I quit golf last year, and it was the best decision I could have made.

[ND2005]

I'm left handed and right eye dominant so I think it would be even harder for me to try and swing righty...

[bm11]

On 10/9/2023 at 1:33 PM, bigred90gt said:

Never driven in Texas? Left on red when turning from a one way to a one way is "lawful". 

 

I'm very much left handed at everything I do, including golf. When I was probably one or two years into playing, I was out with my uncle and his brother in law one day and decided on #17 I wanted to hit a shot righty. I borrowed a driver and proceeded to pipe one dead center of the fairway. Considering I was fighting a nasty slice with my lefty swing, I was encouraged. It felt awkward, but the result was fantastic. To ensure it wasn't a fluke, I borrowed his 7 iron for the approach shot. I almost broke my wrist when I hit the ground about a foot behind the ball and buried the clubhead in the dirt. Over the last 20 years since, I have randomly tried to repeat the one good righty shot, each attempt met with utter and complete failure. My right handed swing looks like something out of a very poorly drawing comic book. It is one of the most unathletic movements you could imagine. No balance, no rhythm, nothing you would expect a 40 handicap to even produce, let alone a 6 handicap I carry left handed. 

It took a while to get past the awkwardness. Like "months of practicing a lot." Finally playing some decent golf though. Ish!

[ucmike11]

On 10/10/2023 at 8:39 AM, ND2005 said:

I'm left handed and right eye dominant so I think it would be even harder for me to try and swing righty...

 

I'm left handed and right eye dominant, and right leg dominant...but learned to play golf right handed. Also learned it incorrectly. Years later, and yup, I still suck lol

[BIG STU]

On 9/22/2023 at 12:37 PM, Tyrus Webb said:

 

Weird thing to be a bigot about.

Naah he is not being a bigot that is just Fergie being Fergie. He is harmless

[Righty to Lefty]

On 9/29/2023 at 6:31 AM, Fwitz11 said:

I would be amazed to see someone on the course playing righty but putting lefty!

I switched from "Righty to Lefty" and still putt righty. I have a buddy that actually putts lefty and plays righty. We are definitely a rarity...especially within the same 4 ball.  

[Fwitz11]

10 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

I switched from "Righty to Lefty" and still putt righty. I have a buddy that actually putts lefty and plays righty. We are definitely a rarity...especially within the same 4 ball.  

Are you naturally ambidextrous? What drove you to make a switch?

[Barfolomew]

Playing partner is a lefty and he hates it.... whole industry is against him..... waaay less clubs to choose from in used market. tougher to get help w swing with everyone used to lookin at right swings..... you ever see Bubba Watsons swing reversed on YouTube to make him a righty, its like ohhh that's what he's doing

 

 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Barfolomew

[RoyalMustang]

On 9/21/2023 at 8:03 PM, TheBiles said:

I'm naturally left handed, but I golf righty.  I always have this "what if" spectre that makes me wonder if I should switch.

 

Ohtani pitches right and bats left; he's seems to have done "all right" so far. 

[bm11]

On 10/13/2023 at 7:33 AM, Fwitz11 said:

Are you naturally ambidextrous? What drove you to make a switch?

I think most lefty people are above average on the ambidextrous scale. What drove me to switch is that my lefty swing never got that great, but it did get significantly worse toward the end and I wasn't able to salvage it, even with a lot of work with my club pro. 

[bigred90gt]

On 10/20/2023 at 9:56 AM, bm11 said:

I think most lefty people are above average on the ambidextrous scale. 

There are times I wish I could say that, but except for a few activities, my right hand is all but useless, lol. 

 

My dad on the other hand was quite ambidextrous. He could write his name, at the same time in opposite directions with both hands, and it looked like a reflection in the mirror. It was wild to see. 

[HoosierHacker89]

On 9/22/2023 at 6:26 AM, Ferguson said:

 

 

There should be no such thing as left-handed golfers. 

THIS ^^^^ is legendary insight and I fully agree. 

[phizzy30]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:38 PM, jordan2240 said:

Have you ever played baseball or softball?  Seems you should use the same handedness for golf.  But I do play with an older guy who batted lefty but golfs right.  Makes no sense to me.

I played Little League and a year in high school.  I was a switch hitter but my batting average was significantly higher left handed.  The flip side was I had no pop from that side.  Swinging from the right side of the batter's box feels more comfortable for me.  I think it has to do with me being left eye dominant.  However, I tried lefty golf on the range once and it felt foreign.  I have a client that plays AAA baseball.  He's a pitcher and throws left handed and bats left handed.  He plays golf righty though.  He says it's a feel thing as well.   

[TallGuy90]

My kid is left but refuses to use left handed clubs.

[unclefreizo]

On 9/20/2023 at 8:51 AM, bm11 said:

Last year I posted about quitting golf. I got a fair amount of flak, which in retrospect, was deserved. Thread here, for reference: 

 

 

So, I actually did it. I quit. I made it a full week before I picked up a new passion- right handed golf.

