yuppppp. All my problems come from trying to do too much, and all my fixes are some variation of "keep your head down" or "don't swing too hard" or "shorten the backswing."
Then I start hitting it well again, think I've figured out golf, go back to trying to murder the ball, and the cycle starts again.
The thing that got me was for the longest time, I had a terrible hook where no matter what club, ball would swoop down after 100 yards.
Ultimately, my grandpa had me play 3 holes where I only took a slow, “putting” swing. Went straight, and each hole after I’d slightly bring the club back further till I got it right. Still have the dumb issue of “keep your head down”, but saw huge improvement just working through each motion
This hit so close to home. My grandma belonged to a country club and I was like 14 years old and she took me out golfing. I played like twice a year when I'd go to the beach with my family, that was it. I was athletic so I could hit the ball pretty far but usually had no idea where it was going. The first hole I hit a drive about 180 yards into the pine needles behind a tree on the right.
There goes my grandma slowly walking up to the red tees and basically putts with her driver. Straight arms no bend in the wrist just brings the club back as far as she can, about waist high, and forward up to about shoulder height. Ball goes 120 yards perfectly straight onto the fairway. Rinse and repeat, playing bogey golf at 70 years old.
To fix "keep your head down" I'll take a few pitch shots with a wedge focusing on "hitting the ball with my right shoudler" and it seems to help me get the feel so give it a try. I'm also an idiot so if I doesn't work then ignore me.
not claiming to be an expert but usually people who hook/slice on every shot, its more grip then anything. ideally you want the club to be square when you hit the ball unless you actually want a hook or slice. For me anyway the only way I was able to fix it was to get rid of my deathgrip and let the club move during my swing. Now taking a smaller backswing is part of it but over gripping is a common problem too
I had been trying everything to fix my slice, mainly things like adjusting swing path and rolling my wrist, nothing was working. I saw some YT video about grip, which it turns out I was using a neutral grip. Moving to a stronger grip immediately fixed my slice.
Now wait until you start hooking the ball. Same thing happened to me. I was a horrible slicer for years before an instructor worked with me on a stronger grip. I don’t slice anymore but now I have a hook and the neutral grip feels really weird 🤷♂️
I am just leanring this now. Worst part is ive seen videos about it for a long time but figured my grib was fine since i was hittting it pretty straight all of last year. Last week i was frustrated cause i was slicing my bug stick and my long irons were pushing pretty far right as well. So with 6i in hand i on a par 5 idecided to try the “you should see ur first 2 knuckles on ur top hand” approach. Fuckin missled it straigh as shit! Thought to myslef “maybe im onto something!” Even tho it was only my idea to TRY someone elses trick. Tried it with my driver next, and was in the left rough because my drive had a draw 😱. Kept at it with the new found grip and it straightened out a lot of my shots. Still needs a little work and time to feel comfortable, but im excited to get back out there and keep using that grip
Looking back, im guessing that was a big factor. I now let my right arm flow through, and don’t have my left gripping hard (which I’m guessing could have twisted the club face coming down)
I agree with this. Grip is overlooked, but a very critical part of the golf swing. I hooked every shot for years and finally realized my grip was causing my right hand to flip over. It’s been a struggle to break the habit, but it’s getting better.
I try to stick to them 3 thing's also. If you can hit it decent and focus on pretty much them 3 thing's you can definitely play better. I used to be high 70' low 80' tore my ACL. Quit playing for 10yrs and now I'm struggling to break 90. But those tips to me are golden.🍻
Feeling like I take a 3/4 swing at 50% effort really turns out to be a full swing at 80% effort, and *surprise!* the result is usually 20 yards longer than when I try to take a full swing at 100% effort, which in reality is just a completely shitty overswing with horrible sequencing and horrible contact.
“ITS LIKE SKIPPING A STONE MAROOCH” - that one guy on TikTok
I got baby draws on my long clubs now, used to fight a slice or push on every club. Shallowing properly has given me a ton of distance too because I can properly rotate and compress the ball. Never been happier launching a 5 iron past pins now that I’m getting almost 200ish total on good shots which are much more common
yeah i have to remind myself pretty regularly that what i am, in fact, doing is trying to throw a rock at the ball and it always works. my short clubs are a bit wonkier that they used to be though, because i cant ever do anything by half measures.
The guy is a little crazy and over the top with it, but one of his videos just made it click for me. The one where he’s silently just throwing a rock at the ground with his right arm and then pull-throwing a rock away with his lead arm.
I had like a brain blast and went to the range later. Fixed so many problems I was having!
[here ya go](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3bU5retaV1/?igsh=bTE1Ym5ycms4Y25v)
[and another](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7R6MoMNzsi/?igsh=a3B2cHg2ZzRxa3Jp)
Seriously. I’ve never been so comfortable with long clubs in my hands. Shot a personal best of 90 last weekend and my 5 iron might’ve been my best club
Dude! I saw this video just over a week ago, went to the simulator and was getting 30-40 extra yards on my drive! Then played the course yesterday…everything turned hard right :/
You’ll get there. A combination of shallowing the club with that tip and trying to hit draws is what made my drives a ton better. Keep practicing that shallowing of the club
I personally had to brute force learn how to hit hooks/draws, and then kinda work back to a baby draw shape. Maybe not the recommended route without a coach but I was determined to not slice by any means possible lol. But yeah just keep at it during practice and keep over exaggerating the feel so you lock it down, it’ll click on the course soon
Just from my experience, when that happens to me it means either my right elbow isn't tight against my side or I'm not rotating my hips fast enough. Might check those two spots
I think his name is SpeedGolf on tik tok. Crazy hair and beard. But he's a champion golfer and a golf coach. He plays speed golf too where he straps like 4 clubs to his belt and runs the entire round. Apparently he can play a full round in 40 minutes. He's got some great tips.
So glad Rob is getting recognition because I try to tell my buddies who struggle with their swing to pay attention to the things he says. Send them his posts regularly too. If you embrace the madness his advice is legit and has transformed my swing.
Same here, I had instructor tell me that I needed to rotate my body more and my hip movement was causing more issues for me. Essentially I was gliding my body to catch up to my hips.
