Woe is me (or, why is this game so goddam hard?)

[trevor]

Whereabouts oop north are you as I'm sure there is someone on the forum who would gladly take you out on the course and give you some help.

Except he's never going to play again, ever.

 

[sunshine]

It’s the “it’s normal” comments that put me off.

If this is normal, why the hell does anyone play the game?

I don’t think I’m lifting my lead foot. I’m not 100% certain, but the emphasis in my last lesson was to keep my weight more in control in the backswing, as I’d developed a sway backwards.

The sway backwards was in response to the fix for my previous issue, which was a reverse pivot. To fix the reverse pivot, I’d been told to focus on turning my lead knee in. That worked for a while until I unconsciously developed the sway backwards.

The fix for the sway was to continue having the lead knee turn in, but keep Some weight through The inside of the foot, and focus on coiling, rather than moving away from the target,

So when it all fell apart, the first thing I checked was that I was still coiling and not swaying, and still had some weight on the inside of the lead foot.

I also used my convex mirror with a centreline drawn on it (which I have with me for range sessions), to make sure the sway had not come back.

Then I checked my lead arm was straight, but not stiff, as that’s another if my favourite tricks...to have a straight arm at address, but let it bend on the backswing. I didn’t seem to be doing that.

So, using the full length mirror that is at the back of every tee at the range, I checked that I was not standing up on the backswing. I checked that my club was coming back on the inside, in line with my forearm, and that the face was slightly open when the shaft was parallel to the floor.

I slowed right down, reduced to a backswing that only went to parallel to the floor, and made sure I wasn’t standing up out of posture at impact.

Basically, I went through all my notes, of all my previous faults, and rechecked them for half a dozen practice swings and two or three balls each.

But as I’ve said, I had to reduce the backswing to about 2 feet, swing slowly through the ball from there, before I got to the point of being able to make contact. Any more of a backswing, and I was coming through above, inside or even outside the ball, and either missing completely, or just tipping it off the tee with a glancing blow.

I really don’t think that’s normal, and the reason I don’t want to go on the course is that I do t want to take 50 shots to get to the green on a 100 yard par 3!

Just re-read this post. This is an incredible amount of technical information for someone who has only played golf twice in their life. Can't believe your "coach" did this to you. Talk about running before you can walk.

 

[Curls]

The Coach took his money, over and over, week after week. To be fair, RM asked for it, and to our knowledge Coach never said “I think I’m making too much money off you, perhaps you should go away and try golf for a while and come back to me”. He just kept filling his head with technical stuff.

Apparently he’s spent something like £800 on lessons including balls. Coach laughed all the way to the bank. Rangemonkey pissed off. As he might well be.

 

[AdamW]

If ever a thread needed this...
View attachment 28970

thats above the urinals at my local course, says it all ?

 

[Crow]

Sorry if you've answered this already but I'm not trawling through pages and pages of repetition, did you watch the John Jacobs video I posted?

 

[HomerJSimpson]

The Coach took his money, over and over, week after week. To be fair, RM asked for it, and to our knowledge Coach never said “I think I’m making too much money off you, perhaps you should go away and try golf for a while and come back to me”. He just kept filling his head with technical stuff.

Apparently he’s spent something like £800 on lessons including balls. Coach laughed all the way to the bank. Rangemonkey pissed off. As he might well be.

As someone who has had coaches that have been very technical and others that take a far more simplistic approach I know I've preferred the latter and definitely feel I've got more from the lessons. I do think however lessons are a two-way street and RM needed to nip it in the bud far earlier and go back to the coach when he couldn't get on with the changes and ask for a simpler explanation. In his defence sometimes as a newbie you don't know what you don't know and so may have simply assumed this is how golf tuition is and how frustrating it is. I do think the coach has to share some of the blame and should have realised from RM's feedback whatever technical stuff was being given wasn't working and simplified it. Would be interesting to hear Bob's take

 

[Chris1967]

Spending too much on lessons if you ask me. Lots of free advice online and watching the top pros swing in slow-mo on tons of videos posted online, has really helped me a lot.

 

[inc0gnito]

As a suggestion when you go to the course as a beginner it would more useful to add +2 to each par of the hole. So for example if it’s normally a par 4, a par for you would be 6.

Might seem trivial but it gives you more of a boost and a realistic expectation. Once you get better you can change to +1.

 

[bobmac]

Would be interesting to hear Bob's take

Sounds as if the OP has too many things in his head and doesn't have the experience in golf to filter out the irrelevant stuff.
If he can remember that golf only has 2 parts .......
How you hit it
Where you hit it
Then, using self analysis, you can fix problems yourself without having to run to the pro.

But all these post are irrelevant if the OP has given up trying

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

As a suggestion when you go to the course as a beginner it would more useful to add +2 to each par of the hole. So for example if it’s normally a par 4, a par for you would be 6.

Might seem trivial but it gives you more of a boost and a realistic expectation. Once you get better you can change to +1.

This was very similar to what I did when I started out - aged 13

For me every hole was a par 6 (108 for 18). This meant for instance that I could have a 6 on a par 3 and I would not have dropped a shot - rather than feeling negative about having dropped 3 shots. If I got a 3 - I was 3 under for that hole. Or on a par 4 - a 4 was 2 under Only if I got 7s or more would I be over par - but when 7s and 8s came I usually had a bit in the bank to keep me under my par. I would in my head keep a running score against my par. At first I might score say 54 for first 9 holes - but in my head I was 'Level' and good start for back 9 - I'm still 'level'.

And in time I was finding myself 1 under, 3 under 7 under 'par' for 9 and the round. It just kept me feeling positive. I did this for quite some before switching to playing to 5s (a different kettle of fish - 90 for 18) - but the same thinking applied. I might shoot 48 front 9 but that was actually only 3 over...and I battled 90 for the course for quite some time before I joined a club and got a handicap.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

And so just in case our OP - RangeMonkey - happens to pop back for a wee read - here's how the Professionals do it...

 

[HomerJSimpson]

As a suggestion when you go to the course as a beginner it would more useful to add +2 to each par of the hole. So for example if it’s normally a par 4, a par for you would be 6.

Might seem trivial but it gives you more of a boost and a realistic expectation. Once you get better you can change to +1.

I did that as a junior and treated every hole as a par 5. Definitely helped with expectations and so when you managed a par or bogey on a par 3 as an example and then racked up a 7 or 8 on a hard par 4 or par 5 then it didn't feel as catastrophic as you were ahead of the game and it didn't seem such a card killer anymore.