Short hitter - ways to progress? (best driver distance 160 yd, and desparately hoping to improve)

[jay9]

Hi, I am a new golfer who has learnt the game for about 1.5 year. Hitting the driving range every other week, and on-course 9-hole every other week.

Have a professional coach who I have sessions with every 3 weeks.

 

5 ft 8 tall, occasionally play football / soccer. 32 years old.

 

What frustrates me is the driving distance - as titled best driving distance is 160 yd (can hit this distance ~60% of the time, i.e. the 'better' shots), 7 iron around 105 yd (80% of the time).

For irons I'm already using super game improvement models (TaylorMade R7 CGB Max). Driver is Honma XP-1.

 

Aware this forum is full of veterans - Anyone of you have gone through transformations with a starting point as low as mine? 😅 Any success stories would be appreciated and inspirational.

[golfarb1]

Drills  for greater swing speed. 

Buy an old graphite shafted driver and duct tape a lacrosse ball firmly to the bottom .

At home  make  10 swings with this club every other day. The extra weight  will force you to  feel the correct kinematic sequence by starting down first with your lower body 

Immediately after  doing this,  take your current driver and make 10-15 swings  as fast as you can while trying to maintain this kinematic sequence . 

Edited November 20, 2021 by golfarb1

[dvq9654]

28 minutes ago, jay9 said:

Hi, I am a new golfer who has learnt the game for about 1.5 year. Hitting the driving range every other week, and on-course 9-hole every other week.

Have a professional coach who I have sessions with every 3 weeks.

 

5 ft 8 tall, occasionally play football / soccer. 32 years old.

 

What frustrates me is the driving distance - as titled best driving distance is 160 yd (can hit this distance ~60% of the time, i.e. the 'better' shots), 7 iron around 105 yd (80% of the time).

For irons I'm already using super game improvement models (TaylorMade R7 CGB Max). Driver is Honma XP-1.

 

Aware this forum is full of veterans - Anyone of you have gone through transformations with a starting point as low as mine? 😅 Any success stories would be appreciated and inspirational.

Not to sound like a jerk, but if you hit a driver 160 it’s cause your swing is not good. Trying to hit it farther at this stage is likely a mistake. The goal should be to improve your swing. With a better swing more speed will come. I can’t say what exactly needs to change, but if you have a coach follow his advice and distance will come. A 32 year old should be able to hit it 250, if not further 

[Gsea]

42 minutes ago, jay9 said:

Have a professional coach who I have sessions with every 3 weeks.

he can't get you to a better swing, something is a miss here. a session every 3 weeks is a lot.

[Steele47]

Your 'professional coach' sounds like a 'financial adviser' I once had.

 

32 years old.  Soccer player.  You should have some innate athletic tendencies.  Get a big mirror.  Mimic golf classic swing positions from guys like Snead,  Hogan,  Nicklaus,  Watson, etc.. and go from there..

[MPStrat]

First thing is to figure out if it’s a speed issue or a contact issue. My guess is that it’s a mixture. I would also guess that someone told you to swing easy to make the ball go far. You need more violence. A lot more. The golf swing isn’t a mechanical steer. Just letting it rip and doing nothing else should get you a lot more distance. 
 

The key is to find a teacher that can make your swing more functional so that you can apply a lot more violence and find the golf ball.
 

 

[aenemated]

All due respect but if you've been working with a "pro" for a year and a half and only getting 160 with your driver (half the time) as an apparently athletic 32 y/o; you need to fire that person and find someone who knows what they're doing. 

 

There're almost certainly numerous things wrong with your swing that need to be addressed before you'd even be capable of chasing distance. 

[rooski]

25 minutes ago, aenemated said:

There're almost certainly numerous things wrong with your swing that need to be addressed before you'd even be capable of chasing distance. 

 

Theres no swing bad enough in the world that couldnt hit the center of the club face a few times in 1.5 years. For those to go 160y is ludicrous and implies to me that he needs to be swinging much more violent and fast regardless of any other swing faults.

 

When my girlfriend who has never played much golf hits a driver off the center it goes 170-180. For an athletic 32yo male to max out at 160y is more of a mental issue than a swing fault imo (although there are certainly contributing swing faults as well) 

Edited November 20, 2021 by rooski

[oz dee cee]

With all due respect, is this a G up? 

[naval2006]

You probably are at the very bottom of your distance capability. Repeated good mechanics and sound ball contact will tell you how far you can go.  One and a half years is not a long time at all in golf terms.  You keep on doing your homework and it will eventually pay. 

[ShortGolfer]

You may  not be using your practice time effectively.  Every two weeks may be infrequent enough that the lessons you are getting aren't taking hold. 

You are doing golf every week but your practice sessions are two weeks apart.

