Nobody ever wants to do the "Walk of Shame" back to the tee block

Are the 2012 AP1 irons any good? buddy is selling them, (brand new, with plastic) them for me for 700$ they go for 850 at golftown. going to try and get him down to 500$

So your "buddy" is giving you a deal and you're still going to try and Jew him down? Nice.

You used that expression? Nice.

Just catching up on this thread. If I'd known you were a left handed Canadian hockey player I would have paid attention sooner.

I also started golf late and am of similar build. I'm assuming you are a right handed writer and thrower? This is an important distinction when you think almost all right handed golfers are right handed. You are golfing with your dominant side forward not behind. No need to worry many great right handed golfers are in fact lefty's. Hogan, Nicklaus, Johnny Miller just to name a few but you do need to be aware of tendencies that come with this setup.

Watch a few DTL swings of Fred Couples and watch the perfect release he achieves with his right arm that mimics what a world champion stone skipper might look like or a sidearm pitcher. Now remember that you would be left handed in that scenario and it just doesn't feel as natural. (unless you can skip stones with your left hand...) We picked up golf left handed because we now more naturally turn that way having developed a slap shot. The problem is we are used to using our hands to square the face/stickblade and not necessarily our bodies like you really have to in golf to achieve optimal consistency and power. Remember right handed hockey players are usually the big shooters because they have the strong hand low on the stick where they can use the throwing action to further power and flex the stick.

When I look at the last driver swing posted from side view it looks like at the halfway back position your clubhead is way inside the hands. This leads to a position at the top where you can literally never catchup the clubhead up to square unless you force it with the hands. Your head already knows this that's why your grip is so unusually strong in that video. Your head is trying to compensate for the top of the backswing position. With that grip you should be snap hooking but your slicing from the inside I'd imagine never squaring the clubface. Learn to keep the clubhead outside the hands on the backswing until all your weight has gathered on the inside of the left foot and your shoulders have completely rotated to the left. Now start the downswing by moving the weight forward onto the outside of the right foot. Notice I said nothing about the hands and arms. You have to forget about your hands and arms (take the tension out and let them fall naturally), your weight transfer (aka your body rotation) will then create the power AND square the club head. If done correctly the newer swing will feel like you are hitting down on the ball rather than swinging from the inside and trying to chase it to square.

Use a 6 or 7 iron to groove this action before you force it with the longer clubs. Let me know if you need any clarifications on what I'm trying to say and good luck.

I'd wait on the new clubs. I think if you are close to breakthrough that will give you much more insight in what you actually need. What province are you in btw?

Hey Everlastrr, thanks for this post.

I'm from Ontario, live in Toronto. If you're ever around, shoot me a PM or something and we can set up a tee time and make something happen.

As far as the hockey vs golf. I was a D man so i was used to hitting 1 timers off my back foot and even sometimes going down on one knee to really get the weight back there. As far as my swing goes, i know there are a million things wrong with it, and I'm trying to fix things one at a time. Right now, i believe one of my biggest problems is my weight transfer. in my follow through i find myself leaning back a lot which isn't good. again this is just because I'm so used to hockey. I actually haven't picked up a hockey stick in about a year now. I would love to see my slap shot now. (BTW i had a cannon )

"Learn to keep the clubhead outside the hands on the backswing until all your weight has gathered on the inside of the left foot and your shoulders have completely rotated to the left."

I get the weight transfer part, I'm not quite sure what you mean by keeping the club head outside the hands.

Reading this over a few times actually starts to make more sense as I'm visualizing myself do this.

Would you know any drills that i can work on to try and help me fix this? apart from lifting and ****, dry land was a big part of playing hockey. i want to do the same for golf in the off season. I tried youtubing some stuff, but theres just a bunch of Natalie Gulbis on a medicine ball doing some stuff, I dont think its helped my game lol.

ahhhhhhhh...ok

Pretty much

You do get free relief from a guy wire. It's decision 24-2 or something like that, I closed the page then forgot the number.

