What's the worst (for you) swing thought you've ever tried?

[sticksgolf]

Mine was trying to keep my eye on the ball throughout the swing. It seemed so harmless, intuitive and sensible yet the results were dismal. The idea actually came from a non-swing oriented golf book. It was presented as a goal of calm focus rather than an actual swing key or thought.

 

In a very short span of time it ravaged my full swing and it took longer to get it back than it did to lose it. Once I convinced myself of the idea I actually had to purposefully avert my gaze from the ball to get my swing back. Now, I try to give the ball a long look right before I take the club back and then kind of forget about it for the next fraction of a second until impact.

 

What seemingly sensible road have you taken to nowhere good?

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

1 hour ago, sticksgolf said:

Mine was trying to keep my eye on the ball throughout the swing. It seemed so harmless, intuitive and sensible yet the results were dismal. The idea actually came from a non-swing oriented golf book. It was presented as a goal of calm focus rather than an actual swing key or thought.

 

In a very short span of time it ravaged my full swing and it took longer to get it back than it did to lose it. Once I convinced myself of the idea I actually had to purposefully avert my gaze from the ball to get my swing back. Now, I try to give the ball a long look right before I take the club back and then kind of forget about it for the next fraction of a second until impact.

 

What seemingly sensible road have you taken to nowhere good?

 

 

This sounds like the awareness exercise in Extraordinary Golf. I'm amazed that you attribute it to "ravaging" your swing. Can you elaborate?

[Hawkeye77]

Trying to “cover” the ball based on some TV explanation of it and having absolutely no clue what it really means    - not pretty.

[GolfTurkey]

“Don’t hook it”

[golfie1]

Fire the hips.

[golfsticks]

Beginners almost always, and intermediate players often, rely on segment thoughts.  Once beyond that barrier into higher levels of accomplishment the swing, as a whole, is like watching a drive-in movie.   A little movie about a movie.

 

 

 

 

 

[Arn]

Toss up between ´grip the club lightly’ and ´fire thé hips’ 

[Lobby]

The problem is really a bad swing thought, it's a swing thought that doesn't address your swing fault.

You need to know what's really wrong with your swing.  It's on then, that the appropriate swing thought can help

[EDT501]

[b.mattay]

-Grip the club lightly 

-Open stance in bunker 

-Ball behind back foot for chips

[MonteScheinblum]

You’re steep, swing to right field.

 

I brought the center of mass

out early because I was taught to pull the hand straight down and get lag.  It wasn’t ideal, but that’s were my erratic golf and distance control issues came from.

 

SEVERAL swing instructors, both pro and am alike, gave me the same advice.  Without exception, I’d drop the right shoulder to flatten it and was universally told how great it was.  I went from Monday qualifying and making cuts in Kornferry tour events, with a 135 plus club speed driver, to not being able to break 80 half the time and dropping down to under 110.

 

I still fight this issue as I spent 10+ years doing it.

[Nykt1000]

Tucking my butt under/ lower back flexion. It's bad for your back

Edited January 23, 2021 by Nykt1000

[sticksgolf]

Thing is, I figured the keep your eyes fixed on the ball was like a harmless anti-swing thought.

 

Problem was that trying to do that with my eyes/vision created effects in my body/swing that made the whole deal impossible. I managed to get into my own head.

 

I once played with a guy who said, "Good Shot" to another player in our group then followed up with:

 

"Tell me something, do you inhale or exhale as you take the club back?" That guy's game was done for the day, at least.

[vman]

I was told a long time ago that if you're thinking about technique whilst you play you'll never reach your full potential as a player.

Well....................😂

[Liveonce]

1. Act like your going to spear the ball with the butt of the club 

 

2. Keep the hands and arms up to start the downswing And just turn the body

[JDIL]

2

 

Fire your hips (got stuck)

 

Get more depth in back swing (flat backswing OTT) 

Edited January 23, 2021 by jdang307

[CasualLie]

Maintain spine angle throughout the swing....or

 

Restrict hip turn.

 

Not sure which is worse.

[mikpga]

- more than a decade, maintain flex in trail knee.

 

- swing out to right field.

 

- turn trail hand over lead hand.

[MK7Golf21]

Had a one plane teacher tell me the throw my right palm towards the ground from the top. One plane swing thing, I never got it, made me hit pull hooks and felt so wrong 

[Nels55]

Keep your head down!  