For me, twice a day is what I shoot for.  Short sessions at lunch and after work.  I had a stroke and had to relearn everything, so I have more experience in doing this than most professionals.

I was in a stroke rehab month for a full month.  Folks who  didn't practice stayed the same and didn't get better.  I managed to practice golf twice a day in New England for six months!

"Manage" is the proper word.  I figured out what needed to be done to do that and did what needed to be done.  Golf is a lot easier if you learn management skills. 

Figuring out your options and then taking the necessary actions to achieve your goal.  May require time and money to do that. 

For me, a good planning numbers are 100 practice sessions over 2 months.  Is there a way of doing a lot of practice in just a few months?

 

My suggestion would be to play every week with a 7 iron and putter.  This will give you a lot more practice.  Tee off with the 7 iron.  Hit the approach shot with the 7 iron.

Is there any way you could practice more often?  Foam balls with dimples will help you find your stroke and they greatly reduce the chances of breaking stuff. 

I have a net in my back yard to catch the foam balls.

A few months later I have enough confidence to practice with regular golf balls, chipping them across my back yard. 

I moved my net so I have a compost pile and a back drop of trees as a 2nd line of defense.  Now I hit driver into the net with standard golf balls.

 

Not only do I have a consistent 7 iron to hit greens, but I was recently able to swing hard so I could reach a short Par 4 in regulation with my 7 iron.  GIR!

Edited November 20, 2021 by ShortGolfer

[Tanner25]

Until you get this sorted out with your pro, I would use a large face 3 wood (Cobra Big Tour or a Mini Driver) to get to 180-190, which will make many par 4's playable. These clubs are easier to control, than a 460 cc driver.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Tanner25

[againstthegrain]

2 hours ago, Tanner25 said:

Until you get this sorted out with your pro, I would use a large face 3 wood (Cobra Big Tour or a Mini Driver) to get to 180-190, which will make many par 4's playable. These clubs are easier to control, than a 460 cc driver.

 

 

5w should be on the table as well.

[milesgiles]

you are doing virtually no practise whatsoever and having an absurd number of lessons.

 

ONE lesson and then AT LEAST 2000 balls hit in a focused way. If you are remotely serious that should take no more than a month. Then maybe another lesson. 

[KD1]

I vote for new coach

[TheDeanAbides]

Post a swing. Don't expect lessons to fix you without LOTS of work. Every single incremental improvement has to be earned by hitting hundreds of balls. 

 

There's no shortcut here. 

 

I repeat: post a swing. 

[glk]

Definitely find a better instructor.    Reduce frequency of lessons to around 3 months.     I'm not a fan of hitting thousands of balls - not necessary - plenty can be done around your home given you have someplace to make a swing - or if you have a nearby field then one can get a shag bag and hit wedges between 30-70 yards - full swing not required.    At this stage of your game, spending more time around the green chipping,pitching, and putting (given you've been instructed in good technique) will do more to reduce your scores.

Edited November 20, 2021 by glk

[cgasucks]

A young guy like you could easily make a 160y shot...with an 8 iron.

 

Hitting solid shots with an efficient swing is the key to distance and lower scores.

 

Monte Scheinblum really helped me out and posts regularly on this site.  His teachings helped me out and I'm sure he can help you.

[PuffyC]

Something definitely doesn’t add up. What does your coach say when you ask them about this? 
 

My only real comment would be that contrary to what you see on TV, golf really isn’t about brute strength and trying to hit dingers over the left field fence. A nice, fluid, easy swing that makes solid contact in the middle of the face, when done in the proper golf way, will give you all the distance you’ll ever need. Many beginners try to kill everything but will actually hit it longer and better when they don’t swing as hard, only because they’re making better contact. Point being that this likely isn’t a strength problem, it’s just a basic swing problem.

 

This probably won’t be encouraging but people grossly underestimate the amount of skill and practice it takes to be even mediocre at golf. If you really want to get better, I’d:

 

1. See what your coach says about this, then maybe schedule a lesson with a different one for a second opinion. The critical part is making sure that when you practice you’re practicing the right thing. Grooving a bad swing just makes it worse.

 

2. Practice way more, like 3 times a week at least, with one of those days being just chipping and putting.

 

Unless you have the natural athleticism of somebody like Deion Sanders or Bo Jackson, golf isn’t like a lot of sports where you can just pull out the clubs once or twice a month and wing it. That’s why there are plenty of folks who have played for 30 years yet still struggle to break 100. It takes a lot of work just to get good enough to be average.

[L29]

If an athletic 32 year old with no health issues has a max drive of 160 yds, we are missing a giant piece of information here.  Something’s rotten in Denmark.  

[khalespace]

When I first pick up the driver in my late 20s and without any swing coach I was able to drive 220. I am 5'7", a fit person but not athletic. I think you need a new coach.