I'm in BC so I'll be golfing nearly year round. Sorry.

Other than general fitness I would spend my off season dedicated to yoga or some advanced stretching program. The importance of flexibility in golf cannot be overstated. You are way strong enough now for golf but any extra bulk in the shoulders or chest could be restricting your range of motion. Ever watch a bodybuilder swing a golf club? Not a pretty sight. As a hockey player you really have to make sure your hips are not tight too tight. Skating builds very strong internal flexors that can tighten your external hip flexors and could limit your maximum shoulder turn vs hip turn differential that is the key to generating power.

I would also invest in a mat, a net and a launch monitor if you are going to be snowbound. No other dryland training will come close to the value of this.

The general theme for you in my opinion is to match your arm swing to your body as discussed. You should become familiar with terms, drills and concepts such as "keeping the club in front of your chest", "3 o'clock to 9 o'clock" drill (the mother of all golf drills), "clubhead outside of hands" etc. The more you know about your swing and its tendencies the better. I learned by watching what types of swings and body types created what types of ball flights.

Here's a few links.

http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/...-on-take-away/

This one calls it "Hands Inside the Club Head" lol

http://www.golflink.com/golf-tips/tips/sullivan005.aspx

At 41 secs in below vid you can see the 9 oclock position where your clubhead as I saw it would be likely pointing to the golf bag in the background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TV16YYicWI

9 to 3 - some variation or other of this drill is the most important drill for any beginning golfer. If you are swinging well you can do this drill from SW to Driver. I believe Nick Price is famous from grooving his swing using this drill with an 8 iron and when he finally arrived on tour the grooves on it were almost completely gone.

http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-inst...wing-drill.php

Awesome posts, Everlastrr.

Will comment on videos sometime tomorrow, however, for the time being i have to totally agree with you on "tight hips" as skating is a awkward motion for the body. I went to physio for about 2 years while playing because the outsides of my legs were significantly stronger than my insides. My knees were pointing outward because of the tightness in my IT bands. this also caused me to walk a little pigeon toe'd. Its mostly fixed now, as i haven't played in about a year. I still get some nasty cracks when i walk or run. and i should probably be worried about it.

All that being said, I will be the first to admit that my flexibility is by far my weakest element and is something i MUST take seriously this winter. Before i never stretched, (apart from pre game warmups, we had proper heat ups and cool downs after work outs + games) but other than that i never stretched on my own time. I find stretching incredibly, and i mean INCREDIBLY boring, time consuming and a pain in the ass...literally. However, since I'm older now, I'm going to seriously look into and try to improve my flexibility. not only will this help me out in golf, sports, etc, but will also help prevent injury.

My school has a few of these yoga, pilates, etc, programs that are free. As a fine Alpha male like myself maybe ass in dem yoga pants will be my biggest motivation! Regardless of my morals, this is something i NEED to do. and will defiantly take seriously this year.

Also, Since i renewed my membership at my local course (Weston) I got an "early bird" gift. which included its Winter golf academy. With this, i get access to a matt with club pros hanging around, flight scope, etc, and many more training aids. therefore this will be my "off season" practice. I aim to go 3-4 times a week and will strictly be working on swing mechanics and of course trying to develop a good swing, then perfect it.

Thanks again for this post!

can someone explain how hockey players hit the ball so very very far? a few people tell me it's proper weight shift but i'm thinking it's the wrists... of course at pebble beach i think romo and matt cain were longer than most pro's so it's not just hockey players

can op give an idea of where he's losing strokes? to me it's unclear

i think his biggest problem might be driving. one thing that's helped me recently is realizing driving angle of attack is much different thanother clubs. very much more upwards

so i moved ball way up in stance, teed it high, set up behind it. presto - slice generally gone. i think this is good at a minimum for training i.e. really overdo the upward swing path and get to something workable

something else that helped was squaring the front foot. dont have it 30 to 45 degrees open. someone told me this is how small lpga women pound it

here's the trackman data i mentioned. look at lpga angle of attack on driver

http://thesandtrap.com/t/32498/track...a-tour-vs-lpga

I will answer The second part of your post in another post as i may have a method to this madness.

