Todays Lesson. HELP!

[DaveyG]

I have just got back from this weeks lesson and i have never felt so low on confidence, p'eed off and angry in my life with golf.

I knew when I took the challenge of playing it wouldnt of been easy but I cant believe how awful I was.

The first 5 minutes I spend warming up and the pro watches. I have only had 2 lessons but have been playing self taught for a year... Understandably he ripped my swing apart and built it how it should be done. I adapted quickly and from playing golf previously managed to hit the ball well.

I have had atleast 10 hours practise since my last lesson just over 10 days ago and hit the ball superbly whilst warming up... The pro said he was impressed with the progress I have made and said do you have any issues where the ball is moving very slightly to the right. I said I sometimes hit it slightly out the right but going straight and only ending up a couple of yards right 150 yrds further down the range.

He said this lesson he was going to tweak my swing ever so slightly to enable my shots to always be dead straight...

5 minutes later and a couple of tips I can honestly say my Nan would have done better. I am talking not only hitting the ball horrifically but actually having a couple of air shots which I havent had since I first picked up a club... for the life of me I couldnt hit the ball!

throughtout the remainder of the lesson which felt like hours (not in a good way ofcourse) I continued to drag the ball wide topping it 15 yrds. He said the backswing was now looking better and I just have to work on coming back down.


The weird thing is even when i tried to go back to how I would of hit the ball prior to this lesson it just didnt work...

I honestly feel like its disrupted everything I was doing right.


I know I am likely to hear you need to be patient/ not take things so seriously/ try to hard and i totally agree but what I dont understand is even when I took a good 30 seconds step back... composed myself and tried again I was awful...

I always feel like I can go one day and play so well then as soon as I go with a friend or even alone sometimes I play like I dont have a clue.

Sorry for the rant but if anyone has any tips or ever feels the same and can tell me what they do after something like this it will really be appriciated. I have a day off work tomorrow and was going to spend a couple of hours down there but i feel like I have wasted so much money today in the lesson and another 100 balls I dont know if I need a break and to burn my clubs then run over them.

 

[connor]

as weird as it sounds there can be such thing as too much practice. trust your pro he knows what he is doing if your unsure ask him to explain it in a different way.
I had my first lesson like you recently and am having my swing re-done but we are doing it in small steps at a time and not all in one go. I ended up having a nightmare monday at the range and couldnt hit a ball for toffee and really was trying to do exactly like he told me the week before. I left there totally disheartened and like you came and posted on here. So i gave it a days break and went last night, and bingo things started to click again. I duffed the odd one or two but thats expected.
Just persavere mate it will come good in the end. If golf was meant to be easy we'd all be pros and everyone would play it.

 

[Region3]

You have to decide if you trust that the pro knows what he's doing. Personally I would.

If it was wrong then surely the pro would've stopped you when you were hitting (or missing) bad. To a degree I'd imagine he doesn't care where the ball is going, he's looking at the bigger picture and that is to work on getting your swing to where it needs to be.

Do you want to hit the ball ok now but maybe never get lower than 18 (I don't know what you are now), or play awful for a while but have the potential to get to 10 or lower?

 

[G1BB0]

you are probably thinking about all the changes too much, this is probably why the air shots, tops etc as you are trying to implement everything in your mind thus the swing gets messed up.

I dont know the answer as I suffer the exact same. the only thing I find that helps is to just practice half swings and slowing it right down without hitting balls, to feel what the position changes are etc, again this can be hit and miss

be patient

 

[DaveyG]

Cheers guys.

Fresh out of a piping hot bath and reading this suprisingly i want to get out there a rectify it. I definitely trust him and in the very very few i got right went further than ever. He says the potntial is massive and whn i strike it i can gget my 7i 190 yrds. But its so inconsistant. Then again whatdo i expect for only a couple of lessons hey. I will keep plugging away andsee how it goes. Once again - cheers lads.

 

[DaveM]

190yrds with a 7iron wow really.

 

[G1BB0]

150yds consistantly is better

thats a great attitude btw DaveyG

 

[USER1999]

I have similar issues ( not the 190 yard 7i) with lessons. May be you expect too much? I am getting worse rapidly, but oddly, on video, it is looking better and better. The contact will come, I just need to trust it. When it finally comes, it will be good. I play off 10, and have been playing for 20 years. Changes don't come easy.

Or my clubs will be on eBay.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

If you are struggling then you need to be asking the pro why you are producing this poor results nad not blindly stand there and repeat the same mistake. Yes I agree that in the bigger picture the bad ones now aren't a problem but if the pupil isn't getting why its happening then how is he going to differentiate between the feeling he has when one goes right and the next few that are anywhere but straight

 

[Dave B]

Davey

I had to rebuild my swing in the summer and it's slowly getting there. I had a lesson which incorporated changes to posture, grip, swing speed and although not as bad as your lesson, the trail of destruction it left afterwards wreaked havoc with my game for months. I tried going back to my old swing, half compromises, changing one thing and leaving the others for another time and nothing worked despite my best efforts.

In the end I had to accept the fact that when it eventually worked out it would be worth waiting for.

I still suffer the odd bad days however I'm now seeing the benefit of persisting with the changes as my swing is starting to feel more natural. My driving is consistent, my wedges good, my putting is improving and if my longer iron play is getting better so all in all it's coming together nicely but has taken far longer than I have anticipated.

You've stated that you can hit your 7 iron 190 yds when you hit it well and that you'e now working on your backswing. The key to most of the work I've been doing is to slow my swing down and improve my tempo.