[Zitlow]

Start a class action lawsuit against your coach. 

[Gsea]

OP disappeared this is a joke. total BS

[bobfoster]

Greetings. Welcome to WRX.

 

First comment is that if you are going to the range every other week, and playing nine holes on the alternate weeks, it will take you some time to get a whole lot better. Having clubs in your hand for a total of an hour or two a week, especially when you're first starting, isn't really enough to get decent very quickly (actually, that holds true in almost any sport, but golf in particular - I've played a lot of sports, and golf is the hardest by far. Were I to sum up the golf swing, I'd say it is "violent precision").

 

People that have been playing for a long time can play less frequently during phases, can be able to not play during the winter (if they live in the north and don't travel), or even take a year off, and can still get back into their game pretty fast, because a lot of the golf swing is about muscle memory. You haven't fully developed that yet, and it will be a while before you do if you play that infrequently. At the most basic of levels (as several others here have mentioned), the only way to get good at playing golf is by, um, playing golf.

 

But the second, bigger comment is that something just seems seriously weird here. A 30-something, at least somewhat athletic guy with (presumably) no serious physical impairments, and you hit it 160 when you hit a good drive, and your 100 club is a 7i? This just seriously doesn't compute. Generally with beginners, in my experience, they first have difficulty making any sort of solid contact with the ball. Distance isn't the primary problem, even getting on the fairway, is.

 

Problems with distance usually come from simply not hitting the ball anywhere close to the center of the clubs, or hitting it seriously fat or thin, hooking it or slicing it. As the swing improves, you strike the ball relatively correctly more and more often. But even in the first few months, on the rare occasions a beginner hits it right, the distance should still be much longer than you are hitting it, given your age and athleticism.

 

This is what is bizarre - you're hitting the D 160 60% of the time, and the 7i 105 80% of the time. That level of consistency is much closer to that of an intermediate golfer than a beginner. But the distances are almost shockingly short. So this means you've got a bad swing, but a consistently bad swing. It means you already have a bit of muscle memory, but really wrong muscle memory. Which is strange since you actually are regularly seeing a teaching pro. 

 

Ordinarily, almost all beginners benefit greatly from starting out with a pro instead of just learning on their own. They don't get in bad habits that then have to get broken. This guy, however, apparently let you lock bad habits into place. That is almost tragic. 

 

IMO, you're probably going to need to sort of start over. Re-train your swing. Bottom line, three suggestions:

 

1. If you can, post a video here (as a couple people have already said). There's an entire forum just for that - people post their swings and ask for advice. Go to the main Forums page and look for "Swing Videos and Comments" (https://forums.golfwrx.com/forum/264-swing-videos-and-comments/). There's a lot of knowledgeable people here (in fact, we have some genuine teaching pros), but they can be a lot more helpful if they can watch the swing.

 

2. Immediately sever ties with your current pro, and find a new one. While it is fantastic for beginners to use a pro, the problem is that beginners (precisely because they are beginners) often do not know what to look for in a pro. IMO, if it is possible you should have an initial session with two or three different ones. Find someone who's methods and approach are in sync with your game (your current guy clearly isn't). In my experience, you'll generally know pretty quickly when you've found a good fit. It is peculiar how many people, when starting out, will try a half dozen different clubs before they buy a set, but will just go with the first pro they bump into. A good pro can dramatically shorten the time it takes to get from beginner to intermediate, but a bad pro can actually hurt you. 

 

3. With the distances you state for the D and 7i, fiddling with changes around the margins to your current swing will likely do very little. You need a new swing. To get that, you'll need to accept what goes along with it. The new (hopefully much better swing if you get a better coach) will at first feel unnatural as you attempt to develop new muscle memory that will override the old. And your consistency will (temporarily, but unavoidably) take a dive. But it will likely take much less time to reach (and surpass) your current levels of consistency than it did the first time.

 

Final note? If you stick with golf, you'll do this a number of times over the years. While almost everyone that is any good is continually making minor tweaks to their swing, once or twice a decade you usually make a major change. Even the pros do this - and when they do, even their games can tank for a season.

 

There's several different reasons (changes in the RoG, e.g., when the new wedge rule was implemented, it required a very different approach to the short game; changes in the technology of golf clubs sometimes means changing the swing to take full advantage of the new technology, etc.). But possibly the biggest reason is that age significantly changes the body. I've been playing for over five decades now, and have probably made seven or eight major swing changes along the road. My swing - at 64 - doesn't even remotely resemble what it was when I was 20. (If I swung like some of the teenagers I play with today, I'd be at a chiropractor for a week.) 

