How do you judge progress?

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bamfur

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Hi I am a slicer/puller, and have figured out that I have been holding off the release. This is why even when I used to address the ball with a closed face, I still sliced because I ended up opening through impact and left arm chickenwinging.

So recently, I have been working on addressing neutral, allowing the face to open in my backswing and then swivel closing hard. Also, I have been working on increasing my shoulder turn and lengthening my backswing. I have been striking the ball more crisply than I have EVER (correct sound, compression, flight/trajectory, and much straighter). This has got me really excited, and it worked in my last game and in a couple of range sessions.

However, last night I shanked half my bucket of range balls (about 50 of them!), very disheartening... Although the good ones were still very good, every third or so was a shank! I really feel like I'm on to something here, but clearly very inconsistent... I went from general mediocre ballstriking to a mixed bag of some very good but way too many shanks...

So my question is should I judge my progress on the quality of my best shots or the quantity of the bad ones? Stick with this and try to fix the shanks?


Any guidance will be very much appreciated.
 
hp12c

hp12c

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bamfur said:
Hi I am a slicer/puller, and have figured out that I have been holding off the release. This is why even when I used to address the ball with a closed face, I still sliced because I ended up opening through impact and left arm chickenwinging.

So recently, I have been working on addressing neutral, allowing the face to open in my backswing and then swivel closing hard. Also, I have been working on increasing my shoulder turn and lengthening my backswing. I have been striking the ball more crisply than I have EVER (correct sound, compression, flight/trajectory, and much straighter). This has got me really excited, and it worked in my last game and in a couple of range sessions.

However, last night I shanked half my bucket of range balls (about 50 of them!), very disheartening... Although the good ones were still very good, every third or so was a shank! I really feel like I'm on to something here, but clearly very inconsistent... I went from general mediocre ballstriking to a mixed bag of some very good but way too many shanks...

So my question is should I judge my progress on the quality of my best shots or the quantity of the bad ones? Stick with this and try to fix the shanks?


Any guidance will be very much appreciated.
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juts my 2 cents the range is a place to practice but practice how we play, no rapid fire ball after ball after ball with the same club, I did that and it gave a me sense of progress but when I went ot the course it was amixed bag. I would go with the quantity of bad shots cause those are the one which are going to increase your score faster, reduce as many as possible . Dont feel bad about shank I went shanked a whole bucket 100balls and even with the help of a pga professional they didnt not go away, all i did was stop for about and hour was going to leave cause I was so down but decided to hit another bucket and the shanks were gone, self cure, yay!
 
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welshdentist

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Pulling on an open clubface (dragging the hosel not sweetspot) is shank inducing...

There was a great shanking thread if you search the archives
 
dschultz6072

dschultz6072

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One night I ended my range session by shanking about 40 or so balls in a row. Maybe more. I didn't go to the range for a few days. A buddy calls me up and tells me he wants to play. I tell him I'm in bad shape, but he never gets a chance to play, so I decide what the hell and go anyway. We only have time to play a pitch and putt 9. Now mind you, this place has no practice range, no net, no nothing. You know how freaking scared I was of hitting that first tee shot, regardless if it was a 130 yard straight shot with no trouble in sight or not? Guess what? I stuffed it. I stuffed just about everything that day. I even had 2 birdies.

This game is stupid.
 
hp12c

hp12c

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dschultz6072 said:
One night I ended my range session by shanking about 40 or so balls in a row. Maybe more. I didn't go to the range for a few days. A buddy calls me up and tells me he wants to play. I tell him I'm in bad shape, but he never gets a chance to play, so I decide what the hell and go anyway. We only have time to play a pitch and putt 9. Now mind you, this place has no practice range, no net, no nothing. You know how freaking scared I was of hitting that first tee shot, regardless if it was a 130 yard straight shot with no trouble in sight or not? Guess what? I stuffed it. I stuffed just about everything that day. I even had 2 birdies.

This game is stupid.
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Yeah! FEAR is a hell of a motivator Ive been there, one time I was shaking so bad when I teed the ball it would just fall off, scared to death!
 
