decelerating?

[xxio]

My bad days are when I start to decelerate during the downswing. It's a running joke in my 4some that I have a 108 backswing and a 100 downswing.

The times when I do feel the acceleration I get an extra 25 yards off the tee and about a club longer on the iron shots and they are a lot straighter as well. I think it is because most of my golf is played at a short tight course with lots of OBs everywhere or in another course which is wide and only medium long where the premium is on the iron game.

I can play "bunt" golf because I can play shots (180 yard runners, 110 yard PWs that come in low but still check, etc.) with my irons and my wedge game is pretty solid. Putting is streaky. I just need to get back my solid ball striking.

any drills?

[juststeve]

I've never seen you swing but a lot of people who decelerate do so because they took the club too far back to begin with. You can only accelerate so long, and once you stop acelerating your begin to decelerate. Perhaps a shorter backswing would allow you to accelerate all the way through impact.

Steve

[jeffy]

Tension in the downswing will certainly prevent you from swinging as fast as you are capable. Hands, arms and shoulders are easy to monitor, but what I found is often the worst culprit is tension in the core muscles (stomach, abs, obliques) that control and drive your body rotation.

Chick Harbert (a very long hitter when he played the tour and a PGA champion) told me that to rid his swing of tension he would hit balls counting OUT LOUD. If he tensed during the downswing, the tone and rythm of the counting would change and a mis**t would usually result. The goal is to be able to count out loud in a steady, audible, even tone from begining to end of the swing. I used this drill two days ago on the range and the results were dramatic. My downswing rotation was much faster even though I didn't feel like I was swinging "harder" physically. I think I had been trying too hard to "engage" my core and had way overdone it. This drill really straightened me out.

Interestingly, this drill also works well with putting: tensing inhibits you from completing the stroke naturally and releasing the putter. This leads to pushes and then manipulations to try to counteract the push. Yikes! Practicing while counting out loud I found helps smooth things out pretty well.

Hope this is helpful; good luck!

Jeff

[xxio]

Thank you for the suggestions. If it weren't for my short game and putting right now I probably would be shooting in the high 80's in this "swing slump".

[zojo]

just hit some balls at the range by taking your backswing super slow, then hit normally as you would, that should get you to accelerate a little bit more