Before implimenting any of the changes into my swing I could outdrive and hit my irons a club length longer than my playing partners. Since implimenting the changes I've lost distance but gained consistency and accuracy. There has been a trade off in loosing distance however I'm sure that as my technique improves the distance will return.

It hasn't been the easiest transition as I was quite happy with the way I drove and hit my irons, however I always knew in the back of my mind my swing was flawed and that in order to improve I needed to make some textbook changes to my swing. It's nowhere near perfect but it is improving and as the spring approaches I looking forward to seeing the benefit of all the hard work.

 

[DaveyG]

190yrds with a 7iron wow really.

Scouts honour but i dont know how i do that consistantly. He said if i keep at it he thinks i can br a very good player.

Thanks again guys for the advice. He did mention that too saying i may lose distance but get for more consistant shot.

I mentioned in my first post i will live at the range and avoid courses until my swing is bedded in bit if im honest i am too interested in testing my new golf out and keep putting pressure to be ready for each weekend. I have cancelled every game i had set up as i will only revert back to that swing again. I have kind of told myself i need to learn to walk again... But doing it without a gammy limp!

 

[Phil2511]

You could stand and shank the ball every shot and be swinging the way the pro wants you to. The actual reason for the shank would be your muscle memory trying to control the swing.

So if the pro has let you stand and do this there will be a reason, don't try going back to the old way. Stick with it and see what happens.

Sometimes it just your muscle memory taking over control and your brain is sending one command while your muscle memory is trying to keep doing what's easiest to it. Other times your pro could be making you do something incorrect for a purpose.

An easy way to explain would be if you think of a scale -10 to 0 to +10.
The pro may want you to be at 0 and you are at -3 he may put you to 0 and allow your brain to retrain your muscles. Or you could be at -6 and he could take you to +10 to retrain faster and a week later take you to 0.

Always stick to what you are taught and don't deviate or give up. Some changes can be made in an instant whilst others take weeks, even months for some people. You may think you are at a stage where you are a born again hacker because you are not getting the desired "Golf Shot" but your pro could be over the moon as he can see you doing what he wants you to do. Only then can he give you the next part and then you can see the "Golf Shot".

Sometimes certain swing changes can be very slight and done within minutes whereas other times they are done in 2 and 3 parts to get the full result.

 

[BogeyHole]

If golf was easy it would be boring.

It doesn't take a year to learn how to play, it takes a lifetime to realise that you'll never get it exactly right.

Even the pros are always striving to improve, and they practise pretty much every day of their life.

At your stage you should be aiming to get round the course in about 120-140ish shots. Dont cancel games just because you are rubbish, Be proud of it, coz then when you start 'getting' it, your scores will drop like a ton of bricks.

Your first target should be to be able to look back at every hole and think of one good shot you played. That's all you need to be able to enjoy a round. Then as you improve you'll get to the stage of playing only one bad shot a hole, then a few holes in a row without any bad shots. Etc etc.

It wont take long. You'll get there by about 2014....

Peace and love, man. Peace and love.

 

[Smiffy]

I booked up a course of 6 lessons at Sedlescombe Golf Club a couple of years ago. Good young assistant pro was teaching me, got me to change a few things and was videoing the "before and after"...got to be honest, the "after" was looking decidedly better and I was practicing all the things he showed me.
Went out on the course after 4 of the lessons for the first time and tried to put everything I had been shown in to practice. Result? 4 or 5 points on the front 9. Bugger that, I thought and reverted back to my old ways on the back 9. Result? 21 points. I'm too old for lessons.

 

[fat-tiger]

i no your beef

i had a lesson on tuesday, with a pro ive prob played with around 20 times so he nos my game abit,told him i happy with irons and chipping ,just long game wouldnt mind getting rid of the gay fade, all the modern technology,track cam etc, he showed me im stood to far away and hands to upright and need a better posture, now im totally mind f@#@ed, feel as if im bent over and stood to close to ball, i no its for the best if i want to keep improving,but at the minute so easy to say going back to me old swing,played 9 on wednesday and couldnt hit the ball,

 

[DaveyG]

I think hearing this from golfers who have been playing for years and have decent handicaps is exactly what I wanted to hear.

Even the whole part about I should be proud with the higher scores foes actually make sense, I guess I just see how I can be sometimes and want that all the time. I have deliberately left my clubs in my missus car so I can't get them until tonight. Have abit of a strain in my left hand from shanking it to much( yes that was shanking) so will wait until tonight to see if I can do any better.


I must admit when he played the video back I did look slot better in shape just wasnt locking it all in.

 

[AmandaJR]

I had a lesson yesterday and went on the course and play like an idiot! At one stage on the Par 3 16th (our 7th as we started on the back 9) I honestly couldn't figure out how to swing the club. Something felt wrong and awkward yet I couldn't figure out what it was. It has happened before though and know it's my head swimming and my body trying to make some sense of the messages I'm sending it in some foreign language

But usually something magical happens overnight and the information gets translated into English and the messages to my body suddenly work

Stick with it. Small swings on the range if it feels a bit wrong or the results aren't good and gradually build up to a full swing.

Good luck.

 

[bobmac]

Let your golf do the talking.
It's just a pity some swings are dyslexic

 

[chrisd]

I could well be wrong but if you are doing air shots and can hit a 7 iron 190 yards it would sound to me like you are swinging like Bubba Watson on steroids.

The best tip I ever had when the swing deserts you is to stand, feet together, and practice gentle half swings until the rhythm returns


Chris

 

[Oddsocks]

Or develop a safe shot, when all else fails I dive for my safety fade.