Just wondering if this happens to other people as frequently as it does me? Last week I stood over the golf ball, driver in hand, knowing I’m going to make good contact feeling confident that I was going to smash the golf ball. Today? Might as well have me swinging lefty. This has happened to me 5 times now over my 4 years of golfing and it absolutely blows my mind. I’ll play like ass with one particular group of clubs(woods, irons, wedges) feeling like I’ve never held one in my hands before, then one day outta nowhere I make one good swing with good contact and all the confidence comes back. Why does this happen? Is it just me?!?!
Edit: it’s not that I start slicing outta nowhere or hitting snap hooks, it’s that I completely lose sense of where the club face is once I get to club parallel in the takeaway. If anyone has any helpful suggestions I’d love to hear em.
Losing your swing mid-season often comes from trying to perform above your ability. Example - you shoot three rounds early season, scoring 92, 93, and 91. You know you can break 90 if you can just get that drive five yards further, or if you can just play that fade around a tree to get on the green. Fundamentally you know how it’s done. By trying to get that little extra distance or make that shot that’s not yet in your game, you start using muscles in ways you’re not supposed to be using them. Maybe to get the extra distance, you pull down on the club, or you tense your legs to get more spring. Both cases cause you to dip and hit a fat shot or sky the driver. A few of those bad shots and your confidence is gone and the hits keep coming.
The fix is two-fold. First, come up with a mantra to say to yourself when you approach the ball. This develops a rhythm that might override bad thoughts in the moment. I use “quiet, slow, don’t.” It reminds me to keep my legs quiet, keep my tempo slow and smooth, and don’t pull on the club.
Second, don’t try to improve your game by making shots above your skill level. Instead, focus on avoiding shots that are below your skill level. If you’re not ready to shape your shot, don’t try to hit that fade from the rough. Instead, play to the left of the green and take your bogey. For most of us, bogey is a good score. Avoid the miss-hit that sends the ball into the woods. Don’t aim at the pin that’s tucked behind a bunker. Aim center green, away from water and bunkers. If the green is really tight in the front, take an extra club and don’t be afraid to hit over the green and chip it back on. Your game is not to score birdies; it’s to avoid triple bogies.
A few bogies in a row and suddenly your confidence is back, your swing feels good again, and a few pars just start showing up.
Keep at it. It’s one of the few hobbies you can have for life.
I was listening to the On the Mark podcast with Mark Bull, and he talked about how sometimes swing changes can come from something emotional in your life. He also said that people will rush to fixing something physical when it was just a mental block you needed to overcome.
@Ashwin
I have had the shanks on and off. I am a good-ish player, but they almost always come when I am tired and my setup weight is too far forward and on my toes!
I’ve got a shanking problem myself. Similar thing though where I’m playing great and my handicap slowly improves all summer. Then BAM the shanks come and I can’t stop them. Takes me like a month of grinding to get back on track. It’s brutal. Golf is tough.
I’m glad I’m not alone. I lose my swing around mid-July every year. Finally just found it again. It’s probably just a coincidence, but yes. I have lost my swing 10+ times, lol.
Just my own theory. I believe we sometimes easily convince ourselves that we’re doing something we’re actually not. When we do complicated things very quickly, we get the order of things confused in our heads. But as soon as one piece of the puzzle starts to slip out of timing/alignment, now we get exposed. We try harder and harder to do that thing we are convinced of, but that was never truly what was occurring.
The more you understand the fundamentals of what you’re actually doing, the better. But then even after that, there’s the matter of how your body works on a particular day and figuring out how to get the most out of your swing even when it’s not great.
Last week I was smashing mine 266 yards as the furthest shot, and I was so proud of it. Picked up a new driver as I wanted to treat myself, and I was so excited to use it, and honestly the second I started using it, it was slice after slice until the seventeenth where I finally hit an absolute banger. It was super disheartening because I knew from that last swing alone that I was perfectly capable. But for whatever reason, something had changed, and I just couldn’t perform.
Been through the cycles and hoping this time it’ll be better. Rebuilding swing with more sound fundamentals that are not reliant on timing and greatly simplifying the swing. I’m guessing a lot of golfers heavily rely on feel and timing for their swing, which will lead to drastic inconsistencies both good and bad.
Yup. 100% have been there. I’m about 3 years into my golfing career, but I’ve played about 50 rounds this summer/fall.
As of right now, I’ve noticed a pattern of puring my shots and then getting the shanks about once a month, maybe month and a half. I’ll then get stuck with the shanks for a couple of weeks or until I see my golf instructor, and he walks me through some of the bad habits I’ve developed.
Bottom line: It’s a bitch!!! Hoping as I get more experienced, I’ll not lose my swing as much.