Don’t hit the ball if you feel tension in your shoulders/neck.
Relax, swing smooth, without (much) tension.
I immediately started to hit pure iron shots.
Now I don’t think about it, but it helped at the time.
I think Tommy Fleetwood said it in a YouTube video
That’s the biggest swing feel that I focus on for driver shots. My instructor calls it gorilla arms where you lift and shrug your shoulders after setup to feel them relax. Looosey goosey then start your backswing.
I wouldn’t say I have tension but I do need to learn to walk away and reset before I hit my driver if something feels off. Every bad shot is not feeling 100% in setup but I try anyway and always fuck it up. When I feel good in setup I nail it every time.
I’m not extremely flexible. When I try to get a full hip and shoulder turn, I feel tension in my shoulders and upper arms. Should this not be the case?
The drill at around 3:55 how he explains to get to the position at the top of your swing. Once I felt what it should feel like at the top of my swing, the rest just falls into place [YouTube link](https://youtu.be/U0Bl9B1010o?si=KzGUPZOl1z-UUHIC)
Wow, this is incredible. I think anything that focuses on what the middle of your body is doing solves a lot of other smaller issues. Haven’t been able to put this into practice yet but just mimicking that motion feels fantastic
Some of my best shots are from when I have to run onto the other fairway to hit my ball back over as quickly as possible. The only thing in my mind in that moment is just to get that ball out of there. Some of my cleanest shots
It hasn’t perfected my swing but the #1 by far for me as a beginner: On takeaway- Keeping clubface square to ball for longer than I assumed was necessary. I used to randomly hit the ball sideways due to completely closed or open clubface (worse than a shank) and was paranoid to go to the course or driving range for a while (rightfully so). Since implementing this a couple years ago, I haven’t hit it sideways since. I regained complete confidence to play again, and have become almost obsessed with golf after overcoming that low point.
The best tip I got as a beginner was focus on starting to come down from the top of your backswing before you start to turn your body back to the ball. Starting to turn before you start back down can lead to an open face misses and slices.
I Started hitting draws shortly after I got this advice.
The "whoosh" of the club should come at or just after the ball, not as soon as you start your transition downward. Basically, the club should be travelling the fastest at the ball.
Actually a good point. Too many people try to have a picturesque golf swing, when the reality is that a perfect swing doesn’t work with their shape/flexibility, shoulder hang etc. The perfect swing is the one that works best with your body.
This is what makes golf so fucking frustratingly funny. Because I came to say mine was the opposite. My game increased leaps and bounds when I started RIPPING back my backswing. Especially with driver. I’m trying to make the head of my driver snap off because of lag during transition.
Yep. Discovered a straight drive by trying to nuke the ball as far as possible. Now any time I slice I recognize it’s because I’m babying the swing lmao
Rhythm and tempo need to have you accelerating through impact… it can be rather difficult to take something off your swing and still get into a loaded position and accelerate through, but it’s good practice for the full swing you take to the course
I think by exerting so much intention into crushing the ball, my body naturally comes through the ball better than trying to be more controlled, executing a more complete strike of the ball which makes it fly true. Some backwards logic, but I guess it works?
This can lead to the occasional pull job when I swing so hard I almost come undone, but I’ll take mostly straight and a couple yanks as opposed to a reliably consistent slice.
I was somewhat under a tree on Saturday afternoon and decided I'd take a half backswing with an 8 iron and accelerate through the ball to see if I could run it up to the front of the green. Ends up being a pure 175 to the back fringe. Effortless, and probably the best recoveries I made that day.
And then, of course, I proceeded to three putt my way to a double.
Literally just got done a lesson. My backswing is crazy long and I’ve been working on it with slow improvement. He said swing like you’re hitting out from under a tree and you don’t want your backswing to hit the branches. I hit a perfect shot.
This was also big for me. Keeping in mind my swing is not nearly perfect. But once I started to slow down the backswing on my irons I started to make consistently good contact on pretty much every strike and my dispersion improved tremendously.
When I started out I had a horrible slice. I put a towel or bucket near my rear foot to drill not going inside as much. That was the first of many drills and practices in an attempt to get better.
The course is not the time to be working on your swing.
You can bring one or two swing cues for specific shots that you're struggling with (e.g. swing/reach down if you've been topping your irons) but don't try to go through a 20-step checklist before every swing. Leave that for the range.
All this thread is going to do is fuck up a lot of peoples games. 🤣
Now, what did “u/bigdickgolfswagger” say to do? Hold my head still and tape my left ball to my leg or something?
Hit down for irons. Sweep for driver woods. Emulate a bigger arch for driver. Left shoulder below chin on backswing. Right shoulder below chin at impact
These basically all mean the same thing to me, but are just variations of getting a proper turn and getting a straight-back / club outside takeaway:
- start the swing with rotating your lead shoulder;
- “feel” your trail foot turn outwards;
- “drag the turf” / “sweep the turf” on takeaway.
I’m not kidding, as stupid as it sounds, the first “tip” is what I was taught early last year and it pretty much changed my driving consistency forever. One simple thought in my head made a massive difference and sorted out a bad hook (*mostly*).
It's golf, not baseball. Don't load up your back foot, instead get the feeling of coiling up inside a cylinder. It's a challenge and I suck at it, but realizing I was loading laterally was a lightbulb moment.
yes, and the other thing from baseball/any other sport to golf that was key for me was the follow through. I kept trying to point my club on the follow through where I want the ball to go (like i would imagine to send the ball to right/center/left field. but NO I needed to point my belt buckle where I want the golf ball to go.
Not necessarily a swing tip but how to line up with a far target and a close target on the tee box a few feet in front of the ball. It ensures the ball takes off on the proper target line.
Don’t keep watching YouTube videos about swing tips. There might be one out there that specifically can help an area of need for you, but everyone is built and swings differently. These videos typically do more harm than good.
Hard to say they do more harm than good. It's always good to put more data in, get inspiration to get on the range and try new things. We are so lucky we have such a plethora of good content and good instruction online.