 

I started golf in 2016 as a lefty. I'm left handed, like most lefties, I'm relatively ambidextrous but the teaching pro thought that picking up golf as a lefty made the most sense, so that's the route I went. I took quite a few lessons and spend quite a bit of time practicing before ever making it to a course. I joined my local country club shortly after, and made pretty good strides, shooting in the low 100's in the few months left to play. I invested in a simulator, I practiced and played sim golf all through the winter, but next season I didn't find the results I was hoping for. Keeping this story as short as possible, I never had the success I felt I should considering the work I was putting in. The year leading up to quitting lefty was the worst, as my swing had developed a nasty fault that I wasn't able to resolve with multiple lessons from my local teaching pro, some training aids, and a lot of work. A fault bad enough that I didn't keep score and never made a par in the 2022 season. So out of frustration (I golf every Sunday and it was ruining the rest of my day) I quit golf. For a week.

 

Being that I don't easily accept defeat, I started from scratch as a righty. I took some more lessons to try to develop some fundamentals, and my pro was encouraged- my new righty swing looked fundamentally much better than my broken lefty swing. I also made the critical resolution to golf righty from here on out without expectations of ever getting "good." Part of my issue is that I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform, I excel at everything else I do and put in the work necessary to do so, but my lefty swing never made consistent progress. I had glimmers of hope, one stretch where I was somewhat consistently shooting under 100 and one magical round where I shot an 89, but it was short lived and still rather mediocre for the amount of years of work I had put in. 

 

Last season playing righty I never kept score, I made some bogies but never a par, as my swing produced a pretty consistent weak slice. I played sim golf over the winter with my Sunday group at my house on my GC Quad, and was able to work around my weak slice to play OK sim golf on shorter courses. I made some progress over the winter, but never really got rid of the slice. This season I played and started keeping score. The scores weren't good, I was shooting 110-120, but I had a much better attitude about it- I was just going out to have fun! I worked some with my pro but wasn't able to identify a fix. I continued to practice, getting a bit more of a consistent impact but still a slice, one that I was able to play around here and there to varying results. 

 

About a month and a half ago I signed up for online lessons with Cogorno golf, and started working on his slice fix program. A couple weeks in, I had a breakthrough where I discovered mid round a couple of swing thoughts that produced a straight shot with some level of consistency. I also listened to an audio book of Golf is Not A game of Perfect, twice. This really strengthened my already improved mental game. I did a much better job preparing for each shot and mentally blocking out whatever bad shots had come before them. My scores started to come down, I was now making low 100's, and starting to make a par or two a round.  

 

Two weeks ago it really clicked, I made my first right handed birdie on the first hole, and my second right handed birdie on the 7th hole. There were bad shots for sure, but less of them, and better recoveries. I walked away with a 96, the best score I had shot in over two years, and a much faster sub 100 than I got lefty. Even more importantly, my practice is very productive. I'm getting more and more consistent, making more good shots and consistently better bad shots (IE, a "good" 8 iron goes 150 and straight, a "bad" 8 iron goes 125 and 20 yards right, where as not long before a "good" 8 iron would go 110 yards and 40 yards right.)

 

Most importantly, I'm enjoying the game more than any time in the past. I don't approach each round with the mindset "I hope this is going to be a good round" and get frustrated when the first hole goes bad. I instead approach every round really looking forward to the opportunity to play, but without any feeling of anxiety of "I probably won't." I'll certainly continue to have bad rounds, but I'm not worried that the bad round is a reflection on a current trend, and I accept it is just part of the process.

 

I really look forward to continuing to work hard to improve, and I can't wait to play more golf. 

 

This is not what I expected. And wonderful.

[bm11]

On 4/26/2024 at 4:16 PM, unclefreizo said:

This is not what I expected. And wonderful.

Still going strong! My course just opened up for the season (Maine) and I've played 3 times in the last 8 days. 

 

I have 100% committed to putting righty though. It was really causing my brain to do some mental flip flops to swap back and forth. Over the winter, I putted thousands upon thousands of reps on a Perfect Practice mat and have improved my righty putting stroke dramatically. 

[jkman]

Welcome back! I took 15 yrs off =p

[golferdude54]

This is wild, almost like reading a mirror. I play lefty but I write and throw right handed and I'm also planning on switching to righty for a period to balance out my one-sided muscles. I'm a + handicap self-taught but I was going insane just hitting balls with the same crappy (in my mind) swing and expecting different and better results.

 

I'm putting all my left handed clubs in storage and working on developing my righty swing without a ball at first. I've learned that taking the shot and the hit out of the equation leads to less frustration because that mishit feeling along with seeing the ball fly wrong is what frustrates everybody when they're trying to make foreign swing changes and it's usually enough to revert them back to old habits.

 

I know the swing enough to have my own model and I have a bunch of drills and feedback devices to self-monitor without needing anyone else's help. I feel I am ambidextrous enough to become + handicap righty and hopefully gain confidence in my system to want to do the same thing as lefty but even better.

Edited Thursday at 06:52 AM by golferdude54