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BertramSterling

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Besides what welshdentist said, I find shanks can often be caused by dragging a steep clubshaft out to the ball. Once it gets too steep in the downswing you'll never get it back (after a point) so you have to move the hands out toward the ball / target line to even hit the ball. I am beginning to think this is why almost everyone gets fitted for upright clubs, since the club is in a toe-down inclination when you do this.. (relative to setup)

see the epic tumble thread for more
 
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wulsy

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I think you have to strike a good balance between repeatability and quality of shot. Personally I measure progress by how good my best shots are, probably because you can only hit it really good if you do it right, and doing it right is a good way to consistency. Only bean counters obsess about consistency before they can hit it good. If you can hit it good once, you can hit it good "every time".
 
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jimmydean

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Personally, I feel that you are making progress when your bad shots are less frequent and not as bad as they used to be and you have more and more quality shots.
Jimmy
 
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bamfur

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Thanks for the responses guys. Something (being the ball striking and flight) tells me that I am onto something here. I have never hit the ball so well, solidly compressing, sounding right, feeling right, so I think the quality of my best shots being better than ever is an indication that I am on the right track. I did a lot of reading up on the shank and hopefully I will be able to eliminate this error and keep the good. However, if I went to play a round right now my scorecard would say I'm a freaking idiot. Hopefully, these are just growing pains that will fade away on my road to more consistent ballstriking and better scores in the longrun...
 
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scorekeeper

New member
dschultz6072 said:
One night I ended my range session by shanking about 40 or so balls in a row. Maybe more. I didn't go to the range for a few days. A buddy calls me up and tells me he wants to play. I tell him I'm in bad shape, but he never gets a chance to play, so I decide what the hell and go anyway. We only have time to play a pitch and putt 9. Now mind you, this place has no practice range, no net, no nothing. You know how freaking scared I was of hitting that first tee shot, regardless if it was a 130 yard straight shot with no trouble in sight or not? Guess what? I stuffed it. I stuffed just about everything that day. I even had 2 birdies.

This game is stupid.
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LOL.......so true.....so so true
 
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BertramSterling

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Burner said:
The games not stupid - that's the prerogative of the players.

We forum junkies play "golf swing" and that is a different bucket of bricks altogether than playing Golf.
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I thought that, and then I went to a tour event.. everyone had a glove in the armpit, strange setups with alignment sticks, etc etc. Looked like that scene from tin cup.

Also, some of this continued between shots during the round - loads of weird looking practice swings and drills.
 
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Deadly_Scope

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The topic of the thread is how is one to judge progress.

You can only judge something by means of comparison. You cannot judge something which is in a state of constant change otherwise you have no basis to which to conduct comparison. Therefore there must be stability in the pattern before comparing the effects of a possible improvement (or a group of improvements) and afterwards having a period of reestablishing stability in the pattern.

Stability comes from doing unconscious repetition. Change comes from conscious thought during repetition. Eventually the conscious thought required diminishes with the repetitions and you transition back to unconscious repetition.
 
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footwedge

New member
Deadly_Scope said:
The topic of the thread is how is one to judge progress.

You can only judge something by means of comparison. You cannot judge something which is in a state of constant change otherwise you have no basis to which to conduct comparison. Therefore there must be stability in the pattern before comparing the effects of a possible improvement (or a group of improvements) and afterwards having a period of reestablishing stability in the pattern.

Stability comes from doing unconscious repetition. Change comes from conscious thought during repetition. Eventually the conscious thought required diminishes with the repetitions and you transition back to unconscious repetition.
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Some never bridge that gap from conscious to subconscious. Self1 wants to keep telling Self2 how it's done. From the range to the course the longest walk in golf.
 
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ej20

New
BertramSterling said:
I thought that, and then I went to a tour event.. everyone had a glove in the armpit, strange setups with alignment sticks, etc etc. Looked like that scene from tin cup.

Also, some of this continued between shots during the round - loads of weird looking practice swings and drills.
Click to expand...

Those guys can play golf swing and play golf.It's called talent.LOL
 
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