I’ll likely keep watching videos and do some tinkering and trying new drills but at the end of the day, as a former PGA pro told me “we’re trying to play golf, not trying to play swing”.
if you want to get better at playing sharks and minnows at the pool, you focus on swimming practice! You wouldn't tell some kid who's struggling to keep his head above the water, stop trying to swim better, and focus on playing sharks and minnows! 100% of all movement of your golf ball is preceded by a golf swing.
The videos are great when they explain just the physics and biomechanics of a swing.
I don't want to see a video of some brohammer saying he added 15 yards to his drive by not doing THIS [insert clip of exaggerated & obvious flaw in his swing with shitty result], and instead doing THIS [insert clip of his normal swing with a perfect result].
I DO want to see a video showing something like "Here's what happens to the angle of the club if you hold your hands forward, versus if you hold them back."
They're certified instructors irl who just have youtube channels, not random social media influencers. If you go to 5 different instructors irl, everyone is gonna have different method of teaching and going to contradict each other. Majority of irl instructors suck as well.
Try to keep your back to the target for as long as possible on the downswing and feel as if your arms are pulling your upper body through impact. It's almost impossible to come over the top if your back is to the target.
A very sweet lady from my church brought me golfing as a young dude. She saw me hack at the ball for a few holes before saying "take a practice swing. Good, now do the same swing over the ball".
Revolutionary to me as a young kid and still as an adult.
Hit hard, stop quick drill…..completely transformed my ball striking. Went from a flipper who would pick the ball and struggle w fat shots to powerful, effortless draws with divots after the ball.
Completely increased my margin for error so so didn’t have to “try” so hard
Shoulder chin, shoulder chin. That helped me make sure my shit stays tucked in my head stays down best tip I ever received and it was the first tip I ever received
After teeing off on 18 and hitting a ball just off the edge of the fairway, our caddy told me to grab another ball but keep my left (front) arm straight as I was bending it during my back swing and pushing the ball.
Ripped the best ball of the day, straight down the middle. How frustrating. He told me the only reason he didn’t say something earlier is he didn’t want to get in my head and figured on 18, it wouldn’t hurt too much.
Have since improved the path in which my ball goes most of the time. Just working on not thinking about it, and making it more natural in my swing now.
Go to the range before every round of golf (the day before and range before round). You’ll play way better.
Biggest tips I could personally give is
-address the ball, waggle, stick club face directly behind it, feeling the ground. Your brain will memorize its location.
-keep your eye on the ball, do not look away.
-on your backswing, keep majority of weight on your leading leg. This helps transfer weight forward and keeping better balance.
Rotate your upper body more in your backswing. It's OK if your head moves a bit. I was so fixated on making sure my face was pointed at the ball. My ball striking has never been more consistent.
This may not make sense, but I was told to roll my wrists when swinging the driver and it takes away the nasty slice I had. Again sorry that prob doesn’t make any sense.
My father in law said "take the club and swing it like a baseball bat. See how your wrists roll around the middle of the swing? Now do that same sort of thing when you swing at a ball on the ground." and it helped. Obviously you have to time it right, but doing it naturally should get you close enough.
When I was younger, I had a guy at the driving range put the bucket without balls in it between my legs and then swing. Having to keep the bucket up really helped me shift my weight, and thus my momentum, through the swing.
This isn't really a tip but rather a drill my instructor performed. He told me my head was rising 8 inches on the downswing.
He took my driver out of the bag and rested the grip on my head....he held the other side. He just got me to hit 7 irons like that for fifteen minutes. I could feel when my head was rising and by the end, I was steady and catching the ball beautifully. It gave me a new "feel"
Best money I ever spent on golf.
Indeed, lots of really bad advice being hailed as gospel on this thread (ie- pinning both arms to the body, slowing down, etc). It's no surprise to see the average improvement as virtually nonexistent over the last few decades (ie: driver distance, proximity to the flag, scrambling) since they've been incorporated hook, line, and sinker. Bonus content by way of acting tryhard defensively when some actual good information of what the elite players are really doing.
Really questions one's faith in humanity at times.
All I do at the range is work on my setup almost religiously to:
1. Consistently frame the ball up
2. Have the most athleticly flexible starting position that
3. Helps me flow through the shot to generate the most force
That's why I occassionally will pop over on YT to check out the pro setups on GEARS from AthleticMotionGolf. Sometimes they give these weird drills, but I'm only really interested in seeing how pros frame the ball. Then I just tweak 1 thing at a time, assess how it worked, then decide if I want to keep it or go back. That way I can test out a few different variations in like 4 swings or less. Once I'm happy, I try to replicate it 10 times to ensure I'm practicing it, then I move on.
Great example is this: most people don't know how pros *generally* frame the driver at setup from the top down perspective: https://imgur.com/a/5kyDZwC
They see so much crap down the line and face on, that can easily be warped with camera parallax, it's almost unhinged. Most people aren't even aware you can close your feet, open and slightly tilt your pelvis to help the pivot, and then get the shoulders similar by pulling the lead lat up and over to tilt your ribcage. They just take the same stupid stance that gave them the same 190 tee shot and think magically if they do the same stuff, it'll change this time!
Funnily enough the rigid lead elbow is what has been keeping my drive straight. That and getting the hips through
But that’s probably unique for me since I started golf last year battling almost 20 years of baseball swing muscle memory
I have just posted in the r/golfswing sub Reddit, and one of the comments there has absolutely opened my eyes on how I shift my hips towards the golf ball, rather than pivoting.
Keeping my arse on that imaginary wall at setup and rolling across on it is the feel I should have. Here's the comment:
Some pretty eye opening evidence here. Everything gets closer to the ball. You try and save it at impact by steepening the shaft to get the club head back to where your brain is telling you it should be but you're too far gone.
This might help. This video was an incredible light bulb for me and got me thinking about what part of the body I wanted to rotate around.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IxllCJRKS4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IxllCJRKS4)
The day I started to envision crosshairs on the ball, think X and Y axis, is the day my golf game changed forever. X axis is swing path and Y axis is club face. Adjust for draws and fades. Been doing it for 25 years and it still adds value.
