Thanks everyone for sharing your tips. I tried focusing in front of the ball on Saturday with uneven results, about 1/2 the time I struck the ball well and the other half I was topping or chunking the ball. Then on Sunday, while I was warming up on the range before my round, I realized that I was subconsciously gripping the club tighter for my swings where I was trying harder to hit at target greens with flags and that this tension was affecting my transition to the downswing. So I softened my grip to the lowest possible strength to hold onto the club before starting my backswing and magically started hitting the ball solidly. Grip tension was my killer!
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One issue I had was that while all my practice swings looked really nice, my clubface was wide open where I’d normally be contacting the ball. If I actually hit balls like that I’d be in the right trees all day long. My body instead subconsciously made these ugly looking motions - but they were in fact necessary compensations.
I have found I can usually match my practice swing when I focus on the back of the ball until my club hits it.
When I stop looking at the ball, I tend to straighten up a bit and my swing is way off.
Hi JohnM,
Almost a half year later, did you find something what helped you? Very curious…
Gr, Marc
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I am a huge proponent of practice makes “perfect”. I totally agree with Adamyounggolf. 1) you need to find a place to practice where you can make your MOE as small as you can get it. 2) focus would be on one club, one swing at a time. meaning, practice is NOT hitting 5 shots with this club, 10 shots with another club and so on. Try hitting 200-300 balls with say a five iron. One drill my I used and my teacher used was to line up like 30 balls in a pattern and just rapid fire your swing, bang, bang, bang. Look, you are still going to hit bad shots, Bryson hit a topper last week for goodness sakes. See he doesn’t even let that creep into his mind because his swing is so automatic, that’s not what good players think about, if they even think at all. Align, preshot, another quick alignment check, and pull the trigger. The trick is to make yourself automatic, when you find your swing, that you can hit the ball where you want it to go achieving your desired results, make that repetitive. Ya know, if you can hit a 15-20 yard cut or slice everytime and execute that everytime…what’s wrong with that, Trevino made helluva a living doing that.
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What I think I need to do is to practise off the course well to ingrain the foundations of a good swing (Adam Young’s book “The Practice Manual” is a great reference) and a consistent pre-shot routine to make full swing shots more automatic. What is also important is to understand the laws of ball flight and how to make adjustments on the course when things don’t go as expected (or desired).
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Yes @Vre - bought the Tour Tempo Tones app! The tones are EXACTLY what I needed. I’ve learned my backswing was way too slow. There’s that plus in another post I mention I’ve engaged a new coach and am in the process of changing my grip and swing in a sustainable way while we’re in 3 months of lockdown in UK.
So now I still have the brain yip at the top of the backswing when I’m front of the ball. But if I can successfully switch off my conscious brain during my real swing - by humming the tones in my head - I can get my real swing closer to what it should be.
Looking forward to 2021 season!
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There is no risk with a practice swing. But on a real swing, the golfer may feel that he has to help the ball to the target. Not trusting the practice swing or the hours of practice. To me this is a parallel to how so many are comfortable hitting a short iron, but feel like they have to “help” the longer clubs.
Sometimes, I have to remind myself to trust the swing, trust the club.
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The answer is not to take a practice swing. Be confident in your swing and just hit it. The longer you take the more opportunity to let negative thoughts in.
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Check it out. Seemed (to me) expensive for what I previously perceived to be “a few musical tones”. I was so wrong. The fact that it’s simple is it’s strength. If you think your tempo is off or you need a way to stop conscious thoughts during your swing then I can’t recommend this app highly enough.
Interestingly it’s discussed in one of Mike’s @Fit_For_Golf recent podcast episodes with John Novosel. Maybe listen to that first if you’ve any doubts. Enjoy!
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The individual approach may be different, but I’ve found that I alleviate tightness in my right elbow and make my practice swings come closer to my real swings by holding the club vertically in front of me with both elbows bent and with my hands on the club with pressure from by the fingertips and the top part of the palm of my hand.
I rarely feel any tightness in my right elbow this way before I bend to the ball and try to maintain that exact feeling as I bend to set up to the ball. I’ve seen a real difference between getting to the ball in this manner and setting up with either my left or right hand on the club and then bringing the other hand to the club after I’ve bent to the ball. For whatever reason, I always seem tighter in my right elbow if I bend to the ball with only one hand on the club. Getting rid of that feeling has loosened up my swing.
