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What do you do when your game falls apart?


Shawn Paul

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So.... Something new happened for me yesterday in relation to keeping calm and mental control.

 

I was having a decent start yesterday for my round, then I take a double..... not uncommon, but little did I know this would turn to be the best round of my life. So after that double Im 3 over after 4 holes........ The stress stated to build.... but instead of worry about the score, the round...everything... I focused on 1 thing and 1 thing alone... A simple swing thought......"My Chin on a Fence" from there I fire off 4 straight pars...... So now Im 3over after 8. Mind you last week, I took a triple on 7 (same course) as I whiffed off the tee and dunked a ball in the hazard 15ft in front of me........But all I kept thinking of was my swing thought...."Chin on a Fence"

 

I come to the 9th reachable par 5 but my ratio is probably 2/30 attempts and 0 eagles......... come up to my second shot, 3 wood 230 cross wind....."Chin on Fence" I stuff the shot to 3ft bottom side of the cup, semi kick in eagle......37 front....

 

Back Nine was the same.... stress building up.... wondering when I was going to collapse....but stuck to my thoughts single swing thought.....thought nothing else, thought not of my score, my playing partners ..... finish up with a 39 for a 76, lowest score ever!

 

All thanks to keeping the mind occupied by 1 thought alone.......

Does the mental picture of "Chin on Fence" help keep your head up and prevent fat shots? I've found and taught about pointing the chin to the trail foot to help prevent thin or topped shots. I'll try a combination of the two and see how it works. Perhaps that should be our take away from Moe. Do not try to emulate others, but instead, try what they found and if it works, put it in the bag. If not, leave it in the sand. Just my thoughts.

 

Here is from another post

 

http://www.golfwrx.c.../#entry13481606

 

As for what it does,

 

 

 

1)it keeps me from swaying and doing the tiger woods dip,

2)Keeps my body in sync an balanced, once I start moving around I get into a lot of trouble

3) It shortens my back swing where I wont over turn and reverse pivot

4) Adam Scott is my prime swing model....he is so stable in comparison to Tiger Woods and Rory

5) Help my minimize lateral movement

6) Help with a consistent bottoming of my swing. yes, minimizes the thins and fats, the bottom of the swing arc is consistent since there is no drooping.

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As of this morning I shot a whopping 87. I'm a 4 hcp. So I drank my sorrows away with a 6 pack. On the lighter side it actually helped my game on the back nine. Plus there is a 60 degree wedge in the bottom of a pond. I hate the 60 degree wedge. .

 

Thanks for this. I thought only mid hcp's and higher are the only ones who go off the rails. I am an 11 hcp and rising. Shot a 94 on Sunday exactly 2 years to the day that I broke 80 for the first time (76).

 

The only thing I can contribute to this thread of value right now is that my ends justify my means. I know during my good rounds I just pick targets and hit them. If I miss the target I hit the next one at the target. I am present. Not in the last shot, not in the next shot, not in the tough driving hole 3 holes ahead, not thinking about my 3 putt.

 

When I play new courses it's easier for me to get in to this mode - I don't know where I can miss so I try to be more precise focusing on a target. I have played my home course so many times that I have a LOT of history. The 94 is more memorable than the 76.

 

I think the trick is getting to a place where you don't care - hit the shot and forget it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I generally shoot in the low 80's right now.

On Sunday I shot a 97! I felt like I was getting sick with a cold and didn't eat much for breakfast. Driver was terrible. 3 Wood didn't work much better.

Putt's were god awful. Every shot I was pulling and I felt off balance.

 

The only thing I could do was hit out of the sand?!

 

I generally expect a few rounds to be this bad during the year, especially if I'm not feeling so great.

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Was playing at our weekly league and things going well until number #12. Not sure what happen but I hit my tee ball into the water then on my drop I hook the ball into the next fairway.

Looking back at it I didnt go through my routine and just wanted to wack the ball down as far as I could after my drop, This was a new course for me and when I setup to the ball I was unsure exactly where the flag was and must have swung without regard to where I green and flag was. Better to stay committed to the target and shot rather than second guess myself at address. I should have backed off and recommit but i didnt.