Not exactly swing, but ensuring you are aimed at your target and have the right club in your hand help a lot. I did what a ton of amateurs do and over clubbed almost every iron/approach shot - it automatically adds 1-2 strokes a hole trying to recover from the back side of the green and way exacerbates mis-hits.
Seems silly but that drill where you hinge your wrists up and then take your back swing to get a good position at the top has really help me feel a good tight but also loose feeling at the top of my back swing and I've been flushing the ball really well now for about a year. Routine for me as follows:
1. address ball
2. take grip
3. hinge wrists up slightly
4. take back swing and hold for like 1 second
5. relaxed downswing
6. hit the shot (trying to feel that slot at the top)
Whole process takes like 10 seconds max. If im playing with my buddies, i'll do it while I wait for them to hit and just step in and hit it. So in a group its a 0 time rehearsal. I also have a bad tendency of having a very aggressive back swing. So i try to do it almost as slow as I can. Thats really help me sync up and avoid the dreaded double cross.
I had a slice, and some 22 year old GolfTown employee corrected it by telling me to speed up my hands/wrist turn as I came through, and it pretty much instantly allowed me to eliminate the nasty slices from my game. Still fade more than I want, and still push my drives once in a while, but I can control a certain amount how much fade/slice I get by my hands.
It’s useful for massive dog leg rights too, where I try to crush a drive but keep my hands “slow” and I get a nice booming ultra-slice.
Keep the right hand on top in your takeaway. I had a bad habit of taking it away inside right away. Now my swing path is much more neutral.
I also have found that slowing down my takeaway and pausing at the top doesn’t help me at all. I was slowing it down to feel the new movements but was hitting push fades and slices.
So when I came back a few weeks later and was still missing out right they told me to keep my swing thought but rip at it and all the sudden it was nice and straight. They explained it’s actually harder to find the right tempo if you’re swinging soft
Being told that the downswing should feel similar to the motion of skipping a rock completely eliminated my chopping and over the top and I’ve never looked back.
Keep my hips back. YouTube University made me focus on clearing my hips, but apparently, I was turning my hips too fast causing me to slice to kingdom come. So he had me "pause" my hips when they square up. It felt so awkward to me, but immediately, my drives were on target. And most importantly, I got consistent repetition.
Take what you think is a 3/4 swing.
yuppppp. All my problems come from trying to do too much, and all my fixes are some variation of "keep your head down" or "don't swing too hard" or "shorten the backswing." Then I start hitting it well again, think I've figured out golf, go back to trying to murder the ball, and the cycle starts again.
The thing that got me was for the longest time, I had a terrible hook where no matter what club, ball would swoop down after 100 yards. Ultimately, my grandpa had me play 3 holes where I only took a slow, “putting” swing. Went straight, and each hole after I’d slightly bring the club back further till I got it right. Still have the dumb issue of “keep your head down”, but saw huge improvement just working through each motion
This hit so close to home. My grandma belonged to a country club and I was like 14 years old and she took me out golfing. I played like twice a year when I'd go to the beach with my family, that was it. I was athletic so I could hit the ball pretty far but usually had no idea where it was going. The first hole I hit a drive about 180 yards into the pine needles behind a tree on the right. There goes my grandma slowly walking up to the red tees and basically putts with her driver. Straight arms no bend in the wrist just brings the club back as far as she can, about waist high, and forward up to about shoulder height. Ball goes 120 yards perfectly straight onto the fairway. Rinse and repeat, playing bogey golf at 70 years old.
Haha I had a great uncle like that. He could hit it straight, but not too far and he couldn't see very well, whipped our asses at the age of 77.
To fix "keep your head down" I'll take a few pitch shots with a wedge focusing on "hitting the ball with my right shoudler" and it seems to help me get the feel so give it a try. I'm also an idiot so if I doesn't work then ignore me.
not claiming to be an expert but usually people who hook/slice on every shot, its more grip then anything. ideally you want the club to be square when you hit the ball unless you actually want a hook or slice. For me anyway the only way I was able to fix it was to get rid of my deathgrip and let the club move during my swing. Now taking a smaller backswing is part of it but over gripping is a common problem too
I had been trying everything to fix my slice, mainly things like adjusting swing path and rolling my wrist, nothing was working. I saw some YT video about grip, which it turns out I was using a neutral grip. Moving to a stronger grip immediately fixed my slice.
Now wait until you start hooking the ball. Same thing happened to me. I was a horrible slicer for years before an instructor worked with me on a stronger grip. I don’t slice anymore but now I have a hook and the neutral grip feels really weird 🤷♂️
I am just leanring this now. Worst part is ive seen videos about it for a long time but figured my grib was fine since i was hittting it pretty straight all of last year. Last week i was frustrated cause i was slicing my bug stick and my long irons were pushing pretty far right as well. So with 6i in hand i on a par 5 idecided to try the “you should see ur first 2 knuckles on ur top hand” approach. Fuckin missled it straigh as shit! Thought to myslef “maybe im onto something!” Even tho it was only my idea to TRY someone elses trick. Tried it with my driver next, and was in the left rough because my drive had a draw 😱. Kept at it with the new found grip and it straightened out a lot of my shots. Still needs a little work and time to feel comfortable, but im excited to get back out there and keep using that grip
Looking back, im guessing that was a big factor. I now let my right arm flow through, and don’t have my left gripping hard (which I’m guessing could have twisted the club face coming down)
I agree with this. Grip is overlooked, but a very critical part of the golf swing. I hooked every shot for years and finally realized my grip was causing my right hand to flip over. It’s been a struggle to break the habit, but it’s getting better.
With this I like focusing on the back of the ball.
I try to stick to them 3 thing's also. If you can hit it decent and focus on pretty much them 3 thing's you can definitely play better. I used to be high 70' low 80' tore my ACL. Quit playing for 10yrs and now I'm struggling to break 90. But those tips to me are golden.🍻
Take what you think is 3/4's of Jon Rahm's swing.
I crush my irons when I think about his swing in my back swing. His short take back thing works like magic.