Reach for the sky on your backswing!

Hit down on the ball!  Combine those three and we have divots you could bury Jimmy Hoffa in...

 

 

[Scottbox]

Drop your arms into the slot. Ugh.

[TheDeanAbides]

12 hours ago, MonteScheinblum said:

You’re steep, swing to right field.

 

I brought the center of mass

out early because I was taught to pull the hand straight down and get lag.  It wasn’t ideal, but that’s were my erratic golf and distance control issues came from.

 

SEVERAL swing instructors, both pro and am alike, gave me the same advice.  Without exception, I’d drop the right shoulder to flatten it and was universally told how great it was.  I went from Monday qualifying and making cuts in Kornferry tour events, with a 135 plus club speed driver, to not being able to break 80 half the time and dropping down to under 110.

 

I still fight this issue as I spent 10+ years doing it.

Surely you fix that with one bucket of balls or give up completely. 😉

[rkodavey]

Swing the club straight back, you're too inside on the backswing. This may work for some but it just kills my swing. I overdo it, get very disconnectedwith no backswing depth and hit it all over the planet. Monte's No Turn Cast video made me realize that the arms swing slightly inside, not straight back. My ballstriking improved leaps and bounds from just that one tip alone.  

[Golfbeat]

Just swing your natural swing.

[sticksgolf]

On 1/23/2021 at 2:15 AM, TheDeanAbides said:

This sounds like the awareness exercise in Extraordinary Golf. I'm amazed that you attribute it to "ravaging" your swing. Can you elaborate?

 

Well of course I ravaged my own swing by trying to do something that's impossible (for me anyway). I can do it on putts and chips but on a full swing there's no way.

 

So, if I accomplish one goal (eyes on ball throughout the swing) I fail on another the critical goal of letting my swing work as it must for me to pull off a shot. 

 

I should have known better, even Hogan said he lost sight of the ball somewhere in his downswing.

 

If he couldn't do it what chance did I have?

[TheDeanAbides]

36 minutes ago, sticksgolf said:

 

Well of course I ravaged my own swing by trying to do something that's impossible (for me anyway). I can do it on putts and chips but on a full swing there's no way.

 

So, if I accomplish one goal (eyes on ball throughout the swing) I fail on another the critical goal of letting my swing work as it must for me to pull off a shot. 

 

I should have known better, even Hogan said he lost sight of the ball somewhere in his downswing.

 

If he couldn't do it what chance did I have?

I don't know. I tried all the exercises from that book and found them really interesting - the awareness ones in particular. Shame it didn't work for you. 

[Mcgeeno]

Being a good near scratch junior golfer who decided to move away from his 'ugly fade' and play a big power draw during the peak Tiger Woods power years.

 

I ended up battling an ugly quacking hook for a decade or so. 

 

I've neutralized my path a lot since then but there are still some issues in there from that season of switching to a draw. 

[sticksgolf]

9 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

I don't know. I tried all the exercises from that book and found them really interesting - the awareness ones in particular. Shame it didn't work for you. 

 

And, hence the title of the post...

[Divot License]

Worst advice I got was in a lesson, I was told to get the club a little more shut at the top (so it was square to the plane line)

 

On it's own this was not bad advice as I had always played from a slightly toe down clubface at the top, however this simply thought, snowballed into a mess of problems its taken nearly a year to unravel. 

 

To achieve that position, which was difficult to start with due to a wrist wrist injury that prevent much extension, I started keeping the face shut on the way back, my right elbow higher on the way back and getting in a strange top of the swing position that ended up a little across the line. From there, I would come a little over the top, with a slightly shut face.

 

Years of golf experience subconsciously allowed me to  get the handle a long way forward leading to massive shaft lean as this was the only way to keep the ball straight but the ball flight became so low that when after having played with my head pro and him seeing this, he put me on a quad and found that I was only launching my driver at 8-9 degrees. 

 

Plenty of work since has taken place to reset some of those ingrained habits and now everything is starting to improve again. 

 

It's scary how one fairly simple and in theory sound idea had such a devastating effect. 

[dlygrisse]

I had a teacher tell me to practice creating lag. “Feel really loose and drop the hands inside, really lag it, just practice that as much as you can”. 
 

Ben Hogan’s 5 lessons, the whole thing, what a mess.