This was long day and I was feeling exhausted at the slow play of my partner but that shouldent be an excuse.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's funny. I stumbled across this thread when I was searching for something completely different, but I didn't see it when I was searching yesterday on how to get out of a slump. There's been some great advice here and some major perspective points. I usually start off the year with a decent round followed by a month or two of garbage and then out of nowhere I start playing well. This year has been different. I started out mediocre but with no short game. A few weeks ago everything started clicking and if it wasn't for a few bad bounces I would have had a career low. This lasted all of two rounds over one week. After another lousy nine Tuesday evening I decided to go to the range at my course yesterday and just see what happened. Nothing great, but at least I hit some decent shots. Walking back to my car I ran into a 40+ year member there. He asked me how the round went I and explained I was just at the range trying to figure stuff out. He said "don't think, just hit it!" Sound advice from a seasoned veteran.

 

This Sunday I'm playing in a 4-man scramble tourney with three guys that don't golf more than a few times a year. They think that because I golf regularly I'm somehow supposed to be able to bail them out all day (knowing this from the last few times I've played in similar events) so I may just have to say "I'm in a slump so it's all up to you". Then I'll proceed to have a beer or two while they get sloppy drunk and just try to hit one or two decent shots per hole. I have to remember that I play this game for fun - I have four kids at home so I should be grateful that I can get the time away. Sometimes I think great rounds are almost a curse as much as a blessing because of the false expectations they give.

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Everyone is different, so the same thing wont work for everyone, you need to know your own game. For me personally, if my game goes to sh!te my first port of call is fundamentals. The two big things for me is alignment and ball position. I have a tendency to get my shoulders way open at address. I also sometimes get the ball too far forward at address. Both these are more driver than iron issues, but either thing will wreck your swing. Some times I might work on another key thought like transition or grip, but I try to keep it simple mid round and not work too much on mechanics on the course.

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Back to basics, i find a range or a net and try to go through everything i remembered being taught golf. Takes a while but with a positive mindset, you can achieve anything. Normally i start swinging with my right hand and make sure everything there is squared away, then my left to make sure im not forcing anything and finally go back to both hands slowly incorporating the feet. I was always taught to swing without moving my feet, but as iv gotten older and swung harder my back right foot turns now

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  • 2 weeks later...

Usually if my ball striking is off it's because I'm not turning my shoulders enough, so I work on turning drills to get that feeling back. I haven't had my game "fall apart" for a few years now but back then when it did I definitely felt lost. I know it probably doesn't help, but once I stopped caring about positions in my swing and just playing golf, my swing actually got better and my consistency shot through the roof because I wasn't OCDing about looking in mirrors all the time.

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My game completely fell apart. Like 120+ fell apart. Went to an instructor that asked how I was missing. I said, "high slice right." The first thing he had me do was hit shots as low and as left as I could. I mean waaaaaaay left. He said that between your current miss, and the exaggerated opposite miss (low left for me), lies the shot in the middle. Instant improvement followed. Kept it simple and the body naturally started adjusting. The couple rounds after saw 10-15 strokes disappear. Still a work in progress, but feeling different shots made the adjustments a natural process.

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My game completely fell apart. Like 120+ fell apart. Went to an instructor that asked how I was missing. I said, "high slice right." The first thing he had me do was hit shots as low and as left as I could. I mean waaaaaaay left. He said that between your current miss, and the exaggerated opposite miss (low left for me), lies the shot in the middle. Instant improvement followed. Kept it simple and the body naturally started adjusting. The couple rounds after saw 10-15 strokes disappear. Still a work in progress, but feeling different shots made the adjustments a natural process.

 

pretty cool. now did you try to hook it low and left? or just pull it left?