IN MY OPINION, coming from a hockey back ground...

I think the reason why Hockey and foot ball players hit relatively big on avg is because of their core strength. Weight shift probably helps too, as we are more bulky athletes. Key word here is Athlete I remember working out with my trainer and we probably did at least 50-60% of our exercises for core and legs. this would include squats, snatch and cleans, power cleans, etc. not to mention a retarded amount of sprints on bikes, runs, and anything to get the "explosive burst" of energy. For example: (again I'm no expert, just speaking from experience) In order to boost your squat weight you must need strong legs...yes, but you also need a strong, solid, and stable core to keep that weight balanced on your shoulders. and also, so your guts dont explode. this goes hand in hand with a lot of other exercises. you need a strong solid core to balance if you want to increase your weight in lifting. As far as numbers went, when i was 16 I was 5'9 155 squatting 315lbs 4 times. after that summer i put on 20 pounds without doing any upper body work. (well very very minimal amount of upper body work, now all i work out for is the beach) To this day, i haven't fluctuated more than 5 pounds in body weight, (with exception of when i had mono, i lost 16 pounds in 2 weeks) All that being said, I think core strength is the biggest factor in why on average we would hit longer.

To those who are strictly "watchers" of the game of hockey may not notice this...but hockey is a game of those 2-3 first explosive steps. This is why Crosby, Ovi, and the likes, are so good is because they are just so explosively fast off the mark. this gives them more time to think, make plays, etc, split seconds seem like a month in a split second decision game.

Relating to golf, this "explosive moment" happens at the start of our back swing i guess. So in my head, me blasting my driver is like those first 2-3 steps race for a loose puck trying to escape a Dman for a breakaway (these never happened to me, i was obv too fast ) Or ripping a onetimer from the point.

I dont mean to offend anyone here with this next statement either. Golf is not the most "physically demanding" sport, like hockey or football. Thats why you see some more "out of shape" people in golf, baseball, bowling. essentially, there are less "athletes" in the game of golf. I would consider Tiger an athlete in golf, someone like john daily, ernie els, Vjay i wouldn't really consider them "athletes" and again, I'm not saying that to offend them of their build or anything like that, this is just my opinion.

I think that in the next 10-15 years golf will have an athlete revolution. everyone will be ripping it 380 of the tee. just because players will be more fit, and better. obv advancement in technology will help out also.

This was just my $0.02 take it with a grain of salt, i wrote this hungover as **** as its the last week before school and all my buddies and gals leave so its just hop on a 6 day bender time right now.

BTW, i dont want this post to Derail the thread, but feel free to post/ask anything as long as its related to Golf, I will also gladly respond to some hockey questions also. (Lets hope theres no lock out, few of my buddies signed this year!)

game off the tee is horrible...I always end up in the trees or w.e. this causes me to either punch out low all the time, drop, lay up unnessisarily and give me awful angles at anything. when i had my week of straight drives i was shooting 41's on 9s as a 20 hdcp, this brought my hancp down to 16, recently its gone up to 17.2 because my driver is just going left hard. so my goal is try and just get it on the fairway this week and play straight golf. i guess im just in a bit of a downswing with my game right now.

ive been working on my chipping game a lot, and its been really showing. i went from 1 up and down a round to 5-6. My putting has also improved a little to so that helps. My long game is just **** balls right now. something i gotta work on!

As far as the trackman numbers, i dont know my particular stats. I will however have access to a flight scope very soon. and will post everything i can on here when i have it. So for now, i cant really compare myself to those numbers accurately. All i know is my buddy who is a 1 handi has a ball speed of 170mph with his driver, which seems pretty good.