Wiskey

GRINT 12.7
Joined
Jan 31, 2018
Messages
264
Reaction score
13
Location
Fallbrook, CA
Handicap
12.7 Grint
I was doing pretty good for while there,... but the last month or so my game was falling apart. My putting was on fire, and I was driving well, but I couldn't hit any other shot to save my life. They were going right, they were going left, I was hitting behind, topping balls, super inconsistent. And to make matters worse my body was really hurting after rounds. It all came to a head when I was playing back to back rounds on a Executive course that I was walking with a friend and I was really playing badly. Some shots were 45 degrees off! I was trying really hard to figure out what I was doing, we even did slow mo video of my swings to try and sort it out.

Finally on the back 9 of the second round it clicked. I was trying to kill the ball. I loosened my grip and started swinging "easily" again. Suddenly my tempo was back, I was hitting greens again, and it was like my shots were on rails! Not only that but my shots were going so much further that I had to drop back a club!

Plus! After a round I feel so much better! And I dropped a full 10 shots in 9 holes after already walking 27 holes that day. Today I went to the range and hit 30 shots with various irons in a row that would all have been in the fairway.

Has anyone else had this experience? Do you have any idea why less "effort" creates more distance?

Just curious,
Whiskey
 
Relief of tension.

Swinging harder is one thing, swinging without increasing tension is another. Usually, the harder we try, the more rigid we become and that's a tempo, distance, flow killing disaster.

I know.
 
Agree with WMac19 tension is a killer in the golf swing. Not long back I was playing a round with a guy who I intermittently play with and he always played a respectable game off a handicap of 18.

Well this particular day we were all in danger of being kneecapped. He had no idea where they were going and more often than not they were going sideways.
I was watching him on the tee and you could see his calf muscles were like steel tension wires and his fingers were death strangling the club.I mentioned this to him at the halfway mark letting him draw his own conclusions as to what effect this might be having.

The second 9 he was a totally different person his old swing had reappeared and golf had become fun again. I know myself 99% of my bad shots are caused by tension and hitting at the ball instead of swinging through it. Still an ongoing battle for me.
 
Has anyone else had this experience? Do you have any idea why less "effort" creates more distance?

Your body can respond when you are allowing the club to swing, utilizing gravity. When you do so, you'll get a much better kinematic sequence. In short, you have much better timing. When you try to take over control and muscle the club, you take that key input away from your brain, and your timing essentially becomes luck. As others have said, when you have a great deal of tension, you can't allow the club to swing - you have to swing it yourself.
 
Yep I have been there. It amazing because the technology we have in golf is really incredible. I get way more consistent distance that is farther and more accurate playing relaxed golf then swinging for the fences.

Happened to me last round. On 16 had a real strong 20 mph wind in our face. Tried to kill the ball off the tee....ball went about 75 yards. All I could think about is why did I try that shot, why would I do that? Last two holes wind in my face, relaxed swing, ball flew fine.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
As a former teacher would often say to me, "you want effortless power, not powerless effort". Swinging fast is not the same as swinging hard. I still struggle with that.
 
Tension. Trying to kill the ball causes your body to tense up and when you tense up, it actually slows your swing down. Its kind of like you are fighting yourself. Id be willing to bet too that when you were trying to kill the ball, your strikes werent as consistent and werent in the center of the clubface as much as they are when you slow down.
Sometimes, less really is more.
 
The main thing that changes is the freedom of your hands to move. When you are tensed up and swinging like the Incredible Hulk there is tension in your arms that locks your wrists, they then either stay strait or you have to time the hinge to get movement. When you are relaxed the wrists can hinge freely and naturally, this allows the club heads range to increase and a smaller movement of your body causes a bigger movement of the clubhead which creates clubhead velocity.
 
y'know, that thing they say about keeping your head down and keeping your eyes on the ball? it works.
 
Whiskey, I added a preshot routine step to help with tension (I have the softball player's need to smack the cover off). When I finish my practice swing and step up to the ball, I take about half a second and deliberately loosen my grip. That's really helped me with the tension thing.

That and I have a left shoulder that lifts dramatically under tension, so I check it too. If you have a body part that's a "tell" then you might try to identify it and check it.

Glad to hear the mojo's back, dude!!
 
Swinging faster and what promotes speed - great quest. I changed my entire swing over the past 15 months, and still working on it in the search for consistency and speed. It's a series of ups and downs during the process.