I’ve gotta fire fast though after I set up to the ball or that elbow tightness creeps back in.
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I’ve rethought the practice swing thing and, frankly, feel there’s too many pitfalls, as @Adamyounggolf points out. Too many negatives. If my practice swing is bad, latent lack of commitment to real, and so on.
Rather than practice swing, try spending those precious moments clearing the mind, taking deep breath, shaking out muscles to stay athletic. @jon said it best:
When fully committed, step out of Annika’s ‘think box’, step into the ‘hit box’ and let your body run the show.
ps - works for putting too. Assuming good practice groundwork and pre-round calibration, your body already has a good framework for speed. That’s 95%. Seems to work ok for Speith.
Hope this helps!
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Great point!
I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but I try to frame my pre-swing prep as a “rehearsal” … vs “practice” at the range.
Semantics, yes, but … I try to think of it as rehearsing the body movements required to execute the next intended golf shot.
Then step into that Play Box and pull the trigger!
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I tend to think of the “rehearsal” as most critical the first quarter of your swing. In other words, you’re trying to ensure that your swing starts out the way it should. From left arm parallel on the backswing through the ball, there’s too little time to think of anything, and all that happens during that time is dependent on that first quarter of a swing.
I feel that if I have the good takeaway in my head (and my feels), I’m very likely to swing in tempo and hit a good shot.
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Mike Malaska thinks high handicappers are delusional if they think their practice swing is much better compared to their real swing. His observation is that the face is never square at what would be ball contact position.
That’s a little harsh but I don’t think your swing changes much. I do think my practice swing is smoother. Maybe that’s a step in the right direction.
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I’m looking into the Tour Tempo app, but just curious if you get all the information the Tour Tempo book provides. I’ve read the 4 free chapters and would like to know more about where they left off with the Y and L training. Does the app provide this information.
thanks
I’ve gone ahead and gotten the app and now need to do the workout and practice working with the tones.
I’ve had a ton of coaching this year, changed my swing and worked a lot on tempo and pre-shot routine. I’ve dropped from 20hcp to 16. I still stand by my post from September 2020. My number 1 problem is finding a ‘cure’ to the mental interference I get over a real swing from my conscious brain. I’m learning more about this from The Inner Game of Golf - written 1981! - and describes my situation perfectly. I took videos for my coach the other day. I’m still doing it. My practice swing looks great. My real swing is rushed from the top of the backswing thro transition and often results in fats, thins and hooks. If I can crack the mental blocker I believe I can get down to my target 9.9hcp.
Just gotta keep at it. Keep believing. Keep working, hitting balls in the net.
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I was at the range at the weekend. Hit a load of balls then tried an experiment from The Inner Game of Golf where I consciously attempted to swing with no muscle tension. WOW! I can’t explain what happened but my ball speed with a 7i went up 5mph consistently and average carry went up from 151 to 162yds!
Then (for a laugh) I got out my 4hy which I have hardly been able to hit since 2020 without slicing. WOW! Stripe show!
This reminds me of a comment on this forum about swinging faster not harder. It’s taken a long, long time but I got a glimpse of what that means in practice. Needs further work… 
♂:boom:
Then went out on the course the following day and sent one into orbit with my driver (my avg is 250yds) 
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Wow, I was searching for a place to state my “issue” and decided on mental because, while swing based, it has to be mental.
When I take a practice swing, use a divot board or any other means of tracking a swing path, without a ball, it is almost a perfect 2 degrees right of path so inside out. I played this swing to be a +1 in my earlier years. I close the face about half of that amount and the result is what I call a sling draw. It worked for me and a pretty decent 3-5 yard draw with decent enough trajectory.
Now, when I am actually hitting a ball, I get over the top about about 2-3 degrees and, I guess through feel, I open the club face to self-correct. The result is a “double-wipe” which is seriously challenging my already 75 year old age impaired distance. It probably costs 10-12% of my typical distances. Now, sometimes on the course, my natural path comes back but it is not reliable. I have been battling this for over a year. Help!!!