Lost 5 balls and putted like crap on Saturday. Took a 9 on a par 5 which really killed my score. Other than the 9, every other 'lost ball' hole I had a par putt on, and I F'in 3-putted three of them. Ended up with 46-48. The back was not real good at all, but I felt like I hit the ball better than the 46 I got on the front.

Still more of me being consistently inconsistent.

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Happy to report that the driver has been reshafted. And got an extra stiff one at that! Hey-yo!!!!

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CSFMB: Home of the small minded

What is your swing speed with the driver? Extra stiff is for people with extremely fast swing speeds, like north of 110 I would assume.

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Played every day since Friday up at Lawsonia. Really odd what has happened to my game, I've lost 20 yards distance this season on all my irons, 10-15 on all my hybrids and 30-40 yards on my driver. It's been quite an adjustment. My last 6 scores have been 82-105-97-83-96-83.

Been really struggling on my favorite course at Lawsonia, the Links. Last year I averaged around 81-82 there and even broke 80 once. This year I was averaging 92 after 8 rounds with my low being an 86. The loss of distance has been killing me as there are several holes where fairway bunkers and burms have become forced carries for me and on lots of them I've hit the ball as fart as I can and still come up short.

So yesterday I did an experiment and moved up to the senior tees which are 5800. Experiment paid off as I shot a 83 and had a lot more fun doing it as I was able to actually hit an iron on my second shot most of the time instead of automatically reaching for my longest hybrid. Also took a lot of pressure off my driver and I responded by hitting 10/13 fairways.

Golf league tonight, with limited attendance they are doing a singles tournament with stableford scoring. Should be fun.

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Played the last four days in a row. I really had been hitting the ball better and putting better until yesterday. I shot 80-77-75 and then
88 yesterday. I had 5 shanked shots and 5 double bogeys yesterday. Not sure why I started doing that but anyone who has had them
knows what it is like when it gets in your head. It came and went early in the round and contributed to two of the double bogeys but
reared its ugly head the final three holes of the round. One of them I shanked OB, the other two holes I was able to salvage bogeys.
Taking a few days off and will hit the driving range on Friday before the weekend.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

I'm in the 105 range. Last time a was on the future BIL's meter reader thingy. He was not happy.

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CSFMB: Home of the small minded

that shaft is most likely too stiff for you. Anything south of 130 mph should stay in stiff, extra stiff is for people with ridiculously fast swing speeds.

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Going to find a driving range tonight and work out the shanking issues. Playing Saturday and Sunday mornings. Really gotten
lucky weather wise this year for weekend early morning golfing. I am getting in way more golf than I anticipated this season.
40 rounds in just after July 4th would have been a pipe dream before the season started, I only had 30 in the same time frame
last year.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Used a rain check from last year and played Silver Lake (north) on Saturday. Shot 45-45 with only one 3putt on the day, which of course lead to a double bogey. Chips were also much better, and I only lost 1 balls which is 4 less than I lost last weekend. Unfortunately I hooked five of my longer iron shots, which lead to three double bogeys and a 7. Hit the driver well enough, and overall was pretty pleased with the way I played. I felt like I hit the ball better than a 90, but when there are two bad/wasted shots on the same hole its real tough to even muster up a single bogey.

Course was in pretty good shape. Fairways were a bit beat up, but the greens were real nice, and rolled true despite being a tad on the slowside. The pace of play was a joke because of the 4some in front of us. By the end of the round, they were 2 full holes behind the group in front of them. Of course, they played the back tees and honestly there was only one hole we saw a cart in the fairway. They drove left to right more than they did from tee to green looking for drives. Rangers were few and far between, and when we finally saw one at the 13th hole and I mentioned how slow the group was playing, he didn't see to care and didn't say anything to them. We teed off at 7:30am and didn't finish until well after 12pm.

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That's kind of nuts. Really the courses out here are empty when I go out. Now, my schedule allows me to adjust it at times for me to do things midweek at midday so all I compete with are the retired guys who start at 8am and finish up by noon. There has been a time or two I've thought about hitting a bucket or two and when I arrived at course it was a ghost town so just played 9 instead. Think it took a touch over an hour and I did have to wait on 8 and 9 as I caught a foursome. Not much more money to be honest out here as some of the local courses are less than 30 for a cart and 18. They are not the greatest of courses mind you.

Quit golf this weekend. Can't deal with the shanks and the threat of shanks hanging over my head on every shot and not just every shot, but the entire 24 hours leading up to playing a round of golf. Making a tee time shouldn't cause one anxiety.

Gonna try and get a lesson this week to see if this is salvageable.

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82 Saturday with a triple and a couple bad shots. 74 Sunday with a couple poor shots but three birdies helped save the day. I hit 13 greens which was a high for this season.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

I went through a maddening loss of distance like 15 years ago. Turns out I was kind of fanning at the ball - almost like a cut shot in tennis - but the ball would go straight since I would roll my wrists. Only sign was the ball would kick hard right upon landing.

