Slowly getting more consistent

@Russell Hogue, PhD Thanks for the tips. By open I take it you mean my lead foot further back from parallel line than rear foot?

I was a experimenting with foot placement the other night actually and being more open with front foot felt better and I chopped down less.

If I close stance I can fade ball or even slice and if I open it gives me room to swing in to out. I will have a play

100%. When you have a closed stance, your brain automatically knows the target is to the left so your brain will short circuit the swing to try and control where the ball goes (toward target).. .meaning you swing outside in. Chop city. I see it all the time. Hackers and choppers think that to make the club come inside out, they just need to line up further right. In reality, that alignment worsens the outside in swing path. They have to hit a bad shot (a pull) to hit one at the target. You also compile data and learn that an over the top pull makes the ball go to a target…so, I call it reprogramming. You have to spend time on the range so that you can actually see swinging right from an open stance results in a relatively straight shot that starts right and comes back to the target. Your brain has to be reprogrammed to say “that’s what a straight shot feels like.” It’s definitely something to work out on the range. In fact from an open stance, I have given this drill to others on the forum, about 5 ft in front of you, place on ball on the target line. Try to swing just right of that ball. See what happens. Now place a ball a few feet right, try to swing right of that ball, see what the ball does. Now place a third ball , 3 feet further right. Swing to the right of that ball. Before long you realize you can swing that far right with pretty good results. Further, your feelings will change from day to day. So, before you play, if you do that drill, you quickly see what it feels like on that day to get the ball flight you want to see. Some days, it may feel like you need to swing just right of the first ball…sometimes it may be the third. But most days it will probably be somewhere between them. So, on the course, you get lined up and pick an intermediate target in that spot…no thoughts…just trust it. That’s the key to playing good golf. No swing thoughts just align and release the club toward the intermediate target.

Btw - If you do the drill and see the ball is leaking right, that means the face is open relative to the swing path. Strengthen the grip. If the ball is starting left and going left, it’s too strong, weaken the grip. The most important thing is to fix the club path first. Then by observing ball flight, you can easily adjust the grip to dial in desired flight plan. Final note, be sure to look up the stack n tilt grid. It explains exactly why this happens. You will also see how ball position changes swing path. The ball position needs to matchup with where you want to send the swing.

@Tom Saguto Thanks for the tip and an important one once I get the videos over to you.

@Mashie*Niblick THank you for the feedback. Correct the blue net is target but looks like alignment sticks a bit left of that.

I have poor upper body flexibility and very good lower so makes sense about me pulling it left with body after going to high.

tomorrows round I am going to leave half my clubs out of bag and work on only swinging to where my arm remains straight and I don’t start collapsing or standing up to allow more backswing (should be rotating more).

I was a slicer in past and followed some of Hank Haney stuff to reduce that but isn’t dealing with route cause of chopping down, hence turning to stack and tilt as only time I ever strike OK is focusing on the lead arm staying straight and weight staying still so Toms stuff really jelled with me.

try and play tomorrow with repeat setup and weight forward, arms together as swing thoughts and see if I can break 100 after many years out :)