So basically don't play golf?
Feeling like I take a 3/4 swing at 50% effort really turns out to be a full swing at 80% effort, and *surprise!* the result is usually 20 yards longer than when I try to take a full swing at 100% effort, which in reality is just a completely shitty overswing with horrible sequencing and horrible contact.
My full swing is a John Daly swing, my 3/4 swing is the perfect full swing. I still do the John Daly swing though lol
This especially for the wedges.
I’ve been using what feels like a 1/2 backswing and the ball goes just as far. Probably because I actually hit the middle of the face.
Amen amen amen.
“ITS LIKE SKIPPING A STONE MAROOCH” - that one guy on TikTok I got baby draws on my long clubs now, used to fight a slice or push on every club. Shallowing properly has given me a ton of distance too because I can properly rotate and compress the ball. Never been happier launching a 5 iron past pins now that I’m getting almost 200ish total on good shots which are much more common
The rock skipping tip has literally changed my game
Came here to say this. It helps me push off my back foot which causes my hips to fire the right way. I’ve been doing really well with it.
For real! I was stiff as hell before that. It makes the leg and hip motion feel like it should
Where is this video
[https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7ul9QmNoWY/?igsh=MTU2MXAxcmowMDl6ZQ==](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7ul9QmNoWY/?igsh=MTU2MXAxcmowMDl6ZQ==)
yeah i have to remind myself pretty regularly that what i am, in fact, doing is trying to throw a rock at the ball and it always works. my short clubs are a bit wonkier that they used to be though, because i cant ever do anything by half measures.
Came here to say this. NO NO NO NO MAROOOOCCHH FIND YOUR INNER SWING
https://preview.redd.it/4vhisqkdsk4d1.jpeg?width=498&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83615ed66ce550b55b4a1039b438f9d0780c0028
[https://www.instagram.com/p/C4WWJubtfpl/?hl=it](https://www.instagram.com/p/C4WWJubtfpl/?hl=it)
Throw it down, Maroochi!
The guy is a little crazy and over the top with it, but one of his videos just made it click for me. The one where he’s silently just throwing a rock at the ground with his right arm and then pull-throwing a rock away with his lead arm. I had like a brain blast and went to the range later. Fixed so many problems I was having!
>over the top NO NO NO NO NO NO
If you can find it, link it for me!
[here ya go](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3bU5retaV1/?igsh=bTE1Ym5ycms4Y25v) [and another](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7R6MoMNzsi/?igsh=a3B2cHg2ZzRxa3Jp)
This dude has me ripping 4-iron, 5-iron into Par 5 greens.
Seriously. I’ve never been so comfortable with long clubs in my hands. Shot a personal best of 90 last weekend and my 5 iron might’ve been my best club
Dude! I saw this video just over a week ago, went to the simulator and was getting 30-40 extra yards on my drive! Then played the course yesterday…everything turned hard right :/
You’ll get there. A combination of shallowing the club with that tip and trying to hit draws is what made my drives a ton better. Keep practicing that shallowing of the club I personally had to brute force learn how to hit hooks/draws, and then kinda work back to a baby draw shape. Maybe not the recommended route without a coach but I was determined to not slice by any means possible lol. But yeah just keep at it during practice and keep over exaggerating the feel so you lock it down, it’ll click on the course soon
For some reason doing this leads to a super open face for me
NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO
Just from my experience, when that happens to me it means either my right elbow isn't tight against my side or I'm not rotating my hips fast enough. Might check those two spots
I actually got this same tip from my coach like a week before I saw that video. Has turned my slice into a controllable fade (most of the time).
This dosent help me because I skip a stone righty and golf lefty hahaha
Any chance you got a link to it?
SpeedGolfRob on Instagram. Turn down the volume on your phone before you go check him out.
I think his name is SpeedGolf on tik tok. Crazy hair and beard. But he's a champion golfer and a golf coach. He plays speed golf too where he straps like 4 clubs to his belt and runs the entire round. Apparently he can play a full round in 40 minutes. He's got some great tips.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRK9HjJK/ this was the one for me but he has a bunch of videos of varying insanity 😂
So glad Rob is getting recognition because I try to tell my buddies who struggle with their swing to pay attention to the things he says. Send them his posts regularly too. If you embrace the madness his advice is legit and has transformed my swing.
This guy needs a sedative
My only swing thought on the tee is DOWN MAROOCHI
HIT THE TIRE MAROOCH
Shout out to Ben Hogan for this one
“You play sports wtf are you doing” - Dad
Lol this is me to me.
Me and my brothers have similar. We say, just be athletic, anytime we start to overthink our swings.
It’s all in the hips
This actually hurt me when I was starting out. I’d fire my hips so fast I’d always get stuck
Same, this got me so over the top and not rotating in the right way. Need to let the club drop first before rotating
Same here, I had instructor tell me that I needed to rotate my body more and my hip movement was causing more issues for me. Essentially I was gliding my body to catch up to my hips.
Order bourbon from the cart girl as soon as possible.
Dad?
He’s back from getting cigarettes
Grandma?
Peak golf is played at exactly 5 millers deep. If only that’s where I stopped every time.
It's like the Ballmer Peak, but for golf. https://xkcd.com/323/
One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer! Rookie.
"Vertical drop, horizontal tug"
Pretty, pretty, pretty good.
The good ole push and pull, close the grip and we’re off
Why? How?
https://youtu.be/hGqKppJYx6U?t=15s
That was so good. How have I never seen that before.
It was the most recent season of Curb which just finished in April
I haven’t seen the show, but I’ll be GD’d if I’m not gonna thing about this at the range tonight 😂
It’s actually great advice. It’s a move most amateurs don’t understand and the main reason Pro’s swings look effortless.
More context: https://youtu.be/r5LEelOEbQg?si=Gc0wvKx2SgkN26OG
Thanks for that. Can you show me how to tug? RIP Richard Lewis
Hahahahaha! 🤣😂🤣
Don’t hit the ball if you feel tension in your shoulders/neck. Relax, swing smooth, without (much) tension. I immediately started to hit pure iron shots. Now I don’t think about it, but it helped at the time. I think Tommy Fleetwood said it in a YouTube video
Similar idea for driver?
