Wow! Range..... breakthrough?

FairwayDodger

FairwayDodger

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OK, so golf is the game for false dawns but I've just had an amazing session at the range and need to share!

I came back to golf last year after a few years away and got down to 9.7 with my very shonky swing. Knew I wasn't going to get much better than that without help so took lessons over the winter and have reconstructed my swing into something much more conventional.

I now hit a slight fade, not a problem in itself, but my bad shots have become high, weak fades. You'll often find me chipping from short right of the green........ Moreover, I seem to have lost a bit of distance even with the decent shots.

I'm currently playing a lot but getting a bit frustrated - scores ranged from 74 to 86 last week.

Hadn't swung a club for a couple of days but watching the American golf last night something occurred to me - probably quite idiosyncratic for me so I won't go into details. But also they did a wee feature on Hunter Mahan's swing and a drill he's been doing to keep the club low longer in his follow through. That chimed with me too so I went up to the range today to experiment with these two swing thoughts. All the other changes are reasonably well set now so these were the only things I was consciously thinking about.

I took 9, 7, 5 irons and driver and basically started carrying the 9 iron as far as I had been carrying the 7, the 7 as far as the 5 and the 5 a good bit further. I started hitting the fence at the back with the driver. Basically getting a better strike and a more penetrating ball flight and pretty consistently too. OK, not every strike was perfect but the vast majority were going the "new" distances.

I just hope I can replicate this and, importantly do it on the course.

Sorry a bit long and boring probably but cheers for reading! :cheers:
 
Great - I love the way this game can give such amazing eureka moments that just make you smile and wanna dance a jig of delight.

No reason why not to replicate it on the course :thup:
 
Great to hear :) I've kind of had something similar, my swing hadn't really been going anywhere with a lot of inconsistency, but remembered a tip from my pro ages ago about moving body before before arms, and when I experimented with I found my ball striking became a lot better and shots were going a lot straighter :) like you it's not perfect but I'm gonna get a lesson this week and see if I can build on it :) its always a nice feeling when you discover something that changes your game :D
 
It's amazing actually. There's a marker on the range I thought I should be able to carry with a 7 iron but for months every shot has been dropping short. Today, 90% of them sailed right over it.
 
I have a similiar problem to yourself and also noted what Mahan was up to last night. My pro has had me working on a wider swing plane but I think am sub concsiously still too steep and hitting everything a little short and ocassionally right. Really going to work on this on my next visit to the range. hope i get similiar results!!
 
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Not a range momenmt but was on the practice ground tonight and just focussing on making a balanced turn and holding the finish. Meant I had to swing within myself and smoothly and hitting it very well as a result. I've had more false dawns than most and so I'm not going to get over excited. I've still got my dodgy short game to bring it all back down to earth. If and when that clicks though things may be a lot rosier in Homers garden
 
FairwayDodger said:
OK, so golf is the game for false dawns but I've just had an amazing session at the range and need to share!

I came back to golf last year after a few years away and got down to 9.7 with my very shonky swing. Knew I wasn't going to get much better than that without help so took lessons over the winter and have reconstructed my swing into something much more conventional.

I now hit a slight fade, not a problem in itself, but my bad shots have become high, weak fades. You'll often find me chipping from short right of the green........ Moreover, I seem to have lost a bit of distance even with the decent shots.

I'm currently playing a lot but getting a bit frustrated - scores ranged from 74 to 86 last week.

Hadn't swung a club for a couple of days but watching the American golf last night something occurred to me - probably quite idiosyncratic for me so I won't go into details. But also they did a wee feature on Hunter Mahan's swing and a drill he's been doing to keep the club low longer in his follow through. That chimed with me too so I went up to the range today to experiment with these two swing thoughts. All the other changes are reasonably well set now so these were the only things I was consciously thinking about.

