HELP PLEASE ASAP!

[bombaway]

sometimes hook/sometimes push fade/slice

As it says in the topic description I need a lot of help lol. My misses which started happening a lot lately are either a straight up low hook or it is a push slice and some times just a straight shot with a light fade. I don't like this at all. I used to be able to control the ball but now I have had no luck.

Here is some information about myself: I golf EVERYDAY because I work at a golf course and get free golf and range balls. I only work around 2-3 days a week so I get plenty of time to golf everyday (most shifts are only a couple hours). So practice time is not a problem. For example today I went and played 18 then I hit a JUMBO bucket and 2 Large buckets. Boy was I tired. Plus I take at least one practice swing before I hit every ball when playing 18. When you add that together that is a lot of swings lol.

I just want to know what causes and how to fix:

a low hook, a high hook, a push fade, a push slice, and a shot that starts of strait and fades/slices.

And what causes:

A sore right elbow, a sore left thumb, black on my right hand from the grip and on my glove, and a sore right leg (right where the knee bends).

I know I am asking for a lot of information but you guys seem to be nice people and hopefully you will take the time to help me out. I would greatly appreciate any and all replies that I am given. So far this has proved to be a great site and I am happy to be a member here.

Also is it possible that the soreness comes from hitting so much and my body can't handle that?

[bombaway]

As you can see I have a lot of questions so someone please help.

[2DOWN3TOGO]

First of all if you work at a golf course go grab the teaching pro , take a lesson. Sounds like you are just banging balls and grooving a bad swing. Club face shut = hook and club face open = slice. Your pro can fix all of this if you'll apply yourself. Hope this helps.

[bombaway]

It doesn't seem like i'm just banging balls around because there are good shots in there. But I do have those misses. Even though I work there I can't just grab the teaching pro. Before I hit a shot I used the same setup and everything that I do on the course.

 

Any more replies would be greatly appreciated.

[beachgrovejunior]

Banging Balls doesnt neccesarily mean that youre not going to hit good shots, it just means that unless youre vijay singh, theres no way you should hit that many. Sometimes i hit 2 large buckets a day, but recently ive noticed that its better to hit less and focus more on each shot, helps a lot more.

[cypressperch]

It does sound like you may be beating a lot of balls pointlessly. Please do not take that statement too seriously because it is a very common mistake. I have waisted a large amount of practice time over the fifty-plus years I have played golf by not being more purposeful about every shot at the range or on the course. We have to develop a certain amount of discipline as we "dig our games out of the dirt." Taking every shot fairly seriously will save us many a blown shot when doing so becomes our habitual way of approaching each and every shot. I am certain that taking care with one shot from the pre-shot routine to the follow through advances our ability at this game more than ten or more shots taken without much care.

 

Even a young person can get themselves a bunch of sore muscles from too much practice. When our muscles are sore, we cannot perform well. Also, if our posture is good, we will not get nearly as sore. If we are swinging with a smooth rhythm and even tempo with the main object being good contact at impact (for consistency, accuracy, and distance), we will not get as sore as soon as if we are trying to crush every shot (which, of course, is fun). The older we get, the more care we must take, but if we have been taking care from an early age (being 'wise beyond our years'), we have a good chance of playing injury-free golf for many years.

 

Your questions seem to suggest that you need to develop a familiarity with the GEOMETRY OF GOLF. This knowledge will make it possible for you to become good at self-diagnosis of problem shots that you have. It will make your practice sessions much more meaningful since you will have a better idea of what is happening with every shot you make. First, THE INITIAL FLIGHT OF THE BALL IS DETERMINED BY THE CLUBHEAD PATH. Example: If the clubhead path is from the inside moving to the outside, your ball will INITIALLY head out to the right. If the clubhead path is from the outside moving to the inside (as in "over-the-top"), the ball will INITIALLY move to the left. If the clubhead path is on the target line both before and after impact, the ball will INITIALLY go straight at the target.

 

If only golf were as simple as the above! It is not so simple because there is also another important variable that determines ball flight. This is the position of the club face at impact. If at impact, the club face is square to the clubhead path line, there will be no side-spin imparted to the ball so the ball flight will be a straight line. We can have a straight pull; a shot straight down the middle; or a straight push. Again, no side-spin because of square impact yields a straight shot from start to finish.

