Building consistancy?
 

As a relative newbee to hitting, I started out with a bang, but now I find myself stuck. My golf today was indicitive of what has been happening.
My drives right now are far superior to my fairway shots. It feels like I am hitting only about 30% of my fairway irons with a good flying wedge intact. I will hit an iron perfectly flush and straight with a bend right wrist and then tell myself that I can do that on the next shot. But it rarely happens two shots in a row. Very frustrating. However the successes that I have had are so rewarding that I can't wait to hit the ball the same way again.
I have the video "Preshot routine for hitters" but need to know the best way to learn to be more consistant at impact position (bent rightwrist) through the ball. I am not sure if I am running out of right arm or experiencing clubhead throwaway. Are there drills somewhere on this site that can help build consistancy?
I read on this site about basic motion and aquired motion. Is there a definition on those terms here?

Basic motion is a chip shot length stroke. 2 feet back, 2 feet through. Acquired motion is taking the club back to when the right forearm is parallel to the ground and then swinging through until the right forearm is again parallel to the ground, now on the follow through.

Start off with basic motion. Get down what you are trying to accomplish. If it's maintaining a flying wedge, use basic motion until you get down maintaining the flying wedge. Then move onto the acquired motion. If you struggle with the transition, 'feel your way around.' What's the difference in feels between basic and acquired? Close your eyes if you have to. Or go in super slow motion if needed. Or both.

I actually ran into this problem last week. Crushing drives and just taking much better swings with the woods, particularly the driver, than the irons where I would usually come over the top. Tried some 'swinging out to right field' drills, even ones that were pretty extreme and 'felt the differences' and made adjustments to help with my swing.

Then I had a hard time maintaing the flying wedge so I worked on some other TGM drills and 'felt the differences' and made the adjustments. Hitting the ball much better, just added 10 yards to my irons with much better accuracy and trajectory despite it being cooler in Atlanta this week with the air being a bit heavier.

I will say this, for me it had to do a lot with the #1 pressure point.




3JACK

Hey Greyguy

For me the introduction of Extensor Action was the open door to consistency. Touch wood, jinx, where's my rabbits paw?

It isnt easy to adopt, might take some time. Its going to feel weird and necessitate the turning off of a lot of old ways, but if you're like me, once you get it .................... you'll never, ever give it up. Stick with it, this is a place where many have approached only to back away.

Oh, the consistency comes via the simplification, almost automation, it promotes in your swing. Extensor Action will make a lot of things talked about around here come to life. Your Left Hand will cock on its own as the Right Arm shortens going back, the inert Left Arm, the check rein, Hands to Pivot as the shoulder turn takeaway gives way to the Right Forearm's fanning and bending, you'll feel like you hit all your shots with your on plane Right Shoulder, flatter left wrist etc etc etc.................

Hit the search button.

Start in Basic or Acquired and learn to love it there. Its unlikely you could just turn it on in a longer shot and like it. This is why a lot of people fail to adopt it I think. It is awkward at first. Start small and gradually introduce it to longer and longer shots.

Thank you OB
You've just validated the key to my recent "AHA!!!" moment about the golf swing.
I've slowly practiced and begun to understood pressure points, power accumulators, Magic of the Right Forearm etc....but until I started using Extensor Action, I was still inconsistent with my stroke. It has been the 'glue' to my whole swing!

Pan

This is how unfair life can be....:crybaby:


Ya see this....1093 Posts.

I began understanding the Magic of the Right Forearm 3 weeks ago, and had it locked down about 1 week ago which includes Extensor Action and the Flying Wedges. :(

You have 4 posts. I bet your about 20 years old too.:laughing9

:crybaby: Daryl - I wish I was 20 again! Then maybe I could've enjoyed 20 more years of golf than I have - I've only been playing(hacking, actually) about 5 years....until I stumbled onto this great site. Now I feel like I can actually control the golf ball....some of the time! Thanks to all (like you) who post here giving freely of their knowledge. I'm sure there's still more for me to learn......though hopefully before I get to 1000 posts!:laughing9

Pan

Dont fret Daryl

I have to re learn Extensor Action every week or two. I find that it is almost always the thing missing thing when Im going through a golf trough or cycling down. You're not so far behind, never more than one cycle. You can always just catch the next wave.

Hey, Drew will like this, no doubt. He's a wave rider no?

1...2...3
 

I have posted along these lines before but I believe it may be helpful to some in the consistency department. Behaviour is driven by sub-conscious desire...or true intent. What do you really want out of this ball of wax? The golf stroke is a vehicle to a greater end, namely lower golf scores. Even the best learned to "win ugly" Nobody likes "ugly." I think the goal of becoming a ball-striking savant is a pyrrhic victory at best.Not to raise the eyebrows of our northern neighbors but there were X amount of players that could probably have schooled Moe Norman out there where it counts (just not on the days his was setting one of his umpteen course records!)

