driver with the hinge the medicus or something like that...anyone have it ? is it worth the money or save the money and take a lesson?
thanks alot