Hi Folks,
my name is Frank, 43 years of age, playing golf since 16 years now with 2 major breaks > 5 years each. I live in northwestern Germany, close to the dutch border, due to some global jobs in the past, I played all over the planet, whenever I could do besides my duties. Digged back into Golf some 2 years ago, practising literally nothing at all, besides hitting a a few balls before each round, every 2-3 Weeks, neverthe less, I mamaged to hit the one or other 80, depending heavily on the mood of my driver, my sandwedge and last but not least, my putter - I guess many of you know this kinda game: The driver splits the fairway way down at 290 yards and you only have a little wedge and suck it all over the places, the other day I feels like you never ever hit a driver in your life but whenever your third or fourth stroke needs a wedge into the green you stick it to the flags, now worries, it just happens and you have no clue how and why but you think at night, Jesus, if only I could bring both a bit closer together, I mean being on the fairway more regular with the driver or 3 wood at 240 hence hitting solid short irons into the greens, then you have 2 putts everytime for par, golf is easy
for whom? Well, not for me over a year.
I have some physical talent, being a former semiprofessional in playing hockey, ok. In my starting years I hit my 7 iron constantly 160-179 yards - no worries I never was sure where it will end, sometimes it went well, more often then bad but it had nothing to do with predictability.
I have broken all my grphite shafts in my first iron set and went to a clubfitter to buy the best looking irons I could get, for me at that time were the golfsmith forged blades, with apollo stiff shafts and sensicore inserts.
My golfswing transformed due to the clubs more solidy then with the graphitewhips, still anybody watching me said your swing looks awfully overpowered (and man it was - I always felt more confident to hit a 130% 8 Iron instead of a 70% 7 iron to give you an idea) but I admire your ball striking.
My scores went constantly down to about 79, best round I had ever was 76 on a french championship course from the back tees - then came the first break, 7 years no golfing just desire to do instead, but neither time nor money. Luckily I seperated from my first wife after some years and went directly on the golf course again developing that I still can swing a club and I still dont know where the shots will end
but another issue flipped into my game: I couldn't put anymore.
my game came back slowly, I asked a few Pro'S for help and the bottom line is: I had no good gutfeeling with any of them, so I took the other way and went on literature, early youtube, etc.
I took another break more or less over the next 4 years, playing max 4 rounds a year while on business trips, the rest was neither time nor money - this time the money went to my ex wife.
2 years ago - thanks to my actual wife - I went back onto a club here somehow close to my home, 20 mins drive. I bought upto now 3 nets and one mat for my backyard to hit a couple of times a day some shots with focus only on technical issues and to hit sweetspots. I already crashed two nets during winter time thats why I bought number 3.
Most valuable device on the golfcourse for my is my gps, as I switched from hitting as far as I can into layup mode, which means I take a couple of layup shots on the course depending on my accuracy from the tees to leave me at least with some full shots into the greens. Tactical wise I advanced alot, ball striking wise I am way off of anything planned. The clubteam asked me last season to to play regional teamchampionship where I failed big time, I couldn't find any kind of swing during pracitse rounds nor games, I lost all my matches, in the worst one I was 5 down after 9 but managed to extend intul 17th green.
Which means, when I am under decent pressure, I seem to play better, during matchplay typically I go 3-4 down before I recover and I won a couple of matches on the last green, but if things go weired (60% of the time) I loose 6&5 or so with no clue at all what i did.
So, since looking around for help I went to the local pro and he gave me some hints, not bad, fast cures, but I fall back into bad habits every now and then. I was lookign for something more reliable to me and found Moe Normans swing thoughts, whom I admire for his passion to the game. Nevertheless the one plane feels just not right to me but I managed to implement some helpful things into my game, especially around the greens.
I read the Mike Austin book and it took me some time to understand what I need to accomplish, then saw Taly and finally it fell right in front of me, keep the hands in front of the ball.
Now, changing clubs the seventh time in the past 2 years, this is my list: Golfsmith forged, Maxfli Revolution, Taylor Made Firesole, Wilson Deep red II, Wilson Forged, Ping i3 OS, Cleveland CG-1 and finally now and hopefully for the next couple of years, Cleveland TA-1.
My driver and woods collection is similar big, currently on a cleveland launcher dst and sonartec woods.
Putters: u name them I had them or still have.
Things is, I changed too much on my conquest for control of the game, so my strategy changed towards one set of irons, one driver for at least the first half 2012, same with the putter.
I am reading here since 2 weeks and want to thank you for all the discussions you had here, there already was a lot of new things to me.
The pre-last time I went on the range last week to hit a number of buckets, every now and then I need to SEE the ball flight. I am not so focussed on carry, but more on direction and curvature.
I was hitting 400 balls with the focus on keeping the Right wrist bend, and it worked pretty well, 70% of the shot were hit on th espot or very close to. Whenever I hit the spot, the ball went on a tiny littly draw, going 3 meters right and curvin back into the aiming line.
Today i tried the same, but my swing was somehow totally out of synch again, I was swaying balls all over the range, mainly pushes and some duckslices until I discovered that I cocked my left wrist during backswing. After trying to hold it like on impact, the draw imediately came back and I hit more on the spot again.
I am looking desperately for a TGM certified coach here in germany. Does anybody know one? Yoda?
Basic motion is theorecticvally clear to me, I struggle with the practise: I feel alot of throwing instead of holding, so still a lot work infront of me before the season starts.
My Practice looks like this: a few practise swings, the wedge upto 6 iron 3-4 balls, just getting into rythm. Placing the aiminghelp and hitting 10 wedges full, focussing on the line, if can hit 8 out of 10 I persue to the 9 iron if not, I take another 7 and try 5.
This goes up to the 4 iron and last time it showed to be easier the less power I put into the swing. towards the end i hit some 3-5 woods. After this I virtually play my home course on the range, sometimes with variations of courvature, means if I just hit a perfect 7 iron drawed to my virtual flag, I try another, with a faded 6 iron onto same target. If I am running out of balls, which happens easily before reaching the 15th green, I call it a session. However, I have not hit a course or anything else like a mat until now. still due to see divots. and also due to make this with normal playing balls, as I do not trust these rangeballs in terms of distance.
I keep reading here as I do feel very confident the the basics already, so let me ask you to keep up your good stories as well.
cheers
Frank
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