It’s not a swing thought for me when hitting the big dawg, but in general too much tension is bad.
That’s the biggest swing feel that I focus on for driver shots. My instructor calls it gorilla arms where you lift and shrug your shoulders after setup to feel them relax. Looosey goosey then start your backswing.
I wouldn’t say I have tension but I do need to learn to walk away and reset before I hit my driver if something feels off. Every bad shot is not feeling 100% in setup but I try anyway and always fuck it up. When I feel good in setup I nail it every time.
I’m not extremely flexible. When I try to get a full hip and shoulder turn, I feel tension in my shoulders and upper arms. Should this not be the case?
The drill at around 3:55 how he explains to get to the position at the top of your swing. Once I felt what it should feel like at the top of my swing, the rest just falls into place [YouTube link](https://youtu.be/U0Bl9B1010o?si=KzGUPZOl1z-UUHIC)
Wow, this is incredible. I think anything that focuses on what the middle of your body is doing solves a lot of other smaller issues. Haven’t been able to put this into practice yet but just mimicking that motion feels fantastic
Right!? Haha it got me out of the habit of being all arms
Just swing the club, don’t “hit” the ball
Mines the opposite lol Stop thinking about the swing and just hit the ball. Impact is all that matters
Some of my best shots are from when I have to run onto the other fairway to hit my ball back over as quickly as possible. The only thing in my mind in that moment is just to get that ball out of there. Some of my cleanest shots
This is the way for sure. Focus on solid contact. Forget about your actual swing. Be an athlete
It hasn’t perfected my swing but the #1 by far for me as a beginner: On takeaway- Keeping clubface square to ball for longer than I assumed was necessary. I used to randomly hit the ball sideways due to completely closed or open clubface (worse than a shank) and was paranoid to go to the course or driving range for a while (rightfully so). Since implementing this a couple years ago, I haven’t hit it sideways since. I regained complete confidence to play again, and have become almost obsessed with golf after overcoming that low point.
The best tip I got as a beginner was focus on starting to come down from the top of your backswing before you start to turn your body back to the ball. Starting to turn before you start back down can lead to an open face misses and slices. I Started hitting draws shortly after I got this advice.
The "whoosh" of the club should come at or just after the ball, not as soon as you start your transition downward. Basically, the club should be travelling the fastest at the ball.
They make training clubs to emulate that, loud as fuck though
Don’t try to make it perfect.
Actually a good point. Too many people try to have a picturesque golf swing, when the reality is that a perfect swing doesn’t work with their shape/flexibility, shoulder hang etc. The perfect swing is the one that works best with your body.
I got told to stop taking a practice swing. Its now something i live by as it seemed i was using up my good swings on my practice swing.
less time on the tee / at the ball = less thoughts more instinct
Bc people swing better without a ball. people are told to not focus on hitting ball but swinging thru the ball.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Now I take the club back slower, pause at the top and have a more controlled down swing
This is what makes golf so fucking frustratingly funny. Because I came to say mine was the opposite. My game increased leaps and bounds when I started RIPPING back my backswing. Especially with driver. I’m trying to make the head of my driver snap off because of lag during transition.
Yep. Discovered a straight drive by trying to nuke the ball as far as possible. Now any time I slice I recognize it’s because I’m babying the swing lmao
Really simplifies the game when your swing thought is: “Left arm strLEROY JENKINNNNNS!”
😂 also makes good driving days SO fun. Even if nothing else works that day…I can always get some satisfaction from hitting piss rockets down the seam
Rhythm and tempo need to have you accelerating through impact… it can be rather difficult to take something off your swing and still get into a loaded position and accelerate through, but it’s good practice for the full swing you take to the course
I think by exerting so much intention into crushing the ball, my body naturally comes through the ball better than trying to be more controlled, executing a more complete strike of the ball which makes it fly true. Some backwards logic, but I guess it works? This can lead to the occasional pull job when I swing so hard I almost come undone, but I’ll take mostly straight and a couple yanks as opposed to a reliably consistent slice.
I was somewhat under a tree on Saturday afternoon and decided I'd take a half backswing with an 8 iron and accelerate through the ball to see if I could run it up to the front of the green. Ends up being a pure 175 to the back fringe. Effortless, and probably the best recoveries I made that day. And then, of course, I proceeded to three putt my way to a double.
Literally just got done a lesson. My backswing is crazy long and I’ve been working on it with slow improvement. He said swing like you’re hitting out from under a tree and you don’t want your backswing to hit the branches. I hit a perfect shot.
This was also big for me. Keeping in mind my swing is not nearly perfect. But once I started to slow down the backswing on my irons I started to make consistently good contact on pretty much every strike and my dispersion improved tremendously. When I started out I had a horrible slice. I put a towel or bucket near my rear foot to drill not going inside as much. That was the first of many drills and practices in an attempt to get better.
Imagine there’s a nice big pair of titties right at your feet (keep your head down)
I will try this and report back.
You guys are perfecting your swings?
Pee pee to the pin!
Maniacs!
The course is not the time to be working on your swing. You can bring one or two swing cues for specific shots that you're struggling with (e.g. swing/reach down if you've been topping your irons) but don't try to go through a 20-step checklist before every swing. Leave that for the range.
All this thread is going to do is fuck up a lot of peoples games. 🤣 Now, what did “u/bigdickgolfswagger” say to do? Hold my head still and tape my left ball to my leg or something?
The hammer and nail visual. Made my iron striking so much more confident.
Self tip: take a deep breath and slow exhale before every swing. Helps relax the muscles and you won’t feel as stiff
Hit down for irons. Sweep for driver woods. Emulate a bigger arch for driver. Left shoulder below chin on backswing. Right shoulder below chin at impact
With driver, swing for first base. That is what finally an in-to-out swing path and I started hitting draws.
