Golf Instruction, What To Do When Your Golf Swing Quits Working

Picture this, you have arrived at the range and are ten minutes into your practice. So far you have hit the ball great and are really getting into the groove that you thought you could. And it sure feels good to get that confident feeling on every shot. Right?

Ok .. so all of a sudden, out of no where, you can’t seem to repeat the earlier move. You are now stink’n up the joint with one bad swing after another. And you know that if this keeps up you won’t be worth a crap. But you keep at it. Swing after swing after swing. Results? You suck!

In total disgust and anger at this point you ponder what the next move is. Go home. Stay and work it out. Go putt. Chip? Maybe hit some mini swings with full swing fundamentals.

And, yes, people are looking at you. Making you feel even more useless and exposed. This is not what you came here for. So, go home. That’s right go home. Go now before you change your mind and start the foolishness all over again. Go on!!

Or……….. you could try and figure out what the heck happened to your swing. Thinking that this could happen while you were playing, you should find a way to fix it.

Ok, I agree. Good idea to fix the thing while you are there. No time like right now. Going home is the sissy way out and will leave a bad taste in your mouth and a bad swing on the range.

Bad ideas, both.

So here is what we all should do.

First go get a drink of water or take a short walk and take three deep breaths, exhaling slowly.

And believe this, it happens all the time. Even some of the best players have this exact same issue from time to time. It’s no wonder golf is such a brain twister.

So what to do.

It always gets back to basics. I know that sounds kinda cope outish. But it is the most realistic comment that anyone could make in this instance.

Re-check your grip. Double check your alignment. Triple check your ball position.

Is your posture still good? Spine angle still strong and straight. Sometimes there is a leaning toward getting a tad lazy with the little things and it gets a bit too comfortable, forgetting that all the little things in your set- up are precursors to a good solid swing.

Miss one and you mess up all the rest.

Once you have checked all of these, time for the first move. Make sure you set your angles and keep them through out what you are about to do. ( I assume you are using a lofted iron)

Now with good angles, move to the half backswing position, but make sure your shoulders turn fully. That would be 90 degrees to the target line. Or left shoulder under your chin.

The chest moves the arms and hands as they are now not active. Just let them go along for the ride. Remember to maintain your angles. This is a half swing with the arms and hands.

Your move to the golf ball is filled with objectives, but we will only be using one.

Keep you angles intact all the way through impact. However you have to do this, you must do this.

Some find that they can mentally connect the arms to the shoulders and just turn the shoulders and of course the arms go with them.

This is a minny move, you are not trying to hit the ball anywhere. You are trying to get sequence and timing, along with a sense of control back to where you are in charge of yourself.

Tempo, sequence and timing will start to come back to you as you just lazily, but correctly, muddle through this drill.

Maintaining angles is what this is about.

The golf ball should be getting off the ground crisply and may have a slight right to left movement. That is just fine. But if it is moving left to right you will need to pay attention to clubhead path. Make sure you are hitting the inside of the ball.

You are entitled to a slight weight shift with this drill if you like, but it isn’t really necessary.

A very fast review on angles, there are two we are concerned with. The angle of the right wrist to the right forearm. This is the ” trayed” right wrist position. That’s one.

note: the left wrist should not be in the awful “cupped” position.

And two is the angle that is formed by the shaft and the right forearm. That’s two.

The latter, in this drill, will be about 90 degrees as the left arm is parallel to the ground and the shaft is pointed straight up in toward the sky.

Keep this angle.

Take it casually here as you work out the stress of being the driving range laughing stock. In a matter of moments your swing will be back and you will shut them all up.

Nice feeling right?

Oh .. if you read the article on what lag is, you would have read about the drill, bump and drop.

This is an excellent drill to work on your angles and know what they are and how they feel. And the neat part of this drill is that you will never get negative feedback as you will not be hitting any golf balls.

Happy now?

If there is a magic move it’s in this bump and drop move. Harvey Penick knew it and wrote about this exact move in his ” Little Red Book”

So let me be clear that I did not make this one up. Harvey did. Try it. It works.