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The one problem and bad habit that I continuously have is coming up in the middle of my swing and hooking it badly; so is there a way to mentally stop doing that or a way to force myself to stay - DOWN?

I am not sure if this will help, but what I do to make sure I make solid contact and stay down is to not transfer my weight to my left side or come up until I can feel myself make contact with the ball. As soon as I feel myself striking the ball that is when I let myself transfer my weight and allow myself to start to look up. Good luck! Mark Arneman

<strong>Chrispy0515 wrote:</strong>




They call it "Humpping The Goat".. It truley is hard to say with out seeing your swing but if you are standing up that means your rear is pushing your groin section out toward the ball because your coming out of flexion to early and you got the club coming from deep inside with a closed face.

What I would try is on the down swing try keeping your head centered over the ball and let your lower body move some what linear, instead of trying to swing hard and fire. Take a mail box stick and put it through your front belt loops to see what your hips are doing. Hope that helps.

Thanks; and I think one of the biggest reasons is trying to see my shot and where it goes and worrying about all that stuff, when I need to focus alot more on the ball in front of me. But that is easier said than done I guess and a hard habit to break.

I focus on literally watching divot form.

Here's a visualization to use, if it's of any help.
(take it with a grain of salt because I always seem to misunderstand what the poster was really asking on these forums).

However I set up, angle of spine at address, I visualize a solid steel beam sunk into the ground at the same angle as my back. At address my back is almost touching it. This beam cannot be moved even if a truck hit it. ( oh boy... this is going to be the long way 'round just to explain 'Rotate around your Spine' but bare with me ). There is a fresh coat of paint on the beam so you don't want to lift up and touch it.
( If paint doesn't bother you smear it with something else ). Now just take your swing with respect for staying under this beam throughout the rotation. Of course at the end of your follow through you will be standing tall and balanced because, hopefully by that point, the visualization has served it's purpose.

Chrispy0515 have you looked at the "Stack & Tilt" option, DVD by Mike Bennett and Andy plummer, it may work for you.

<strong>notJason wrote:</strong>

It's possible that you have some physical limitations which don't allow you to stay down. It's pretty common. Try looking on the Titleist performance institute website for some physical limitation screens and some exercises to help improve. They call the move "early extension"

Maybe look at the angle of your hips on your downswing, or if your knees or spine are coming up or down.

Without seeing a video we're all shooting darts in the dark, and you don't know where the target is..

I don't get it I thought the pivot requires a steady head
no up, no down, just turn with the club releasing into follow through?

The best way to stay down is to swing forward instead of down. By trying to go down and stay down the body feels stuck and wants to move up and out of the way. By swinging forward the body moves fluidly with your vision leading the way and the hands and body following. In other words focus forward not down.

It sounds weird but I don't like the word pivot as I get older. I think this word should be replaced in the golf vocabulary by Turn. Yes you require a somewhat,mainly steady head as you swing; however it doesn't mean that your legs and hips don't go backward or forwards or stay stationary in your swing!!
To me pivot is misleading because it implies that you swing with nail strait through your head directly to the ground and your hips legs and everything rotate around that point This is all wrong!!!
Yes your head stays fairly still but look at how much lateral motion the golf swing has in the hips and leg action. Look at Byron Nelson, Payne Stewart, Jim Furyk, Some Lateral motion is necessary but it is legs and hips.
It should be maintained to a minimum with your head.
Hope this helps.

Yes, my understanding is pivot = hip turn.
The one thing I never realized is how much effect the hip turn has on
club face alignment.
Take an iron and stand at address, now turn your hips toward the target and
watch the club face open (hips are now at impact position). No wonder the slice
is dominant with beginners. So do we choose to turn the hands over through
impact to square the club face or do we rotate the club in our hands at the grip
so that the left thumb is at 1 o-clock (close the face) to get square.
HELP ME MIKE MAVES.

Joe Mudd

The slice is caused by a faulty swing path on the downswing to impact
not by the squareness or openness of the club at impact.
There is a big difference.

The slice in amateurs is first and foremost the reason of faulty alignment.(hands down winner in my book) heck most people have little idea how to aim themselves.

