How to keep it together for tournament golf when new to hitting?
 

This is my second dose of tournament golf the past week and it wasn't pretty. I thought that the hitter motion would hold up better than the swingers in pressure situations. Apparantly not.

I seemed to do ok off the tee. Where I really sucked is my approach shots. Most were not solid and they tended to go left with hook spin.

But I found out some stuff as the round went on. I need to use extensor action to keep slack from developing in my backswing. I also had more success by shortening my backswing. It feels like I take the club 1/2 way back but but I'm sure goes back farther. This seems to makes it easier to compress the ball (eliminating lag loss and keeping the right wrist bend). It also goes straighter.

Does this make sense for someone who is new to hitting and still struggling to actually play successfully under some pressure?

It sounds like someone new to Hitting. It sounds like you deal with pressure pretty well.

Are you sure that you're using a Single Action Wist Action? Are you maybe swiveling a tad bit at Release?

There are lots of possibles causes and/or joint causes for 'going left with a hook spin".

Here are two:

- Left shoulder location at impact. With 'scoring clubs' it should be well left of the ball at impact. (See also - Stationary Head)

- Not clearing the right hip. As a hitter, pre-clear your right hip at address, and on the downswing make sure your hip slide is sufficient to clear an adequate inside-out path for your arms and hands to hit the Back Aft of the ball. (See also - Hula Hula)

Thanks for your response.
Could you elaborate on the two causes a little more.
1. When you say that the left shoulder should be well left of the ball at impact; do you mean that your shoulders are opened up to the target line?
2. Clearing the right hip. I used to have my right hip well back at address but after watching Ted Forts video on hitting I saw that his impact address was just the opposite. He started with his hands ahead and right hip turned open a little; just like impact.
I may be totally off base with how I am interpreting things

Here's a picture of Hogan hitting a wood. (The circle is where the ball is and I added a line to show the left shoulder to ball alignments)

It's darn near impossible to hit the outside aft of the ball from this position.

For a hitter, the right hip should be cleared (turned back behind you) slightly at address. Do some searching on the subject, there is a wealth of great (and consistent) information here on the LBG forum on the subject. :)

Thank you for your help. The photo helps. Is the correct left shoulder position above the result of a hip slide to the left and ball position at address?

Yep, thats correct, for Hogan, anyways, he being a Swinger, not a Hitter.

To Daryl's question about your follow-through/swivel, which of these photo's do you feel most resembles your follow-through/swivel?

I would say when I keep the bent right wrist past impact, I resemble photo on the right. When I lose my lag and bent right wrist is is closer to the one on the left. At least that is what it feels like.
I think I need to clear my right hip at address position and then work on my lateral weight shift to start the downswing.

I have read that some think the shift is down the line and then others think the left hip starts it shift across the line towards right field. I guess it may be personal preference.

Is there any simple drills to get all of that working together? I suppose it would make sense to start with chip and pitch shots?

Check out this thread. Click Particularly post #20 from Yoda.

Basic and Acquired motions (chip and pitch) zero out the pivot, so there is no 'slide' in those motions.

There's a ton of great information on this forum on Zone 1 - the Pivot. Use the search function to find out what the experts have to say. :)

Drill-wise, I would check out the MacDonald drills. Click Although, for some reason, atm, the pictures aren't coming up for me. :(

I would love to see those McDonald drills as well, but yes there are no pics. Are they on Yoda's DVD's? I ordered them yesterday.


thanks
Joe

Yep, they are featured in the Drills dvd. Have your dowels and/or driveway reflector rods at hand. :salut:

thanks, I have two of the driveway markers from Lowes just as he metioned,,one orange and one yellow. Best $4 ever spent

thanks
Joe

Thanks for the info and the link. Some good stuff.

But I have to admit that at my age (67) I don't know if I have the time and probably the ability get everything right with my golf swing. There is so much information here that I quicky get overwhelmed. I have a long history of trying many different golf systems (started with TGM in the 70s in one of Homers first classes) and devoted a lot of time practicing each one.

I am looking for some basic moves for me to play better than my 8 handicap. I shifted from "swinging" to "hitting" 4 weeks ago because it seemed simplier at first to hit the ball solidly and generally straight.

Today I went out to the practice area after warming up with "basic" stroke I gradually increased my backstroke and followthrough. As suggested here, I set up in impact position with my right hip turned back. It helped to hit out across the ball but I soon started hitting big draws even with a 7 iron, many finishing left of the target. I was scratching my head and tried to make sure that my right wrist stayed bent all the way through impact as I did with the basic drill. But that seemed to create a "chicken wing" with my left arm.
I then remembered a video on this site "dragging the mop". I started imitating that feel for my full shots (I think that feel helped me keep from flipping) and it cured my pull hooks and big draws.
Sorry for the long post but here is my question: Is the feel of "dragging the mop" a feel for swingers or can hitters use that as a swing feel? (I did incorporate a hit with my right arm near the bottom of the swing with some of the balls I hit with success also)