I took 9, 7, 5 irons and driver and basically started carrying the 9 iron as far as I had been carrying the 7, the 7 as far as the 5 and the 5 a good bit further. I started hitting the fence at the back with the driver. Basically getting a better strike and a more penetrating ball flight and pretty consistently too. OK, not every strike was perfect but the vast majority were going the "new" distances.

I just hope I can replicate this and, importantly do it on the course.

Sorry a bit long and boring probably but cheers for reading! :cheers:
Click to expand...


Hhaha i also tried to replicate something from hunter mahan on the range today, the position he is in after he follows through, kind of over the ball more than usual, worked from what i saw :)
 
If you asked 100 golfers leaving a range on any given night you will probably get a response like this:

10% will be thinking of selling their clubs on ebay
40% will think they need to stay and hit some more balls
25% will be satisfied with a good session
25% will think they have made a significant breakthrough
 
ScienceBoy said:
If you asked 100 golfers leaving a range on any given night you will probably get a response like this:

10% will be thinking of selling their clubs on ebay
40% will think they need to stay and hit some more balls
25% will be satisfied with a good session
25% will think they have made a significant breakthrough
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I'm not daft, chances are I'll be rank rotten next time I go. But the fact is that doing a couple of things consciously differently I was hitting the ball significantly further than I have in months. More importantly, perhaps, I'm back into a real positive "improving" frame of mind and can't wait to hit the course..... if it stops snowing!!!
 
That wasn't actually it but looks similar.

I didn't pick up any actual drill - it was just the concept of keeping the clubhead lower through the strike that chimed with me as something to try.

On Sky Denis Pugh demonstrated two drills that he said Sean Foley had Hunter Mahan working on. The first is the old standard towel under the arms to keep arms and body connected. The second was the idea of keeping the clubhead lower - to do this it was, if I remember properly, practise swings with a wet towel wrapped around the clubhead.
 
Firstly I'm not saying you've not turned a corner and if you are playing off single figures then you are already many a corner in front of me....

But I've had so many moments where I thought I'd finally figured it all out, flat wrist position, straightening the left leg, big shoulder turn, firing the hips. What happens though is that I go to the range and still have the same weak slice.

I guess its the continual search for perfection that keeps a lot of us coming back for more.
 
Thanks anyway. It would be good if sky packaged up the studio lab clips from the weekend and stuck them up on their website or youtube - good promotion for the package and interesting to see some insights into various facets of the game.

While I poked around for mahan drill stuff, I found this 18 minute (!) treatise on his main moves and drills. Slightly embarrased to say I found it quite interesting. Time to get a life methinks...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uMioON4l6g
 
socky said:
Firstly I'm not saying you've not turned a corner and if you are playing off single figures then you are already many a corner in front of me....

But I've had so many moments where I thought I'd finally figured it all out, flat wrist position, straightening the left leg, big shoulder turn, firing the hips. What happens though is that I go to the range and still have the same weak slice.

I guess its the continual search for perfection that keeps a lot of us coming back for more.
Click to expand...

Ha! My nine handicap pal would be quick to point out that 9.7 isn't quite single figures - fingers crossed I'll get there soon though! :thup:

Totally agree with your other points but it's great to have a good session and it's broken the frustration I'd been feeling recently.
 
FairwayDodger said:
Oh yeah, I'm not daft, chances are I'll be rank rotten next time I go. But the fact is that doing a couple of things consciously differently I was hitting the ball significantly further than I have in months. More importantly, perhaps, I'm back into a real positive "improving" frame of mind and can't wait to hit the course..... if it stops snowing!!!
Click to expand...

I would never call a forum member daft unless they deserve it! My survey hypothesis was much in jest of the amount of range breakthrough threads we get at this time of year (and other times too).

I personally believe in old Tom Watsons constant hunt for the "secret" and if you are not moving forward with your golf game, be it putting, driving or others then you either have a good excuse like age or injury or you are not putting the time in require OR practising the wrong things!
 
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