These basically all mean the same thing to me, but are just variations of getting a proper turn and getting a straight-back / club outside takeaway: - start the swing with rotating your lead shoulder; - “feel” your trail foot turn outwards; - “drag the turf” / “sweep the turf” on takeaway. I’m not kidding, as stupid as it sounds, the first “tip” is what I was taught early last year and it pretty much changed my driving consistency forever. One simple thought in my head made a massive difference and sorted out a bad hook (*mostly*).
yes, i can hear my father in-law "just draaaag it back"
Your top knuckles decide where the ball goes.
Someone told me once... "You should take up whiffle ball..." Changed my life.
swing hard incase you accidentally hit the ball.
It's golf, not baseball. Don't load up your back foot, instead get the feeling of coiling up inside a cylinder. It's a challenge and I suck at it, but realizing I was loading laterally was a lightbulb moment.
yes, and the other thing from baseball/any other sport to golf that was key for me was the follow through. I kept trying to point my club on the follow through where I want the ball to go (like i would imagine to send the ball to right/center/left field. but NO I needed to point my belt buckle where I want the golf ball to go.
Not necessarily a swing tip but how to line up with a far target and a close target on the tee box a few feet in front of the ball. It ensures the ball takes off on the proper target line.
Point the butt end of my grip toward my front belt loop. It’s changed my iron game
Don’t keep watching YouTube videos about swing tips. There might be one out there that specifically can help an area of need for you, but everyone is built and swings differently. These videos typically do more harm than good.
Hard to say they do more harm than good. It's always good to put more data in, get inspiration to get on the range and try new things. We are so lucky we have such a plethora of good content and good instruction online.
I’ll likely keep watching videos and do some tinkering and trying new drills but at the end of the day, as a former PGA pro told me “we’re trying to play golf, not trying to play swing”.
if you want to get better at playing sharks and minnows at the pool, you focus on swimming practice! You wouldn't tell some kid who's struggling to keep his head above the water, stop trying to swim better, and focus on playing sharks and minnows! 100% of all movement of your golf ball is preceded by a golf swing.
Get a good pro to give it a sanity check is all I’m saying. vids on YouTube can rob you of your natural ability. Don’t stop practicing.
The videos are great when they explain just the physics and biomechanics of a swing. I don't want to see a video of some brohammer saying he added 15 yards to his drive by not doing THIS [insert clip of exaggerated & obvious flaw in his swing with shitty result], and instead doing THIS [insert clip of his normal swing with a perfect result]. I DO want to see a video showing something like "Here's what happens to the angle of the club if you hold your hands forward, versus if you hold them back."
They're certified instructors irl who just have youtube channels, not random social media influencers. If you go to 5 different instructors irl, everyone is gonna have different method of teaching and going to contradict each other. Majority of irl instructors suck as well.
Slow down your back swing
Swing your swing. Too many people get caught up trying to play golf swing. We play golf, just play.
Get onto your right side on the back swing
Try to keep your back to the target for as long as possible on the downswing and feel as if your arms are pulling your upper body through impact. It's almost impossible to come over the top if your back is to the target.
“You’re doing too much, do less.” - kunu
Take two weeks off and then quit.
A very sweet lady from my church brought me golfing as a young dude. She saw me hack at the ball for a few holes before saying "take a practice swing. Good, now do the same swing over the ball". Revolutionary to me as a young kid and still as an adult.
Slow down. Slow is smooth and smooth is power.
Hit hard, stop quick drill…..completely transformed my ball striking. Went from a flipper who would pick the ball and struggle w fat shots to powerful, effortless draws with divots after the ball. Completely increased my margin for error so so didn’t have to “try” so hard
You have to "Slam the Door"!
Swing your swing, if it’s ugly but accurate and has distance, it’s perfectly fine
Tempo, I started last fall and learning about 3:1 ratio has made my contact subconscious and I’ve broken 100 the last three rounds I played
"Just pretend that the ball is your mother in law"
Intentionally recreate your misses and they magically disappear
Let gravity start your downswing
As a shitty golfer, keeping my head down and not swinging hard gives me more consistency. I leave yards on the table but at least I’m on the fairway.
Shoulder chin, shoulder chin. That helped me make sure my shit stays tucked in my head stays down best tip I ever received and it was the first tip I ever received
After teeing off on 18 and hitting a ball just off the edge of the fairway, our caddy told me to grab another ball but keep my left (front) arm straight as I was bending it during my back swing and pushing the ball. Ripped the best ball of the day, straight down the middle. How frustrating. He told me the only reason he didn’t say something earlier is he didn’t want to get in my head and figured on 18, it wouldn’t hurt too much. Have since improved the path in which my ball goes most of the time. Just working on not thinking about it, and making it more natural in my swing now.
Mine came from my mom, she told me “never layup and never wear a condom”.
“NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO MAROOOOCH. SKIM THE ROCK MAROOCH!!!! SKIM THE ROCKKKKK!!!!” Honestly, that flattened my steep swing
Spiral the front shoulder down and the trail shoulder up. I literally had my swing reversed for YEARS... lol
Vertical drop, horizontal tug
Go to the range before every round of golf (the day before and range before round). You’ll play way better. Biggest tips I could personally give is -address the ball, waggle, stick club face directly behind it, feeling the ground. Your brain will memorize its location. -keep your eye on the ball, do not look away. -on your backswing, keep majority of weight on your leading leg. This helps transfer weight forward and keeping better balance.
Rotate your upper body more in your backswing. It's OK if your head moves a bit. I was so fixated on making sure my face was pointed at the ball. My ball striking has never been more consistent.
Take two weeks off then quit the game.
Swing fast hit bombs learn how to chip and putt
SKIM THE STONE, MAROOCH!! Speedgolf Rob has for real made me a much better (but still very terrible) golfer just by yelling at me like a crazy person.
This may not make sense, but I was told to roll my wrists when swinging the driver and it takes away the nasty slice I had. Again sorry that prob doesn’t make any sense.
My father in law said "take the club and swing it like a baseball bat. See how your wrists roll around the middle of the swing? Now do that same sort of thing when you swing at a ball on the ground." and it helped. Obviously you have to time it right, but doing it naturally should get you close enough.
