Hitting the ball fat with my irons has been an achilles heel for me for some time. Ever since I learned to hit down on the ball and take a proper divot, my mishits have leaned on the fat side. I mean, if I hit the ball thin, I still end up with a decent shot. But I play blades. If I hit the ball fat, it goes nowhere.

One of the many, many things that run through my head as I'm swinging is pretty simple. I concentrate on making absolutely certain that my shoulders stay at the same height from the ground throughout my swing. I've seen my dip on video. It's ugly. I actually dip down as I begin my forward swing, and that creates the horribly fat shot.

jpjeffery wrote:

about 6-7" before the ball.

I do that too. It's the main thing I've been trying to fix for a year or more, as while it stinks to blow your tee shot off the map, it's maybe a little worse to be in good shape 125yds out and suddenly FAT one so ugly that the divot goes farther than the ball.

I discussed my situation with the golf pro I went to recently, and we did the video analysis. He explained to me that there are several ways to hit fat. One is the old flip behind the ball, but mine was more because I was coming in too much inside, too much lag (and dropping back shoulder). My fat divots were like 6-7 inches behind tha ball, but coming from the inside, and deeper on the toe side. The toe getting too low because I'm steepening the swing due to redirecting from early extension (hips move towards the ball, not turning towards target).

I'm in a quagmire, and returning to deep inspection of the grip. Went to the range again today after work, hit GW 1/2 and full swings and 7 irons and the main thing working on is grip, and not rushing the swing.

I had a free golf assessment at my local American Golf store in the City after which the pro confirmed what I suspected: I have a little head dip at the start of the downswing and, more serious, practically no weight shift.

FFS!

Got back from the range about 30 minutes ago. Man it was cold. So cold I found the condensation on my club faces had iced up!

Anyway, I took my driver, my 7 and my PW and with the first 55 balls I tried a mixture of a slow motion swing to train myself to weight-shift, and placing the ball outside my left foot to leave myself no choice but to get out there to make contact.

The slo-mo was OK but I couldn't get the hang of the forward-placed ball. I think perhaps my fundementals aren't good enough for that to work.

Second 55 balls I pretended I was playing my local muni. Tee shots were mostly OK...just, but the iron shots were just horrible.

I seem to have got myself in to a right old state. I'm trying to stay high to avoid dipping but then I think I'm dipping my right shoulder.

Whatever's happening, I'm concentrating so much on making good contact I think it's distracting me from making the weight-shift.

Right now my confidence level is about zero.

Went to the driving range today with the intention of trying to figure out what was wrong with my tee shots. My last round featured many tee shots that were nowhere near the sweet spot. It was quite frankly very ugly. I figured it was just a matter of paying more attention to the ball. I was right and got that straightened out, but the problem is that I normally warm up by hitting my PW and my 7 iron ... and I couldn't hit a ball right with either of those to save my life. In the process of working through what was wrong, and practicing chipping and sand shots, I probably hit 100 balls. My arms are a bit sore and I'm supposed to play 18 tomorrow.

Now, where did I put that Alleve?

jpjeffery wrote:

Right now my confidence level is about zero.

Man, I am RIGHT there with you. Normally that goes away if I can put a couple of decent shots together on the course. I'm hoping I can do that early on tomorrow when I play.

Well, after a lesson two Wednesdays ago my confidence is up quite a lot. Predictably the issue was lack of weight shift toward the target. What my teacher got me trying to do was move my left shoulder past, or at least over, my left foot (i.e. the 'feel' should be that the shoulder passes the foot although it probably doesn't actually move quite that much).

It's working quite well. More details in my blog! Have I mentioned my blog recently? learnergolfer.wordpress.com.

Looking forward to seeing your score later...

As for your PW and 7 iron shots (I seem to do the same as you at the range - just three clubs, Driver, 7i, PW but in reverse order, natch!) try just half shots at first: On the backswing just move the club until parallel to the ground then swing through and build from there. No power, just a nice, calm, easy swing.

Worked yesterday on taking the club back on plane rather than to the inside. I have it grooved it as to what it looks and feels like to take the club back properly. Today's focus is going to be keeping the right hip from overturning on the start of the downswing and bringing me too close to the ball. I should then get better extension and a slightly lower ball flight.

Yesterday's swing with a 5 iron.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktTK9YVTlUg&feature=youtu.be

had been hitting decently at the range until a couple of days ago, where my swing went off the rails. then i caught a web snippet of instruction from some guy that commented on how in the good ol' days of Hogan and Snead, the clubs were a lot heavier and you could feel the weight of the clubhead a lot easier, forcing players of yesteryear to use their big muscles to swing. his beef was that the big golf companies' push for 'lighter, faster, longer' was doing damage to amateurs' swings. While I do waggle the club during setup, I didn't make the connection that one of the purposes of the waggle is not only to loosen the upper arms/shoulders but to 'feel' the clubhead.

anyhow, at range today, worked on a mental thought of the clubs being extremely heavy, which both loosened my grip and got me swinging with big muscles again, specially in transition. backswing was much more natural and in sequence as well. instantly was making good contact again.

Worked again today on the same thing i've been doing all winter and into the first couple weeks of the "early season". Keep that clubhead out in line with my hands instead of coming way inside. also fire through the ball with my head down and extend. Success!!! I guess it was technically success on saturday considering my score, but in HWSNBN's words "i was thinking and swinging mechanically". Not so much anymore. What i've been doing now feels natural and IS natural. I tried to make a swing with the inside move like last year and it felt SSOOOOOO awkward! success! let's see how long it hangs out. Sorry about the video alignment. It was just me there. I'm gonna call the lady and see if she'll let me out again this weekend.

take my word for it... This ball and the next 6 i hit before changing to my wedges were right down the pipe.

http://youtu.be/uc9I6fkLWDc

Went to the range today for 2 buckets of balls, was gonna play on the course after work today which was at 3:00 but the first available tee time wasn`t until 6:00 so I tried to go to another course, next tee time open was 5:30, next course I went too also had 5:30 so just went to the range.

player wrote:

Went to the range today for 2 buckets of balls, was gonna play on the course after work today which was at 3:00 but the first available tee time wasn`t until 6:00 so I tried to go to another course, next tee time open was 5:30, next course I went too also had 5:30 so just went to the range.

sooooooooooooo. what did you practice?

He practiced driving, driving from course to course

birdieXris wrote:

player wrote: Went to the range today for 2 buckets of balls, was gonna play on the course after work today which was at 3:00 but the first available tee time wasn`t until 6:00 so I tried to go to another course, next tee time open was 5:30, next course I went too also had 5:30 so just went to the range. sooooooooooooo. what did you practice?

Storytelling

Where the hell does this guy live? Got out of work at 3:00. 5:30 and 6:00 tee times? Isn't it still getting dark around 7:00. Before you say, he must work the overnite. I 'm up at 5 a.m. everyday and by 6:00 its just light enough to go without headlights.