Finally, (reasonably) consistent Drives!

During this past summer, I started working on my driver, and things got much worse before they got better.  I went from inconsistent to a weak banana-ball slice.  I felt ill watching those balls sail into the trees on the right!  I tried many adjustments from various books, and finally found just a couple of things that I could implement without quitting my job and working on golf full time.

At my driving worst in August at Carlsbad Crossings, I had one drive in the fairway for 14 drives, and a handful of lost balls off the tee.  The ones not lost off the tee were in trouble and short.  It was very frustrating.  I’ve been able to get out a couple times a week to the driving range, and now have confidence in my drives.  The banana-ball slice is gone.  My “bad” drives fade more than I like but won’t be lost.  I have opportunity to improve further, but it’s time to move on to course management, visualization, and a focus on scoring.

I tried to adjust several things I observed in my previous posts about my driver swing.  I could not (easily) adjust the angle of the club at the top of my swing.  It was a disaster trying to move the shaft-end first on the take-away.  It looks like all pros do that, but it just didn’t work for me.  It promoted the out to in swing, and made things much worse.

It came down to four main issues:

• keep my right elbow tight, (right-handed swing) close to my side throughout the swing
• Focus on a full swing follow-through (for some reason, that was REALLY hard to change…)
• don’t look up (decades of stopping watching the ball a fraction of a second early leads to a lot of mis-hits)
• Measure success on the range (not inside nets or hitting nets, and measures of success!)

For whatever reason, the slight over-the-top shot is not gone, just mitigated and acceptable.  Perhaps it’s being  “old & crusty” as my kids say.  (three teens, and I’m ONLY 53!)  Maybe it’s the extra 15 pounds I’ve put on the last 5 years.  Anyway,  confidence is key.  I know have some swing focus points before I tee off.  Not “swing thoughts”, I think those are problematic.  You want to play natural, from reading many books by pros.  You don’t want to, and can’t actually, consciously control your swing.  That is key.  ANY conscious thoughts during the swing can be problematic.

Here’s a good idea for practicing drives and using the Game Improvement feature of the 80BREAKR app.  Select targets in your sight, then be honest assessing Good, OK, and Bad shots.  Pick “markers” that are fairway, and decide how far out of those are “ok” shots, and objectively how far outside (or short or duffed) are clearly “bad” shots.  Finally, pick a clear vision before the shot of your target and the feel of your swing.  Fire away and then measure accurately.

 

Select locations that would be a reasonable fairway, and reasonable “ok” shot not on the fairway, and also shots that would be clearly in trouble.  This is key, asses shots on the range to determine if your adjustments are making any difference.

Finally, compare results on the course, which I will do tomorrow at Carmel Mt. Ranch in San Diego!  I’ll report back after the round.   It is also time to upgrade my course management and focus.  My goal tomorrow is nothing worse than bogey, thinking and planning each shot before I take it, and worse-case should be 18 bogeys, or a 90.  Let’s see what happens tomorrow, November 22nd.  Talk to you soon!