Day of reckoning

[dominicscaife]

So.. it's time, to share my pattern

Tell me the bad news.... where do I go from here... my handicap is 4.5, my goal is to be scratch by the end of the year.

Best 18
Par - 2 times.

Best 9
2 under - 2 times.

Yardages
Driver - 270 (radar measured 110mph), 4 iron 180, 7 iron 150, 9 iron 130. Feel I can get more if I learn to compress my irons better.

Looking for a bit more distance, normal shot shape is straight. Can play a draw or a fade, fade is a bit more reliable, when trying to draw i occasionally get it a bit fat.

Driver

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Sand Wedge

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6 iron


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Note the excellent demonstration of how to 'lag the hosel' in that last shot!

 

[fronesis]

First off, let me say that there are a bunch of great teachers who post here, and I am not one of them, so take my response in that vein and wait for the experts before you make changes.

That said, I'd like to see a face on view. It looks to me like you are "slinging" the clubhead a bit, i.e. you have clubhead throwaway. This would explain the relatively "short" iron distances. I say they are shot only because you are playing off of 4.5, have a relatively long swing and are clearly young and flexible. Given all that, I'd expect you to be able to hit a 4 iron close to 200 than to 175. It would also explain the fat shots when you try to draw it; you're flipping it in an effort to square the club.

Maybe it's just my own preferences, but I'd also like to see a bit more of a SD takeaway, with a bit more turn. You need to "hit it with your pivot." To me it seems like you are hitting it with your arms.

On the other hand, if you are a 4.5, then you could always just work on your short game to get to scratch!

 

[dominicscaife]

Cheers!

Thanks Fronesis, I think your probably right, my long irons are pretty inconsistent.

Fortunately since most of the courses I play are 6500 or less it's not really an issue as it's rare that I need more than a 7 iron for my second shot.

I have all of Brian's video's and did dabble with soft draw but there wasn't much 'soft' about the draws that I hit when I tried it.

Big hard hooks

p.s. Oh and my short game is pretty good already, not much room for improvement there. Need to improve GIR - at around 50% at present.

 

[tennisdu]

Tough to tell but I would check you left wrist at the top of the backswing, looks over bowed. Maybe that is why when you tried the SD that it turned into big hard hooks.

 

[dominicscaife]

Tough to tell but I would check you left wrist at the top of the backswing, looks over bowed. Maybe that is why when you tried the SD that it turned into big hard hooks.

Good spot, I used to swing with a very bowed left wrist at the top and this caused me to have underplane issues, guess I'm falling into my old bad habits.

 

[dominicscaife]

Update:

Followed Fronesis's advice today and tried to make sure i was not flipping, I also felt like I was cocking my wrists a lot more on the backswing, although I started off hitting some big push slices but when i fired my hips more and swung more left managed to get things square and got quite a bit more distance.

Any more suggestions?

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Find a way to post more video with a better FPS rate, i can't see much to provide any clear help