I was hitting my driver so well for so long. I have lost 100 yards on the club over the past few weeks. I started taking lessons, three of them, to learn how to hit my irons properly. Alas, I am hitting my irons really well right now. But I can't use them because my banana slice driver is leaving me too far away from the greens to reach them in regulation.

After putting the numbers together, my 5w is going an average of 210 with a long of over 250 since this transformation. My driver is going an average of 175 with a long of about 200.

This hurts. Sure, I can move up a set of tees and play my 5w all round long, but the entire reason why I elected to take lessons on my irons was because I was sick of consistently getting inside 100 off the tee and not scoring. I guess one possible solution to that problem is to stop getting inside of 100 off the tee.

Swing easier Bryan. I know, sounds simple, but seriously, your distance will come back. Choke down an inch, and focus on sweet spot contact. For a guy who could bomb it before (from what I have read in your posts), without seeing what's going on directly with your swing right now, I can virtually guarantee you will hit it better by just slowing down your transition and not trying to kill the ball. Bet you ten bucks.

Go back to the pro that got your irons shaped up and ask him for a fix with the driver. You are capable of hitting reasonably straight 250+ yard drives based on prior experience. That skill should not disappear permanently. Your pro might be able to make a small change to fix your driver swing.

I very often have bad driver struggles too, but then other days it clicks. Everyone has a different thing going on, just gotta keep working at it. Chances are when you get it sorted things will click back and start working again.

I think I have figured out that the cause of my slice is not from going OTT. I think my issue is when I get my hips firing too fast and my lower body is way thru the swing before my hands and clubhead have time to catch up. I tried yesterday to get my hands down in front of my body faster and had good results. That's just my experience though.

You'll have to keep working away and if I had a teacher I would go back as ask for help.

jfurr wrote:

I very often have bad driver struggles too, but then other days it clicks. Everyone has a different thing going on, just gotta keep working at it. Chances are when you get it sorted things will click back and start working again. I think I have figured out that the cause of my slice is not from going OTT.

I know that this isn't my problem. I can see my swing path, and it's outside in most of the time.

Quote:

I think my issue is when I get my hips firing too fast and my lower body is way thru the swing before my hands and clubhead have time to catch up. I tried yesterday to get my hands down in front of my body faster and had good results. That's just my experience though.

I honestly *think* that's what's going on with me as well. What I was working on with the pro was concentrating on making sure that my hips stayed stationary on my back swing. When my hips sway backwards on my back swing, I hit the ball fat. When I keep them stationary, and when everything else is right (because it's a struggle implementing such a drastic change in my swing), the ball flies true. But with my driver, it just feels so awkward.

Quote:

You'll have to keep working away and if I had a teacher I would go back as ask for help.

Yeah...it's expensive, though. I got three free lessons because I had an extra Greenskeeper ticket to the Phoenix Open, and I ran into a local teaching pro while I was there who was in need of one.

bkuehn1952 wrote:

Go back to the pro that got your irons shaped up and ask him for a fix with the driver. You are capable of hitting reasonably straight 250+ yard drives based on prior experience. That skill should not disappear permanently. Your pro might be able to make a small change to fix your driver swing.

It better not disappear permanently!

Today, I played on a regularly short course. I played pretty well, but the round seemed soooo long because I rarely had a chance to hit any greens in regulation. And then, of course, on the one hole where I hit a good drive leaving me about 180 from the green on a par 5, I topped my second shot into the water. But yeah, I shot a 92, and I bet I left ten strokes out there because of my inability to hit my driver.

jfurr wrote:

I think I have figured out that the cause of my slice is not from going OTT. I think my issue is when I get my hips firing too fast and my lower body is way thru the swing before my hands and clubhead have time to catch up.

I had the exact same issue. I widened my stance just a little. I mean a small amount. My right big toe is now where my right middle toe use to be. When I do more than that I can barely hit the ball. That seemed to solve this problem. Also it gave me more stability and with the extra stability I can take a bigger backswing (ie more power).

Bryan K wrote:

I was hitting my driver so well for so long. I have lost 100 yards on the club over the past few weeks. I started taking lessons, three of them, to learn how to hit my irons properly. Alas, I am hitting my irons really well right now. But I can't use them because my banana slice driver is leaving me too far away from the greens to reach them in regulation. After putting the numbers together, my 5w is going an average of 210 with a long of over 250 since this transformation. My driver is going an average of 175 with a long of about 200. This hurts. Sure, I can move up a set of tees and play my 5w all round long, but the entire reason why I elected to take lessons on my irons was because I was sick of consistently getting inside 100 off the tee and not scoring. I guess one possible solution to that problem is to stop getting inside of 100 off the tee.

That's what you get for taking a lesson

I've found, and I know it may sound slightly weird, that if I line up (with my hips/feet) slightly open, I make really good contact with the ball. It helps me clear my hips and drive all of my power into the ball.

So I spent the week trying to figure it out. I hit the range with a camera on Thursday night. My waist was way open at impact.

I guess it makes sense. Before, I was rotating my waist backwards in my back swing. This meant that when I began my forward momentum with my waist, it would give my arms more time to get through the impact area. But now that I'm not rotating my waist backwards anymore, I have to stop beginning my forward momentum with my waist. The reason why is because there just isn't enough time for my arms to catch up anymore.

This has been tough. I spent about an hour on the range this morning trying to begin my forward momentum with my shoulders instead of my waist. My hips would only turn forward as the momentum of my shoulders brought it forward. It felt terrible. There is such a small fine line between beginning the forward momentum with my waist and beginning it with my shoulders. So I had a really hard time differentiating, and the range session was one of my worst ever.

The front nine on the course wasn't any better. I had no confidence whatsoever, and everything now, even my iron shots, are push fades that miss 50 yards to the right of the target.

On the back nine, I started making half swings for a couple of holes without moving my waist at all, and it just suddenly clicked. I shot a 42 on the back nine with two penalty strokes (which led to a triple) on an evil, short par 4.

I am so looking forward to hitting the range again tomorrow. I was still pushing and fading all of my shots on the back nine, but it wasn't nearly as pronounced. It was at a tolerable level. But I think I've finally got a glimpse of what I need to do to fix this foible that has been killing me for the last month.

Things were going better last weekend. I spent a lot of time on the range working on swinging less with my waist and more with my shoulders. My iron shots have straightened out considerably. In fact, I felt like I should hit every green when I was inside of 150, and I even hit a few when I was outside of 150.

I'm still struggling a bit with the driver. While it is going much straighter, meaning that I actually hit a few decent ones, the distance is lacking. My longest drive was 240, and the average was in the 220 range. But what I found most interesting is that my back really started hurting. These are muscles I haven't used in a while, so I have to get used to that. But whereas last weekend, I was dreading the trips to the golf course, I'm really looking forward to it this weekend.

For the last three holes today, things went well off the tee. Those last three drives were all between 250 and 255. They all had identical flight patterns. Just a slight draw. And they all felt great. If it wouldn't have been for a bad bounce into the bunker on 17, I would have probably finished those last three holes under par.

The key is in the forward shoulder. I found the sweet swing today, and I know I can generate faster club speed. Now, I just have to figure out how to groove that so it works every round.