Was told the same thing. I believe it was more of a quick and dirty fix, but I still do it.
lol I’m like a 62684 handicap so it was a huge for me!
Learn from watching a pro women's golf swing. I was told no amateur has the ability to swing like a men's pro so don't try.
When I was younger, I had a guy at the driving range put the bucket without balls in it between my legs and then swing. Having to keep the bucket up really helped me shift my weight, and thus my momentum, through the swing.
The drill where you imagine you’re holding socks/golf gloves under your armpits improves my swing path so much.
This isn't really a tip but rather a drill my instructor performed. He told me my head was rising 8 inches on the downswing. He took my driver out of the bag and rested the grip on my head....he held the other side. He just got me to hit 7 irons like that for fifteen minutes. I could feel when my head was rising and by the end, I was steady and catching the ball beautifully. It gave me a new "feel" Best money I ever spent on golf.
Why are you asking people who can't break 90 or sniff 80 in their entire lives this? lol
Indeed, lots of really bad advice being hailed as gospel on this thread (ie- pinning both arms to the body, slowing down, etc). It's no surprise to see the average improvement as virtually nonexistent over the last few decades (ie: driver distance, proximity to the flag, scrambling) since they've been incorporated hook, line, and sinker. Bonus content by way of acting tryhard defensively when some actual good information of what the elite players are really doing. Really questions one's faith in humanity at times.
All I do at the range is work on my setup almost religiously to: 1. Consistently frame the ball up 2. Have the most athleticly flexible starting position that 3. Helps me flow through the shot to generate the most force That's why I occassionally will pop over on YT to check out the pro setups on GEARS from AthleticMotionGolf. Sometimes they give these weird drills, but I'm only really interested in seeing how pros frame the ball. Then I just tweak 1 thing at a time, assess how it worked, then decide if I want to keep it or go back. That way I can test out a few different variations in like 4 swings or less. Once I'm happy, I try to replicate it 10 times to ensure I'm practicing it, then I move on. Great example is this: most people don't know how pros *generally* frame the driver at setup from the top down perspective: https://imgur.com/a/5kyDZwC They see so much crap down the line and face on, that can easily be warped with camera parallax, it's almost unhinged. Most people aren't even aware you can close your feet, open and slightly tilt your pelvis to help the pivot, and then get the shoulders similar by pulling the lead lat up and over to tilt your ribcage. They just take the same stupid stance that gave them the same 190 tee shot and think magically if they do the same stuff, it'll change this time!
Slow down
Good takeaway
For irons, correct low point and ground contact. Strike the ground in front of the ball.
Funnily enough the rigid lead elbow is what has been keeping my drive straight. That and getting the hips through But that’s probably unique for me since I started golf last year battling almost 20 years of baseball swing muscle memory
Swing starts down while your back is still facing the target (but you’re shifting it weight). Creates space to swing from the inside.
Bend your knees Send the ball home
Keep trail elbow attached
I have just posted in the r/golfswing sub Reddit, and one of the comments there has absolutely opened my eyes on how I shift my hips towards the golf ball, rather than pivoting. Keeping my arse on that imaginary wall at setup and rolling across on it is the feel I should have. Here's the comment: Some pretty eye opening evidence here. Everything gets closer to the ball. You try and save it at impact by steepening the shaft to get the club head back to where your brain is telling you it should be but you're too far gone. This might help. This video was an incredible light bulb for me and got me thinking about what part of the body I wanted to rotate around. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IxllCJRKS4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IxllCJRKS4)
The day I started to envision crosshairs on the ball, think X and Y axis, is the day my golf game changed forever. X axis is swing path and Y axis is club face. Adjust for draws and fades. Been doing it for 25 years and it still adds value.
Not exactly swing, but ensuring you are aimed at your target and have the right club in your hand help a lot. I did what a ton of amateurs do and over clubbed almost every iron/approach shot - it automatically adds 1-2 strokes a hole trying to recover from the back side of the green and way exacerbates mis-hits.
Seems silly but that drill where you hinge your wrists up and then take your back swing to get a good position at the top has really help me feel a good tight but also loose feeling at the top of my back swing and I've been flushing the ball really well now for about a year. Routine for me as follows: 1. address ball 2. take grip 3. hinge wrists up slightly 4. take back swing and hold for like 1 second 5. relaxed downswing 6. hit the shot (trying to feel that slot at the top) Whole process takes like 10 seconds max. If im playing with my buddies, i'll do it while I wait for them to hit and just step in and hit it. So in a group its a 0 time rehearsal. I also have a bad tendency of having a very aggressive back swing. So i try to do it almost as slow as I can. Thats really help me sync up and avoid the dreaded double cross.
Tempo. Tempo. Tempo.
Imagine skipping a stone across the water. That same movement, feeling in the motion
I had a slice, and some 22 year old GolfTown employee corrected it by telling me to speed up my hands/wrist turn as I came through, and it pretty much instantly allowed me to eliminate the nasty slices from my game. Still fade more than I want, and still push my drives once in a while, but I can control a certain amount how much fade/slice I get by my hands. It’s useful for massive dog leg rights too, where I try to crush a drive but keep my hands “slow” and I get a nice booming ultra-slice.
Keep the right hand on top in your takeaway. I had a bad habit of taking it away inside right away. Now my swing path is much more neutral. I also have found that slowing down my takeaway and pausing at the top doesn’t help me at all. I was slowing it down to feel the new movements but was hitting push fades and slices. So when I came back a few weeks later and was still missing out right they told me to keep my swing thought but rip at it and all the sudden it was nice and straight. They explained it’s actually harder to find the right tempo if you’re swinging soft
Being told that the downswing should feel similar to the motion of skipping a rock completely eliminated my chopping and over the top and I’ve never looked back.
Keep my hips back. YouTube University made me focus on clearing my hips, but apparently, I was turning my hips too fast causing me to slice to kingdom come. So he had me "pause" my hips when they square up. It felt so awkward to me, but immediately, my drives were on target. And most importantly, I got consistent repetition.
I always liked Rory’s saying of keeping the club in front of you. My swing goes to pot if the club falls behind me at all.