Lesson fixed it instantly.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

I hope you can snap out of it. I was having them 10 days ago and came out of it on Sunday. I changed my pre shot routine to include a
short takeaway on an inside path as a reminder to myself. If I take the club straight back or an out to in path I shank it every time. I don't
even try to hit a cut anymore. I've seen some guys on tour doing similar things. I admit it looks a little goofy but not any goofier than shanking
the ball out of bounds.

If you do quit, will you still be able to go to Lawsonia and drive the carts around?

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Lesson in an hour, let's see if this is salvageable.

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lesson went well, till it didn't. Got rid of the shanks and was hitting the 9 and 7 iron great, then he got me to hinge my wrists on takeaway to give me a bigger backswing and more distance. It worked great at first. Then we moved to the 5 iron and it was shank city again. Then tried the hybrid, put some tape on the face to see where contact was and no matter what I did I couldn't avoid hitting the ball with the hozzle.

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You were probably told this by your pro, but the shanks (believe it or not) are easy to get rid of as long as you understand why it's happening. Luckily for you -- a person who has played hockey -- this is a swing flaw that you can fix pronto.

Your hands are getting further away from your body. Period.

More often than not, this is due to the clubhead dropping behind your body. This is a tough concept to explain in words, so here are two videos that have helped me immensely over the years:

David Leadbetter's take on a drill to cure the shanks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9JvY8-vQ4A

Mike Malaska's overall concept of feeling the clubhead in front of your body (also references the slapshot feeling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCvsCUGVeB0

Here's another video that discusses the concept of keeping the clubhead in front of you. I've been working with this for the last month or so and have seen an improvement in my ballstriking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--MlMXYTAZc

I'll check those out later today. My issue has always been that my first move to the ball is with my head which in turn changes the angle of attack and causes me to dive at the ball and hit it with the hozzle. I Fixed it in previous years by going exclusively to an outside in swing where I was actively trying to move the hozzle away from the ball. It works but it gives me a weak fade which is far from ideal. This year I committed to an inside out swing and trying to hit a draw which apparently has brought the hozzle back in play. But this only started out of the blue a couple weeks ago and wasn't having any problems with shanks until then.

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In case you were considering a username change, it's already taken:

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6583

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

This exact progression happened to me, too. Started shanking, went to an outside-to-in swing, lost distance, when back to inside-to-in swing, started shanking.

I promise you can fix this really, really easily. It'll take a little practice, but as long as you get that clubhead out in front of your body more, you'll be cookin' with gas.

This is what's happening to your swing when I say that the clubhead is "getting behind your body." The picture below shows the clubhead beginning to drop back behind the golfer's body, which causes the hands to get too far out in front. Pure physics and gravity cause your hands to move away from your body in an effort to give yourself room to swing the club through.



Physically, and because you've played sports before and have good hand-eye coordination, the only way your body can make an athletic move to make contact with the ball is to move your arms out and away from your body.

This is another example where Malaska is explaining to the student what he means when the club shallows out too much and drops behind you:



EDIT: Noting how far his hand is away from his stomach now. Ideally, that hand should get right back to where it started at address. This allows the clubhead to remain further away from your torso as it impacts the ball. Much like a hockey stick would impact the puck.

Hands in, clubhead out.

The shanks might actually be preferable to suffering through that blowhard Leadbetter.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

He's a talker.

Move.

To the front tees.

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CSFMB: Home of the small minded

Watched those videos. THanks Ugie. Some interesting stuff/concepts in there that I wasn't aware of. I always thought of combating the shank by getting better balance and not diving at the ball, never thought about the aspect of trying to keep the hands closer to the body. Makes sense. That drill that ledbetter does is similar to the way I tried to battle the shank the last couple years, only difference is that he accomplishes the result by keeping the hands close to the body as opposed to going outside in and trying to pull the club away towards you and keep the hozzle away from the ball.

I'm playing this weekend, hoping to get a range session beforehand to work on this.

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You got it man. Hope it goes well.

the guy who built my clubs recommended x flex for my woods because i have a fast tempo and swing in the low 90's. he said if i slowed my tempo down, he'd want me to move down to S. he said i'm an in betweener. but i'm not so used to X it would take a good while for me to get used to an S shaft i think.

but that was like 7 years ago. its very possible my swing speed is less now.

Made the mistake of hitting the Mizuno JPX-900 Hot Metal irons while waiting for my driver to be re-gripped.

Oh my.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

Went to the range and tried those drills and managed to replace my shank with a horrible slice with all my irons. Talking 20 feet of right drift. I think bringing the club closer to my body has given me a severe outside in path. Can't figure out how to get an inside out path while also keeping the hands close to the body.

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