For the last two weeks I've been swinging my clubs so well.

The drives were going straight(ish!) and the irons were being hit with a lovely draw.

Then last Saturday I turned up to try and get into one or our golf club majors, but they didn't allow late entries.

So I hit a few balls on the practice ground to warm up then went over to the Priors course to play 18 holes.

Well I was a different person!

My drives were poor but even worse was my irons.  Everything had a big draw/hook.  And the contact between ball and club was lousy.

I played on Sunday and the same thing happened.

The agency didn't call me today so I went on the practice ground to try and sort it out.  Well it worked to a fashion.  Every 5th or 6th shot was a good one, the rest were poor.

I tried everything but nothing seemed to work.

Most of the shots go slightly left of my target line and then have a big draw/hook.

Any ideas?

Russ

Russ,

It may be as simple as loss of alignment and posture, which then gets your swing tempo out of sorts.

Go back to basics, check each section of your set-up and I believe you will find the answer.

TheLyth

Russ,

sometimes when this happens your confidence dips & you start worrying about hitting the ball rather than relaxing & just swinging.

I sometimes pop my ipod on &  listen to music whilst practising as it takes my mind off things.

I also read a good practice drill recently where it said that you should try to hit 5 perfect shots on the range one after the other to replicate the pressure on the course. I found that when I did this I went onto the course full of confidence.

If your shots start a little left then hook or draw, well you are pulling/slicing the ball.  That is a pull is the same swing fault as the slice-just with a closed club face.  If the club face is open it would slice.  SInce you dont mention slcing it, I predict u have a strong grip or a very good hand action/rotation.

SO you are swinging out to in.  Possibly coming over the top.

Try to swing more in to out and you will go back to a draw.  Also try to delay opening the shoulder line with the downswing.

 Also check your grip isn't too strong and that your posture and set up are correct-i.e shoulder line is set up square, as is stance and hips.

I would also try shortening back swing-overswinging always causes me to go off plane.

Hope this helps. 

Thanks for the advice.

I went onto the practice ground on Monday.

There are 200 balls in my practice ball bag and I hit 150 of them down the range.

I would say a third of them where great/good shots, a third were ok and the other third were bad.

There were a few things I tried, like slowing down my swing, etc.

My next game for the golf club in the Jubilee Cup is this Saturday, away to Stock Brook Manor GC, so I hope things get better for then.

Russ

Great news, normal service has been resumed.

I played at Risebridge GC today and shot 83, no bad shots.

The only problems were some of my chips were not as good as they have been and the greens were wet, so putting was a problem.

Russ