When your game falls apart!
 

This is the second time this has happened to me in the past 3 years.

I am a 15 handicap playing decent golf (mid-80's to low 90's) as low as 82 until a couple weeks ago. Went out on first hole and birdied, parred #2 then came the bad stuff, finished with a 99!. I thought well it is just one game, but next day I am 104 then 106 and so it has gone on.

Initially I was topping my fairway woods and ok with driver and irons, then my irons started to also be an issue, as I was shanking and topping them too.
Driver was still ok as was my putter.

Yes, I am booked in with the pro.....but..............

I guess most people have gone through this at one time or another. 3 years ago a couple buckets of balls got me back on track, but this time I can't figure it out.

My swing doesn't seem to have changed and my tempo seems ok.

For those of you who have gone through this, what was likely cause? What checks have you instilled in yourself at set up etc. to prevent this happening again?

It's called golf, the other four letter word!

Yep, it's called the game golf !

Yes, I use both words interchangably.

But, is there anything anyone does to get back on their game without having to endure the pain for several weeks.

As I said last time was a couple years ago and things just got back on track with a couple buckets of balls, this time no go. I ene had my swing on camera and I can't see what is wron. My swing is on plane, set up looks and feels right, I am releasing to right field and not pushing and my finish looks and feels ok........................yup, it's golf!

I can normally get back in the grove by slowing down my swing until it starts to work again and take it from there. Worth a try.

Slowing up helps a lot. I went through a time I was great with my irons. All of a sudden I couldn't do anything right with them. Took me about a month to get straightened out. I slowed up & paid more attention to what I was doing.
Or should that be slowing down. LOL

Welcome to my world . As the great Chen Wang Lo said "Learn Chinese Play Golf:D

When this happens
 

I go back to the basics from my lesson, if that fails, the "ole boy" knows my swing better than I do and he can usually pick up on the problem....Do you have a significant other that knows your swing and as a last resort, I threaten to take up bowling....giggle...

The usual suspect is usually timing and tempo. When either go the ability to keep all parts of the swing in sync suffer and getting them back knows no time table.

For me I just keep hitting balls and trying the things that have worked in the past. I try to make my backswing as slow as possible and try to initiate the down swing with my legs and hips. Hitting from the top and swinging to fast are my greatest faults.

My handicap is about a 5/6 now, but was a 2 many moons ago.

I had a similar problem where my whole game sped up on me. I had to back and re-establish my routine of not hitting the ball until I was comfortable over it and then slowing the swing down and not trying to knock the cover off the ball. I also realized that I had lost some distance with my clubs and began using a club more than I used to hit.. This along with the more relaxed address at the ball and swing speed all worked to get my game back on track. Good Luck..
I

I found that I was pressing when I got a case of the "yips" and was increasing my swing speed, getting my hands in front of the ball. The pro I saw advised me to hit the driving range and to try to consciously "pull the ball to third base". This seemed to work for me as I was only focusing on pulling the ball, which forced me to turn my hands over as I came through the ball. It took me several visits to the driving range to right myself, but it seemed to get me straightened out.

Good luck!

Sounds like the re-focusing is possible the key for me as I normally have a slower swing. Having just replayed the video of my swing I can see on thing I didn't notice before in that I was taught to initiate my downswing with my elbow to keep the club on plane then as the elbow was dropping, to bring my right knee over towards the left knee at the same time swing to right field, which was my normal swing.

But on looking at the video, I notice my hips are starting to turn open before I bring my right knee in and the club head is then going slightly outside in.

This is a problem I had as a beginner golfer some 8-9 years back and I thought it was gone, but for some reason it seems to have come back. I think I now see what I need to work on, but I am still keeping my appointment with the pro, just in case

Golf
 

My bad scores are a result of LOFT. Lack of talent.

You are doing the right thing by taking a lesson----may need a couple. I have been inconsistent for about six months now and need a couple of lessons myself. I found over the years that I sometimes have what Gary Player calls "paralysis of analysis". You might try playing a couple of rounds without thinking so much and just hit the ball and have some fun and see what happens.