What works for me is slowing down my initial tempo (too quick and too many moves) and having soft arms while limiting excessive movement. Getting to the top in a postition where you don't need to make compensations going downwards. Then it's sequencing - I know one needs to shift weight and rotate those hips for speed - to do that you need to get out of your comfort zone - and turn them so you open 'em up. Then the chest covers. Working on the arms now to generate more speed - I've got to think about what puts me in a position to hit down on the ball - for me, my back is still turned away from the ball with a strong arm/body connect while turning -- and the front leg rotating ...

but the arms ... you want fast but efficient. My instructor wants me to think of my arms as driving through a small arc ... and I've thought about what he wants for a month, but it wasn't happening... until yesterday - back to ball, arms in small arc on body, elbows tightisth to another another so rear elbow doesn't get stuck behind you, and then drive that right hand (right hander) like a nail through the ball, release the right arm to the left, with the left elbow on the front ribcage and release high... lots of feels... work and think about it.
 
Some of my worst swings are trying to take something off the ball, it messes with my transition and I get a bit out of sync.
 
Some of my worst swings are trying to take something off the ball, it messes with my transition and I get a bit out of sync.
It's funny how different we all are, I get a lot of my best results doing that.

Uniqueness. It's why I love this game!
 
I should say that applies only outside of 80ish yards. Partial wedges are a bit of a different animal
 
The reason why the Whippy TempoMaster and Orange Whip work so well is they simulate, albeit in exaggerated fashion, the necessary process of the swing.

If we were tasked to most efficiently swing a rock at the end of a string, our usual attempt to mash the ball as with our usual golf swing would meet certain and undeniable failure.

But when introduced to said string or highly flexible shaft, instinct invariably kicks in. Our movements become more gentle, fluid, with the patient exertion of energy in order to properly and consistently build speed.

The more rigid construction of the typical golf shaft brings out the Paul Bunyan in all of us, though. Suddenly our brains desire to muscle and mash, seek & destroy.

Once we condition ourselves to relieve tension and deliver a controlled and athletic pass at the ball, its then that our true potential is revealed.
 
Trying to kill the ball is my downfall. These last couple of rounds have been very good, besides my putting but that is another story
 
As someone that hits pretty frequently on a sim, and used to dabble in long drive, I can tell you that my grunting all out bear down and try to smite the cover off the ball swing is 10-15mph less than max. My fastest swings are when I loosen grip pressure to just enough to hold onto the club, focus on a slow and smooth backswing, get absolute full shoulder turn, and bring the club down slowly until parralel with my shoulders, then make a crack the whip motion at the bottom of my swing.

Even though I know this it still amazes me how much faster a relaxed almost lazy swing-until a foot before impact is then my bear down and kill it swing. That was a real eye opener to me.
 
This is exactly me. I have always swung as hard as I could and no matter show hard I try to feel like I'm swinging nice and easy everyone tells me I look like I'm trying to kill the ball. I got to the range and hit it beautifully just nice and smooth and easy, but as soon as I get in the course all of that is gone.
 
Trying to kill the ball is my downfall. These last couple of rounds have been very good, besides my putting but that is another story
I won't sugar coat anything. I feel many people have revelations at different times and think we have found our key to playing much better golf from here on out. Then we find out it's only temporary or there is something else. Then we find another revelation and repeat. That said....I do hope it works and a good tempo is something of great importance. Without it we don't stand a chance at consistency.

Imo in golf less is always more. Free and fluid is a key to club speed and any chance of minimizing mechanical break downs. Its likely my biggest flaw and it is many others.

One thing I always see is this. In most rounds I play there is usually one hole where someone on the ter says they are going to give this one some extra. And it's no coincidence 95% of the time it's usually one shortest and/or worst hits they had that day.
 
I say it's because we're all indoctrinated to want max distance/MOAR POWAH. We are constantly barraged by the distance message which, we, as amateurs, can only achieve by swinging out of our shoes. This wouldn't be an issue if the message was "A decent drive in the middle of the fairway is a good shot." in every magazine/website/TV broadcast. Then again, a lot of instructor's would be out of a job. I shouldn't even call them instructors, they are more "de-programmers".
 
Had a similar experience where my takeaway got screwed up and the more agitated I got the worse it got. Took a couple deep breaths after hitting a bunch of bad shot slowed down and it came back. Funny thing.
 
Back
Top