 

True, usually the first major swing change doesn't happen after only a year and a half of golf, but it sounds quite necessary in your case. Just want to point out that while a big swing change is definitely a slightly uncomfortable experience, it is also something that is periodically absolutely necessary. On the bright side, when you go through the discomfort you need to right the ship, a 32 year old athletic enough to play soccer should easily be able to average 240 - 250 drives, and your 100 yard club should be a PW or GW. With the right attitude (and a bit more time than you are currently giving the game) I see no reason why you couldn't hit that next year.

Edited November 21, 2021 by bobfoster

[bobfoster]

6 hours ago, Gsea said:

OP disappeared this is a joke. total BS

You could be correct. Personally, I'll give every new WRX member, new golf player, the benefit of the doubt. Will initially take them at face value (despite the fact that there's a lot of the OP's post that is, to say the least, peculiar). If he's real, he's should be welcomed to this site, and to the game. If not? Ignore.

 

I have a friend that says he practices 21st century Christianity. "It someone hits you once, turn the other cheek, if they hit you again, kill them" i.e., always be welcoming and supportive, but don't be a doormat hahahahahahahaha!

Edited November 21, 2021 by bobfoster

[jay9]

Thank you all for your responses!

 

so summarising a few feedback:

1) I’m playing probably at the bottom of my potential (yes, that’s my suspicion too!)

2) some has raised questions about my coach - potentially that could be the case. In the first 2-3 months he kept asking me to get fit (aware he is also a ping ‘ambassador’ / has affiliation with

3) I’m certain I have swing faults - till date I have trouble using 6 iron consistently (not to mention long irons - impossible to launch for me). Will need to practise more and get better quality advices.

 

Aware 1.5 years might be a short time in golf (and it took me a year to reduce using hands to swing the club - yes I’m a slow learner) That said already in love with this game. Appreciate all of you veterans who gave feedback. Targeting to give an update to this group perhaps in 6 months (if I can find a new coach for some second opinion!)

 

 

 

 

[mikpga]

You’ve been playing for 78 weeks…

 

39 driving range sessions, assuming no breaks…

 

39 playing opportunities, assuming no breaks…

 

26 lessons…

 

May I ask if you consistently strike your irons solid?  Very few thin or fat shots, primarily solid strikes?

[ShortGolfer]

I learned how to play golf this year.  Daily swing practice into a net over the summer.  Pitching balls in the back yard.  Grass is too high for chip shots.

Putting mat in front of the TV set.  I use the mat more often than the TV!

Then, in the fall, I played fourteen nine hole rounds of golf in seven weeks.

I can confidently pitch and putt the ball.  Get out of bunkers.  Hit low shots under trees.  Properly take relief when it is available.

Do enough course management to play an entire round of golf without losing a ball (done that twice now).

I've played all three of the Par 4s in regulation.  The hardest Par 3 in regulation.  All the other Par 3s with a bogey. 

 

I'm quite pleased to do all that before my course shut down for winter.  Which will be any day now.  

I didn't try to do  it all at once.  Instead, I set goals I thought I could each, met them, and set harder ones.

Some things just didn't work or weren't useful.  Going to the range took just as much time as going to the golf course, with much less benefit.  

I was lucky to be able to play golf on just about any nice afternoon that was available.  I only missed one day to staff scheduling issues.

Raking leaves hurt my swing [elevating the 4I became hard, but the rest of the clubs were fine]

 but I played anyway because I was still learning a lot, even though my score wasn't so great.

Edited November 21, 2021 by ShortGolfer

[playit]

To the OP, I would change coaches. There is something massively wrong. Something as simple as you are not swinging anything close to hard enough. To swinging too hard and not hitting center of clubface. But the latter would likely involve you catching one every once in awhile that goes WAY farther.

 

Someone already said and it is true... if you are at all athletic, just mimic what you see good golfers with a rhythmic swing do and let the ball get in the way of your swing. Ease up on the hands/arm/grip tension. Swish, swish, ball go far.

[AndersUK]

As others have pointed out you are severely under performing in distance for a young male.  You should be able to get the ball out 160 with just a chipping / short pitch movement with a driver.  I would argue that you are not yet ready to hit golf balls but please don't be discouraged by this.  I would strongly recommend a golf coach that will spend a good half a day working with you on swing feels, drills etc without the pressure of hitting balls.   A 30min lesson trying to hits balls won't work for you.

 

They should utilise their knowledge of drills and any training aids they have at hand to get you moving more efficiently.  Then move on to swinging a club, sweeping the grass, flicking tee's etc and without any consequence of where the golf ball goes because you are not hitting one yet.  Then move on to foam balls.  Many don't appreciate how good foams balls are at bridging the gap between swinging the club and hitting a real golf ball.  Only then move onto real balls.

 

Some of the best lessons I ever had involved hitting very few balls.