Homer seemed to be big on the separate identities thing and gave us great advice on how to proceed.

Learn the alignments...make the motion indoors...always look, look looking...take the motion to the range and manufacture shots as though you were playing golf...take your shots to the course...add the numbers and enjoy...rinse and repeat.

I am aghast at how many seasoned players cannot aim within 30 years of their target! To me that is a result of being mechanics-minded on the range. I think when the lines between the three stages become blurred then consistency suffers!

Hey Okie,

I can’t argue with you when you’re right.

I am wrong, right?
 

My tenacity is exponentially more disagreeable when I am wrong!

This has been part of my TGM journey. My initial reaction to discovering TGM was "YESSS...finally golfing perfection will be mine. Muhahaha!" I have always had the tendecy even in the middle of competitive play to become swing-oriented...er obsessed. Sean O'Hair reminds me of me back in the day with...less compression...less hair...less height! Always fidgeting...always tinkering. Ironically, it took the most exhaustive book on golf stroke mechanics ever compiled to put me on a better path! HK My "mob" as Homer termed it is less unruly these days. If I have a particulary bad day I know that my alignments are off so I have to go back to the net, the mirror etc. Start with 12-5-1...graduate to 12-5-2...I have a rule: if I start thinking about sequenced releases, snap loading etc. on the range I make it a mechanics session by hitting nothing but basic motion shots (not my favorite way to hit a bucket of perfectly good range balls) On the course I try to approach it from a NO, or GO mind set (learned this from Tomasi's book The 30 Second Swing.) Essentially this is shot selection based on the situation at hand factoring layout difficulty, weather, personal feel etc. I focus on the straight plane line, clubface alignment and "catching" the lag with my #3PP.

Well Okie, You’re on a roll. Two for two.

I don’t want to bust anyone's bubble, but……, for those that understand TGM, the difference between a good day and a bad day, is only a few yards. Of course the score card may be very different. :study:

For the rest of Golfdom, it’s “wow, man, did anyone see where that one went?”. :pray: "I didn't flip my thing at the whatyacallit position". :laughing9

Funny for a peanut M&M
 

"I didn't flip my thing at the whatyacallit position". :laughing9[/quote]

There is a version of that at every level! :eyes:

But in Total Motion...
 

Basic and Acquired are fine exercises and lead to extraordinary short games.
But when it gets to Total Motion and the pivot components get in there, that's when the trouble begins.

Train the pivot first. Not hitting it well? Look to pivot. Without a club.

Loren,

I am finding the same thing, work on impact alignments using basic and acquired motion. Those alignments must become ingrained so they happen automatically in total motion. In total motion, work on pivot and think about the three stations, Address, top, finish. It's too difficult to see and feel impact alignments during total motion, and working on them may encourage quitting/steering, and makes it next to impossible to execute a proper finish swivel.

THE STAR SYSTEM TRIAD
1) The Three Imperatives (2-0)
2) Controlling the Three Functions (1-L-A/B/C)
3) Through the Three Stations (12-3)


I am really enjoying the simplicity of the MacDonald drills in training my pivot.

Kevin

I look at it like a lot of other things in life. For example, say I have never learned mathematics before and want to learn advanced calculus. The steps for that are to learn counting, addition and subtraction. Then you move onto multiplication and division, then long division, whole numbers, basic calculus, etc.

What most golfers do is go right to 'advanced calculus' (total motion). They may have a decent understanding of addition and subtraction (basic motion) but they are prone to make too many mistakes and don't have it down pat. And a lot of golfers I know that get into TGM tend to think that since they got addition and subtraction down (basic motion) they can move right onto advanced calculus (Total Motion) without an issue.

IMO, consistency comes from learning feel from mechanics. My feel is mostly based around lag pressure and when I'm not hitting the ball that well for me, usually it's because my feel is just a bit off. But it took me 20 years to understand what feel really is and how to grasp feel and I did it by finally understanding what feel from mechanics really was.

The curriculum of basic, acquired and total motions allow the golfer to learn feel from mechanics and it allows the golfer to really find out a lot about themselves and what happens when things don't go as well as they normally should. And you can train the pivot quite well using the curriculum of basic, acquired and total motions. I know I did.

One of the big reasons I believe why the golfer who learns feel from mechanics can improve their precision is I believe quite often 'swing feels' can 'expire.' So if the golfer has a feel that was working for them that expires, they can just go back to the curriculum of basic, acquired and total motion and learning feel from mechanics and perhaps feel something new or 're-feel' their old swing feel and get back to repeating good mechanics and alignments again.


3JACK