Start by chipping balls from about ten yards off the green. After about 100 chips, move out to about 45 yards and hit 50-100 balls from there. The take a short iron and hit 3/4 shots. After about 25-50 of those hit about 25 balls with a seven iron. Then go out and play.

I'm a Tiger lover ! :boxing2: I watch what he has been through. One week he wins the tournament & next week, he doesn't make the cut. Not just him, many of the big names of golf. It really is, the game of golf. I think we all kind of have that love hate relationship. LOL

Player...
 

paralysis "by" analysis...sorry just had to. :-)

I quit playing golf for 18 years. Prior to that I was a 12 handicap. When I started up again, 5 years ago, I had spells of topping the ball and the same symptoms you describe until this spring. Shooting in the 90s and 100s. Joey Haydock found the reason. At the top of my backswing I was straightening my right knee. He said that I had about 6/10s of a second to raise it and about 2/10s of a second to get back down. I could get down some times and others I couldn't. Have someone video you and watch your right knee.

I couldn't feel the leg straighten. He had me stick a shaft in the ground at about a 45 degree angle so it went across the front of my left shin and behind my right knee. If I straightened my right knee the shaft would press on my left shin. I did about 50 swings a day like this for about ten days and have mostly fixed the problem. Also, I have shortened my backswing. I'm now a 17 and declining and playing my best golf since I restarted playing.

Good luck.

Post up a video and let's have a look...

I have the same problem every time my evil twin brother comes to play.

WATCH THE CLUB HEAD STRIKE THE BALL!

All your symptoms indicate address and vision correction needs.
Determine dominate eye and get your nose out of the shot!
Watch too for "flying right elbow" (assuming u r right handed player).

If only I was like Tiger. His worst game is still better than my best game lol

Now that sounds like something I may be doing. I used to straighten my right knee, but by putting more pressure on the ball of my right foot on the backswing, it preveneted that happening. Could be an old habit creeping back in

The right elbow is ok, but you may have something with the eye thing. I am right eye dominant and try to focus on a spot about 4-6 inches behind the ball

Well it looks like I am back on track. The pro saw 2 things I had to work on.
One was that I was not finishing my back swing, which saw me releasing the club head a little too early (so he said) and caused me to top some shots.

The second was that I was pushing out too much on my downswing instead of allowing the club to release to the right, so I was shanking irons and fairway woods.

So my game is back................until the next time it falls apart............as you all say, that is golf.

Just came out of a similar problem. I found my swing had gotten a little too long which caused me to raise up slightly. Because of this I topped the ball or came over the top of it. To work my way out of the problem I went to the range and using a nine iron only I worked on a three quarter swing. Within a bucket I started to come right. I really need to concentrate on the course to keep the swing shorter but I am back in the 80's. Hope this helps.

Age old remedy: Take two weeks off, then quit!

I won't be giving up until they wrench my 7 iron form my cold dead hands......:1rotfl:

Quit thinking so much, just swing easy and keep head down . Don't worry where it's going to start until you feel comfortable again.

Shorten your swing, lighten your grip, and slow down - always works for me. By the way, these tips came from my pro. Good Luck.

All of this advice is getting way to complicated. someone mentioned paralysis through analysis. That's why I recommended what I did back in my original post.
Also many people are recommending what their pro told them. Murray's problem may have nothing to do with your problem.

It is usually better to just go through some drills and get your game back to where it once was and possibly better with as little thinking as possible.

And by the way, please don't try to keep your head down. That is one of the worst pieces of advice ever given to a golfer. I have spent hundreds and perhaps maybe thousands of hours trying to get people to move their bodies correctly because they were stuck trying to keep their heads down.

Well I had my worse round of golf this year. it is very disturbing when your body does not do what your brain knows it is suppose to do. Its time for me to reach out for help. Calling my pro in the morning.

It was so u gly out there today

Interesting post. You have discounted the information people provided based upon what their pros told them since "Murray's problem may have nothing to do with your problem", even though the OP specifically asked others for input: "For those of you who have gone through this, what was likely cause? What checks have you instilled in yourself at set up etc. to prevent this happening again?" And then you point to your own input as something the OP should go back to and review. I am not discounting your input as I agree with your statement, "paralysis through analysis", but I am amused at the "double standard" presented.

See one of the pros.