I've Made Some Good Observations During Today's Range Session

[JOSEPHLB]

Driver, Left Wrist and all of the above

I recently posted about my case of the pull-slice with my woods.

Today, I made it an effort to concentrate on the proper hip and shoulder rotation and along with trying to find the right plane for the backswing of my driver.
Ok.. nothing worked.. I was still, pull-slicing (20-30 yards).

So, I decided to do a few drills to get a feel of what the driver should feel like when on the proper plane. Its odd, but what I did was working.

I addressed the ball, with both feet, placed against each other. Ball position was on the inside of my left foot; flexed the knees slightly. Took the driver on the backswing and performed a swing, while maintaining my balance.

More than half the time, I drove the ball over 220 yards, with nothing more than a swing of the club on the proper plane. No hip rotation or movement... nothing, but a swing back and release. I found that odd, but.. it gave me the satisfaction of knowing that the club, definately does all the work, if on the proper swing path.

So, I went back to trying to address the ball normally, and emulate that feeling without success.

Ok.. on to another finding. I tried doing the "one handed" drill, and realized with the first swing, that I'm cupping my wrist at impact. The feeling in my wrist is exactly that feeling during my normal swing. I am finding that I'm exagerating the relaxed grip of my driver, and its almost too relaxed.

So, without a death grip, I tightened up my grip. I concentrated on tightening my wrist and forearm, but maintaining the same relaxed grip on the club. I found that the club shaft then was directly aligned with my left arm. There was no cupping of the left wrist as well.
Low and behold, after a few swings, I was hitting straight drives. A few of them had decent distance, but at this point, I wasn't really concentrating on all the other movements, such as the hips, shoulder turn, etc..

So, all in all: today was a good range session. I learned and figured out a few things. In my case, it appears, I was exagerating the relaxed grip, when in reality it was entirely too relaxed.
This doesn't show up in my iron swings, but is really noticable on my woods.

Now, I just need to put all of these findings together. Thats the tough part.. but the beauty of golf. Not everyone has a textbook swing and it goes to show you, that whatever you find works.. stick to it.