Then I would say starting their downswing with their hands instead of transferring weight to front foot. (being an arm swinger over the top path problem)

Then probably a neutral grip. (worst grip ever.!!!)

msclout72 wrote:

That's a great point about a neutral grip for beginners to know. You should explain more about monitoring your neutral grip & watching for right hand creep (pic) and what the combo of these help promote and also prohibit.
(Small changes in the hand position can be more difficult to correct later on than people might think).

Swing path, coming over the top, outside in. my understanding of the error
is the club is brought back above the shoulder in the backswing (over the top)
rather than keeping the plane below the shoulder,,, correct?
I'm glad those don't look like my hands.

... lets say that a golfer had control and understanding of the golf swing, he was aware of proper position at the top, plane and how to use the body to turn ...

how would setting the hands with a weak grip - or only letting the right hand 'ride weak' now effect his elbow position and ability to close the club face?

A neutral grip is bad because it requires that your impact position is the address position.........Which is all wrong.

People must learn that both the impact position and the address position are completly different..!!!

I truly believe that the below average to average golf would be instantly better if they new this and would simply give up a neutral grip.

next time you grab a club assume a weak right hand grip (left can still be neutral ) and see if you don't notice how this impairs or 'resists' your ability to close the face.
this position tends to leave the club-face open, sometimes pulls the right elbow out and definitely robs power due to these release restrictions (not just because of the de-lofting alone).

So how are you closing the club face? with a strong grip, or turning the hands over or
slowing down the hip turn?

leaving all other factors out of the equation I wanted to point out that a pre-set weak right hand is already partially 'turned over'.
Now if someone is just scooping, flicking, trying to pick the ball up then it's the least of issues... but with the hands leading the clubhead into the ball I think you will see / feel what I mean at the bottom of the downswing arc if you take a few slow practice swings.
That's all. It only mentioned it because the other poster was talking about slicing the ball. So if someone was working on correcting a slice or heavy fade, and making the correct swing path adjustments, it could discourage them if the shots were still going right a bit due to an open face. What really happens though is that they start making alignment compensations. Nothing wrong with not aligning perfectly to the target ( most pros don't ) but one thing often leads to another when learning the swing - sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

NJ, that's my point and the reason I love this site. I'm only 10 yrs old in
golf years, 54 for real so not as flexible as most young uns here but I'm
also a pro skier of 50 yrs and an instructor. The two have very little in
common except for the fact that there are a lot of people out there in both
worlds that have very little to offer (there are very few skiers out there
that can teach me anything of value) in the way of presenting the true path
to someone with no time to waste on learning an error from someone who doesn't
fully understand what they are teaching and why. Long story short, this site
functions as a talk golf platform. In skiing if you want to get good you find
those in the know and talk skiing inside out and practice practice practice.
To the believer fundamentals are never boring, hell they are the life blood.
My swing path is not as bad as I thought (though it really breaks down when tired)
because when I corrected a lack of hip turn (which created a worse slice) I went
back to the five lessons grip (left thumb 1:00 and began 70% straighter hitting)
but way too mechanical I need more flow. So does the rolling over of the hands
just happen naturally or is it a concerted effort? (seems like overkill) I'm
trying to learn the imperative movements that effect impact and the reason
behind them because if you don't know the reason you won't know whats happening
and why or be fluidly able to make a change when needed.

I truly hear you. I have had very disappointing instructor experiences and have had to learn much on my own ( reading, watching videos, etc - if that can be called learning on your own ).
For the most part the rolling of the hands, arms, and the release should just happen - but right now, from what little I know about your current swing, I would ask you to focus on learning how to use and turn the big muscles first. The rest follows.
To give a general direction watch the classic Ben Hogan video:

I'm sure you have seen this video before but to eventually understand the feel of the arms and hands turning and releasing naturally you need to note how he is allowing the still set and hinged arms and hands to move into position through body rotation, not so much by impetus on their own from the top, before they can do their job.

I'm definitely no instructor or any kind of an expert - other than what they automatically put under your avatar if you yap allot so I'm reluctant to say much more. I agree that unless an instructor can get inside your head and understand how you need to have things explained they can impede your progress.

I don't know how you feel about this but posting video of your swing here and asking for advice would give you a broad range of feedback to compare against. And possibly some real experts here might have something they want to impart.

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