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My game completely fell apart. Like 120+ fell apart. Went to an instructor that asked how I was missing. I said, "high slice right." The first thing he had me do was hit shots as low and as left as I could. I mean waaaaaaay left. He said that between your current miss, and the exaggerated opposite miss (low left for me), lies the shot in the middle. Instant improvement followed. Kept it simple and the body naturally started adjusting. The couple rounds after saw 10-15 strokes disappear. Still a work in progress, but feeling different shots made the adjustments a natural process.

 

pretty cool. now did you try to hook it low and left? or just pull it left?

 

I do everything at a chip swing length. I'm not far enough in the process to hit the hook full tilt and feel the impact position. Just getting the feeling of the last moment before impact is huge for me. When I go to the range my warm up is 10 chips low and left, 10 chips high fade right, and 10 chips right down the pipe. It has made a world of difference with my driver, 3 wood, and 3 hybrid. My miss now is a low missile over the shortstop's head.

 

Prior to the lesson my scores:

124, 122, 126, and quit on hole 9 after a 67 on 8 holes

 

Since the lesson and hit it left drill I have about 6-7 rounds under my belt with low 100's, cracked 100 twice (with 3 putts galore), and one round of 113. The 113 was at a pretty tough track (Red Hawk in Tawas, MI) and I was doing some on course tinkering. My driver has gone from 200 with a garbage high fade to 250-280 on a rope.

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This happened to me today in an industry tournament today. I was mediocre from the tee and it got much worse the closer I got to the green. Im going to try an implement some sort of pre shot routine to slow the process down. Everything felt rushed and awkward. Back to basics I suppose...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I sit down and cry about it like the little girl that i am.

an honest golfer no less, albeit a sooky lala (like me)

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Happens to me all the time. And the fun part is it can be the driver, the putter, the middle irons, or the wedges. Or maybe I should say MY USE of those clubs. Oddly enough - lately - the 3 wood off the fairway (arguably one of the hardest shots) has been money. I ballooned my drive off a Par 5 tee box the other day and the ball must've gone 150 up, and 75 out. Horrible tee shot. BARELY made it past the ladies tees. But hit two identical, back-to-back 200 yard bombs with my Titleist 906 and I'm on in 3. Go figs...

 

I'm learning a little bit about this as I go, but one thing is that when I get mad at myself, my core starts to tense up, which inevitably leads to swinging more with my arms and getting body sway which compounds the problems that started me on the wrong foot in the first place.

 

Some things I've learned to correct that help me (sometimes)

 

1. Think about something funny at address. I make myself laugh or at least smile. Before I commit to my swing I blow a big breath out. That alone takes pretty much all of the physical tension out of the shot.

 

2. Every afternoon when I get home from work I go in the yard and just swing a club maybe 15-20 times at a leaf or a particular patch of grass. I'm just going through the motions of what my instructor told me on my first lesson. Stance okay? Right knee staying over the foot? Releasing before contact? Shallow breath in through nose on backswing, breath out mouth on down swing. Getting good body rotation? Clubhead brushing the ground with a small, shallow divot? After I've swung I'll kind of assess how it all felt. The point of all this is to be able to do it as a routine when I'm on the course.

 

3. If I get too pissed (like ready to throw a club -- which I don't do) I'll take a hole or two off.

 

4. I've noticed that my game collapses I've I'm feeling hurried (again the tension.) To get home, to not delay the group behind me, or the guys I'm with. I've got to do better about playing the game at MY SPEED and not worry about other people.

 

5. If every hole is going badly, and nothing's working for me, it's six-pack time. I'm gonna drink, then play golf. In that order.

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When my swing falls apart, I go to the trusty 3/4 shot to reset my swing.

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When my swing falls apart, I go to the trusty 3/4 shot to reset my swing.

That usually does the trick, a short quick backswing.

Current Bag:

TM R7 425 driver 11.5

Cleveland Launcher #4 wood

Cobra King Hyper Steel #7 wood

BB Heavenwood # 9 wood

Titlelst DCI Black O/S irons 7 8 9 W SW, Lovett chipper

McGregor putter

Titleist Tour Soft balls

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