Newer Member Intro + Frustrations

Hello All!

I’ve been a member for about a month now. Just wanted to make an introduction because I’ve been experiencing some serious frustrations lately. This is a long post, so I apologize in advance but I wanted to be as articulate as possible about my journey to see if there are any Saguto veterans out there who have experienced similar issues and how they overcame them.

- I’m a younger man; aged 31 with a slim, athletic build. This is only relevant because I thought I was athletic (i.e. have played a lot of sports in my life). Golf is a humbling sport that I’m not good at.

- I was always a left-hand player in sports (threw, batted, shot, etc.) until I started playing golf in middle school. Since I started, I have always played right-handed. I played through high school, took a 7-year hiatus, tried picking it up 6-7 years ago, put it down again, and now I’ve been playing again for about 2 years. I have been following Tom on YT for about 6 months and have been a member for about a month.

- When I first became a member, I had immediate success. Within a week, I shot the best 9 holes ever: a 6 over 43. I was previously shooting anywhere from 95-100 for 18 holes.

- I was striking the ball well with my irons, and the shot-shape was just as Tom said it would be: a push-draw. It was awesome. My driver was really coming along and I was routinely hitting little draws down the middle of the fairway, 250+. I was probably hitting 80-90% fairways in regulation and even if I didn’t land in the fairway, I at least had a playable lie.

- Now for the bad: it was downhill from there. It first started with my irons. My push-draws started turning into low hooks and pulls. Many shots were thin and if I made good contact and produced a high shot, it was still going way left. My driver was actually fine during this time. It was the best club in my bag, but then like the irons, it started going downhill as well and I started duck-hooking it off the tee. Even with all of this, my score wasn’t completely falling apart. I was mostly scraping by with shooting anywhere between a 46-48 for 9 holes. By this time, I had gone through all of the driver swing guide, almost all of the complete swing guide, and many of the common swing problems guide. Once I saw I was taking a step back, I started trying to go back through some sections where I was weak.

- Now, I’m on vacation. I made tee times to play golf three times this week. The first day I played, I shot a 90. I actually felt good with that score because I knew if I had done a few things better (driver and putting), I would have shot in the 80s. I re-watched the driver section to try and get the driver figured out again, and started back looking at the backswing sections again, especially to get the shoulder down and understand what that’s all about (admittedly, I still don’t).

- Today, I played for the second time. I tried taking some things I had watched and brushed up on in the video sections that I mentioned above to the range before playing and really felt pretty good. I was hitting my irons good and while my driver wasn’t stellar, it seemed playable. This was all on the range.

- When I went to play, the first hole went pretty good. I was on the green in 3 on a par 5, but three-putted for bogey (LOL). It all fell apart from there. I really had the worst game I had played in probably at least six months. I shot a 51 on the front 9 while not hitting a playable drive off the tee except maybe twice. I had to hit two balls off the tee at least 6 or 7 times because the first ball was in the woods, water, etc. For whatever reason, I was slicing off the tee really badly after hitting hooks the first day I played. I was conversely pulling and hooking my irons. It was maddening. On the back 9, I started ok and even made a birdie on 12 or 13, but it all fell apart again. By the 16th hole, I stopped keeping score.

Like I said before, I apologize for the length of this post. Tom is the second online instructor I have tried over the past year. The first guy was a single-plane swing instructor as well, and he also utilized the V1 golf app for virtual lessons. After trying his program for four months and sending him several videos, I realized he wasn’t able to help me because it got to the point where he started telling me, “I can’t tell what you’re doing wrong because your swing looks good” (this is a paraphrase, but he said my swing did look correct). Tom’s program seems way better, and I know it has to work. However, my fear is this is another program where it’s not the program that’s the problem, it’s me. I’m afraid I won’t “get it” like I didn’t get the last program.

I’m not really looking for a pep-talk or encouragement to stick with it, but I’m just wondering if there’s anyone out there who has had a similar journey and if so, how have you progressed in this program? Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.