 

If the club face is closed at impact (meaning the toe beat the heal of the club to the ball), there will be no square contact and therefore side-spin will be imparted to the ball. A closed club face for a right-handed golfer will cause the ball to move from right to left when the SIDE-SPIN OVERCOMES THE TENDENCY OF THE BALL TO intially GO STRAIGHT BECAUSE OF THE CLUBHEAD PATH. A little bit of a closed face gives a draw, and a very closed face gives a hook. If the club face were open at impact, the opposite occurs. The side-spin will give us a left to right ball flight when the side-spin overcomes the tendency of the ball to INITIALLY go straight because of the clubhead path. If the face is open a little, we get a fade; if open a lot, we get a slice.

 

From this, I hope you can see the fundamental causes of straight pulls, pulled hooks, pulled draws, pulled fades, pulled slices, shots that go straight down the middle from start to finish, shots that go straight down the middle and draw or hook left, shots that go straight down the middle and fade or slice to the right, straight pushes, pushed draws and hooks, pushed fades and slices.

 

Of course, you have to have good fundamentals: grip, posture, alinement, ball position, etc.

And do not underestimate the importance of keeping your swing smooth and rhythmetic. The first thing that moves going back is the clubhead when the hands move. The last thing that moves going back is perhaps the left heel coming up or wanting to come up. On the down-swing, the first thing to move is the left heel going down (perhaps because of a little bump to the left by the left hip--but no big slide to the left!). The last thing to move on the down-swing is the hands which will make the clubhead start to move as well.

 

Man, I have given you a bunch of stuff, but it can be helpful. The geometry stuff can be "practiced" anywhere. Just imagine a shot going to the right and then slicing even farther to the right. What made that shot happen? An inside to outside clubhead path with a well opened club face at impact. No other combination is possible for that particular ball flight! With this problem you might want to check you alinement. If that solves the intial direction problem, but there is still a slice, you might want to rotate your grip to a little bit stronger position until the slice disappears.

 

The very best of luck to you with your swing and game. Sincerely, Cypressperch

[hattrick3518]

i find that a large bucket can be extreme. you need to focus on the range, vizualize that you are on a hole out on the course, take your time, your full preshot routine, and hit the shot, i find its a lot harder to hit a crap shot if you take your time and concentrate on making a good swing, and not rushing through bucket after bucket. you would be surprised how much one lesson helps too ;)

[mikpga]

Quality vs. quantity...

 

Reading your post, I get the feeling that ball striking is more important than score. Is that a correct assessment?

[jcjr34]

As it says in the topic description I need a lot of help lol. My misses which started happening a lot lately are either a straight up low hook or it is a push slice and some times just a straight shot with a light fade. I don't like this at all. I used to be able to control the ball but now I have had no luck.

 

 

 

I just want to know what causes and how to fix:

 

a low hook, a high hook, a push fade, a push slice, and a shot that starts of strait and fades/slices.

 

And what causes:

 

A sore right elbow, a sore left thumb, black on my right hand from the grip and on my glove, and a sore right leg (right where the knee bends).

 

My first question is, are you having ALL of these problems w/ your ball flight when you play?? Overall it sounds like you have an outside-in type of swing which can cause any of these..

The push slice comes from the face being open and the outside-in path of the swing.

The straight then fade/slice comes from the face being square, but you have an outside-in swing path.

low and high hooks (not draws) can still come from and outside-in path but you may have closed the face too early. This happens to me when I try to swing too hard sometimes. I can't really explain why this happens..

 

The soreness and coloration are result that you a definitely over working your body.

 

Don't play/practice so much and ease your swing up a bit (don't swing out of your shoes). Do you go thru your normal preshot routine in your range sessions? If not, then you probably are ball beating, especially a jumbo PLUS 2 large buckets after 18 holes.

As everyone is saying here, your range sessions shoule be quality, not quantity. ;)

[bombaway]

Quality vs. quantity...

 

Reading your post, I get the feeling that ball striking is more important than score. Is that a correct assessment?

