what kind of problems are you having?

Inconsistent drives is one of my problems. My drive slices about 90% of the time; never hooks. I "duff" or hit a real bad short shot sometimes. The duff usually involves me catching all ground behind the ball.

I was just reading up on grip techniques. I will try this today. What type of grip usually works best; the death tight grip, loosey goosey, or in the middle??

About the only time you want a tight grip in golf is if you happen to find yourself falling out of the cart.

weaker the grip = more of a slice. changing your stance to incorporate your slice isn't fixing your game, its actually making it worse by playing to your faults.

go to the range and work on things. get a 3 pack of lessons from a local professional.

15 mins chipping and putting >>>>>1 hour hitting golf balls at the range

60% of your strokes happen from 100 yards and in.

you hit your driver maybe 12 times a round, but that's all people practice at the range. Average person who shoots 90 has about 40-50 putts and chips in a round.

might not be as much fun as hitting range balls, but if you want to improve your score dramatically, putting green is where its at.

 

Originally Posted by hostile

weaker the grip = more of a slice. changing your stance to incorporate your slice isn't fixing your game, its actually making it worse by playing to your faults.

go to the range and work on things. get a 3 pack of lessons from a local professional.

15 mins chipping and putting >>>>>1 hour hitting golf balls at the range

60% of your strokes happen from 100 yards and in.

you hit your driver maybe 12 times a round, but that's all people practice at the range. Average person who shoots 90 has about 40-50 putts and chips in a round.

might not be as much fun as hitting range balls, but if you want to improve your score dramatically, putting green is where its at.

have alwasy found your advice helpful. what helped me out with my slice off the tee and even with my fairway metals and 3 and 4 irons was getting my hands clear of my hip turn. my hips were way ahead of my hands and was causing me to slice.

I think your Driver may be out of date . You need to buy a new one every year . Drivers are high tech , Highly tuned instruments . From year to year , the earths axis changes slightly , so if you are playing older clubs , you will find that you will be slicing the ball . Watch your ball flight , if it curves , then you know that club will need to be re calibrated or replaced . There are other factors too , last year glare was a problem , so I had to buy a white driver . This year the glare issue has been solved , I got the green light to buy a black driver this year . Best of luck out there !

 

Originally Posted by quietwinner

agree with most itt. get some lessons from a pro, just get an hour and have him help you're drive and mid irons. then just go to the range and work on your chippin and putting yourself. a pro could give you tips on that, but its really not hard to work on by yourself since you're not slicing and hookin chips and puts, you just gotta find your stroke.

as far as duffing, make sure you keep youre eye on the ball. im sure most of the time you do this you're picking your head up before you contact the ball causing you to duff. just make sure you look at the ball/ground after you hit it all the way through your backswing, should help with that.

people who hover around 100 have completely the wrong fundamentals, especially with chipping and putting.

they have there hands set improperly, incorrect ball positions, stance, body posture, stroke, wrist movement, sway, finish. Those are just off the top of my head for chipping.

putting people don't have a proper routine, inconsistent stroke, hand positions, finish, looking up, reading greens, so many things that they think they're are doing correct but are actually hurting there game.

liek i said, buy a 3 pack, or if you are serious of improving, get a 5 pack.....you get deals, rather than just going 1once here and there. Get a lesson on chipping, get another on putting, and 1 basic on the range. Then put in the practice hours and play and improve at your own pace. Once you get set up and see improvement, go back for a touch up lesson/reminder on whatever you feel you need. (5 pack allows you to have the 2 extra lessons on "layaway" basically).

golf is a game where you only get out of it, what you put in. You don't have all the answers, and I'm not claiming I even know half of them.

Short game is 100 % clearly the most important part of golf, espeically for scoring, yet you are telling him to get a lesson for his swing and teach himself chipping and putting because it's not that hard. Possibly the worst golf advice he could receive.

 

Originally Posted by shallowcal

have alwasy found your advice helpful. what helped me out with my slice off the tee and even with my fairway metals and 3 and 4 irons was getting my hands clear of my hip turn. my hips were way ahead of my hands and was causing me to slice.

We should get out and play sometime if you want some pointers, I have taught a couple people you probably know from scratch. One ended up breaking 80 first summer of playing (played or range 3-4x a week).

To the OP, you should watch some of the shows on the golf channel, they often have drills and tips to fix a slice as 90% of people have that miss. Haney had something good recently ill see if I can find a youtube clip.

Similar to this but it was in more depth on TGC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sv1VQKnuJQ

No but I live close to there too so I spend some time at Carls. Did play the day before and the day after haha. I was a 2 last year, put in a lot of work this winter and hoping to get to a + but well see.

LOL @ the matt stafford comment. Blackout in AA one night a friend of a friend thought I was a ringer for him and was telling girls all night he was with MS. I didn't run with it for too long but literally every girl he said it to ran over to introduce themselves, was a good icebreaker haha.

I'm not a great golfer, but I used to play a lot. One trick that really helped my game, was aiming ahead of the ball. Put a tee in the ground 1 or 2 inches ahead of your ball. Line up, and aim for the tee, instead of the ball. It drastically improved my ball-striking and follow-through.

 

Originally Posted by cashinmass

What are some tips to better one's golf game. I shot an 89 at a pro course(Arnold Palmer) last weekend but usually don't play that well. I also took a few mulligans.

well then you didn't shoot an 89 now did you? Why even keep score and brag if you take mulligans? Play it out man. Mulligans and the people that take them tilt me to no end. So you probably didn't break 100? We'll never know, will we?

To answer your question though. Short game is where you should practice 90 percent of the time. it's been proven to lower your scores the fastest.

 

Originally Posted by cashinmass

Inconsistent drives is one of my problems. My drive slices about 90% of the time; never hooks. I "duff" or hit a real bad short shot sometimes. The duff usually involves me catching all ground behind the ball.

I can make u draw the ball and get rid of your slice, just PM me. Also, quit taking mulligans completely. Putt everything out and play the ball as it lies. It's not about being a purist but if you don't you will truely never know how your game is and where u stand. Do not try shots you can't hit and play for the middle of the green in most cases. I will now read other replies.

keep in mind theres a difference between a strong and weak grip in terms of your hand placement on the club, and the actual grip pressure. if youre hitting a slice, 2 things are happening. one is that youre probably coming over the top with your swing and cutting across the ball, which puts the slice spin on it. secondly, youre releasing the club too late, hitting with an open club face, which compounds the previous problem. if you only do one of these things, your shot will be more of a fade, or at least not a complete banana slice. to get the hands/wrists loose, swing the club like a baseball bat and turn your wrists over completely before you get to the point of impact. doing this drill a few times should help you create the feel of fully releasing. to get the club on the right path on the downswing, really visualize the club starting from the inside, and then following through to the outside, which is what creates the draw spin. combine that with turning your hands over more and youll start turning the ball from right to left, instead of left to right. of course if you just want to hit dead straight shots, the path needs to come down in the center, and release in the center. but to fix a slice, to change the muscle memory you probably teach yourself how to hit a draw.

the biggest thing is understanding what physically happens in a golf swing when someone hits a slice/hook/fade/draw. most people who slice tend to try and turn their body more and hit the ball more left, because their ball slices to the right more, when all that does is cause you to cut across the ball more, which causes the slice. to hit a draw, you need to trust that you need to stay in your posture, and release the club out more to the right, and let the spin from an inside out swing do all the work. theres infinite information online about these that will really help, and the first step is probably understanding the physics

I think I'm going to find the iron that I can hit 150 yards and practice with it until I can land it on a beach towel... I'm pretty sure this is the secret.