What to do when the swing totally goes (away)

[Bill Miracle]

Mike,
I have been striping irons for a few months. The accuracy got much better after purchasing your videos and working with the stuff on your site.

However, over the last 2-3 weeks, I started to see the accuracy leave until as of last Saturday...I have no idea where the irons are going.

What do you suggest a person do when this happens?

[Michael Jacobs]

Mike,
I have been striping irons for a few months. The accuracy got much better after purchasing your videos and working with the stuff on your site.

However, over the last 2-3 weeks, I started to see the accuracy leave until as of last Saturday...I have no idea where the irons are going.

What do you suggest a person do when this happens?

If the struggles are continuing for 2 -3 weeks then something has definitely gone wrong. A lot of times a golfer makes a necessary adjustment and it works really - really well, they get over excited and practice it to death. In the span of over practicing it for a couple of weeks to months they start to OVER DO what had worked well for them and they end up on the opposite side of the spectrum needing a new adjustment the opposite way until they end up in the middle spot and their permanent stroke pattern.

Usually it is a lesson that fixes and the golfer excitedly over does the fix, then needs an adjustment to scale back. This is really the instructors job not the students job. It is very tough to do alone!! If there is no one close by to where you live that is qualified then I suggest taking advantage of modern technology. Video you swing as often as you would like and send it to me and I will take a look and coach you. This is a free service I offer for the time being and hopefully for me over the next 5 years I will have enough internet traffic where I one day charge for the service. But right now and for the next year or so it will be a free service. So take advantage of it, if you don't have a camera you should get one!

[Bill Miracle]

I will take you up on that. I have a decent camera and need to put it to use.

I spent some time at the range today and wanted to cry. Hard push left, hard pull right, no compression, etc..... No matter what I tried to do, I could not get a backswing that felt right.

So, I sat there an thought about it.....how could my swing get that bad so quickly. Then it kind of hit me....I didn't seemt to be as bent over at address as normal....I seemed more upright (I was shooting PW, 8, and 5).

So, I bent over a bit more at address and bam! Everything became more natural and effortless. Balls were compressed, and predictable.

What happened there (any good guesses without seeing the swing because I am clueless.)???

[Michael Jacobs]

I will take you up on that. I have a decent camera and need to put it to use.

I spent some time at the range today and wanted to cry. Hard push left, hard pull right, no compression, etc..... No matter what I tried to do, I could not get a backswing that felt right.

So, I sat there an thought about it.....how could my swing get that bad so quickly. Then it kind of hit me....I didn't seemt to be as bent over at address as normal....I seemed more upright (I was shooting PW, 8, and 5).

So, I bent over a bit more at address and bam! Everything became more natural and effortless. Balls were compressed, and predictable.

What happened there (any good guesses without seeing the swing because I am clueless.)???

Bill,
I have never seen your swing so I am unable to give you any accurate info regarding the success when you bent over a bit more. A generalization is that golfers who are bent correctly have a much easier time turning the right shoulder towards the ball. Send off that swing of yours so we can make some accurate adjustments to your game

[Bill Miracle]

That was a momentary fix.

I am going to try and get to the range with the video tomorrow but...here is what I found.....

When I focus on the lower body, I lose my swing. I was striping the ball pretty well and for some reason, I started focusing on what the feet/hips were doing.

I have only been playing 3 years now but....everytime I have done this....it leads to disaster.

When I get the right move down, my hips naturally open and the weight naturally shifts. I played 9 today and there was a big improvement.

I definitely will post a video ASAP

[Bill Miracle]

Well, this is a funny game for a relative beginner.

I was fairly religious in taking the video to the range. In my 3rd year of playing this game, I started shooting in the mid-80s in mid-summer.

Since then, I haven't taken a swing video until today. O-M-G!!!!! Brian Manzella would claim he never gave me a lesson.

Seriously Mike, there was so much that I could see that I would be embarassed to send the video.

I did see that my set up had totally changed, my shoulders were too tense, I was over-swinging on the backswing and trying to hammer the ball...even on wedges. I saw the obvious things I needed to fix immediately and saw drastic improvement

I swear, I will never go more than a couple of weeks without using the camera.

[Michael Jacobs]

Well, this is a funny game for a relative beginner.

I was fairly religious in taking the video to the range. In my 3rd year of playing this game, I started shooting in the mid-80s in mid-summer.

Since then, I haven't taken a swing video until today. O-M-G!!!!! Brian Manzella would claim he never gave me a lesson.

Seriously Mike, there was so much that I could see that I would be embarassed to send the video.

I did see that my set up had totally changed, my shoulders were too tense, I was over-swinging on the backswing and trying to hammer the ball...even on wedges. I saw the obvious things I needed to fix immediately and saw drastic improvement

I swear, I will never go more than a couple of weeks without using the camera.

YIKES!!! Work on it a bit and send it off when you are comfortable doing so