 

I'm gonna have to say no to that question but let me explain. For example yesterday, I would hit a bad drive and it ended up in the fairway. This didn't make me happy. I am only happy if I hit a good shot with good ballstriking. Better ballstriking usually leads to better scores (for me at least) and it brings up confidence in my game.

[leetch]

I'm not sure there is a simple fix to your problem. It could be the old dreaded early wrist snap or it could be timing or any number of things. Without seeing your swing it's hard to answer any questions. Seeing a golf pro would be the best advice.

 

As far as the range is concerned, if I hit 100 balls, I generally am only using 4-5 clubs. 20-25 balls per club. I hit 3-5 non-targeted shots just for the feel then the rest I pick 3 targets and work on hitting them there. The 3 targets are 1) Normal range 2) 10 - 20 yards shorter 3) 25-35 yards shorter. The reason for 3 targets is to help me gauge my distances and groove my swing so I don't overswing.

 

Anyway....a pro is still the best option to help you since nobody here can see a vid of your swing.

[mikpga]

Understand completely.

[cypressperch]

Let me continue with the geometry stuff a little bit more. Believe me, this will answer all of your questions about many of the wrong ball flights you run into. Incidentally, some of the comments in another post aimed at helping you was a bit wrong on a point or two. Imagine your target is the middle of the fairway, and imagine a line running through your ball right on out to the middle of the fairway, your target. I have used the word INITIALLY for a reason. The initial direction the ball goes after impact is determined by the clubhead path, by far, more than anything else. (We could get into a deep discussion of vectors, but for the sake of simplicity and sanity, I really do not care to go into that pandora's box.) So, if any shot is PUSHED it will take out initially to the right of our down-the-middle target line. The only way for the ball to do this is for the club head path to be from the inside heading to the outside. Likewise, if any shot is PULLED it will take out initially to the left of our down-the-middle target line. The only way for the ball to do this is for the club head path to be from the outside heading to the inside. If you want a straight shot down the middle, you want the ball to be going down the middle initially (immediately after impact). If your club face is square to the target line at impact and the ball starts down the middle from the beginning, you will hit the middle of the fairway because the club head path is correct for a straight shot and the club face is square at impact.

 

If your club face is open at impact with the good clubhead path mentioned above, the ball initially goes straight (again club head path determines initial ball flight direction) but that open face will create side-spin that will have the ball tail off to the right once the side-spin takes over after foward velocity decreases. If the club face had been closed at impact, the ball would have moved to the left when that side-spin takes control of the ball after foward velocity has decreased.

 

I have purposely avoided talk of high and/or low trajectory shots. Several things can play a role in producing a shot that is too high. Position of the ball too foward in the stance can do it. When we swing the club on the down-swing, that downward "angle of attack" can be too steep and the result can be a popped up shot which I absolutely hate. (Avoid the pop up by staying "behind the ball" until after impact.). You do not want to scoop the ball into the air which can produce weak shots that go too high. Low shots come from the ball being too far back in our stance at address, and therefore at impact. We can get our hands too far foward at impact which delofts the club's built in angle.

 

From the above, we have too extremes: Scooping the ball and overly delofting the club face. There is a simple way to avoid these extremes. Play the club as it was designed. If you let a club rest on its sole behind the ball naturally, there will be a towards the target angle in the shaft as well as a towards the player angle. Believe it or not, all we have to do to get a lot of things alined correctly is to "stand to" the club that is sitting behind the ball in this manner. When we do, our hands will be more ahead of the ball at address the shorter the shaft of the club. The shorter the shaft, the closer we will be to the ball and the more upright our posture and therefore our swing. If we make our swing and return our hands to where they were at address, we will have our hands ahead of the ball at impact just the right amount to give us the trajectory we want, neither too high or too low.

 

Down the road, after we have our swing grooved to where it is a repeating swing, we can make use of this "geometry of golf" to intentionally hit high or low shots, draws and hooks, fades and slices as the situation calls for. Such shot shaping becomes a lot more simple because our basic swing will be the exact same for every shot shape though our aim and grip will change slightly to produce the differences. A player that can produce different shapes of shots has a skill that can take many, many strokes off his score.

(I agree with you 100% that better ball striking tends to produce better scores. At least, you will

Sincerely, Cypressperch not have to be as lucky to score as well.)