".. We all agree that too early wrist break slows the clubhead, don't we?.." Do we? Bill, I guess we're thinking again..

I think the main problem with breaking the wrists at the start of the backswing is, picking the club up sharply causes the same sharp angle in the downswing. (good move in high rough btw)

The club usually comes back to the ball, the way you take it away from the ball.
Example: address the ball, pick the club straight up and the only way you can get back to the ball is to go straight down.

We all agree that too early wrist break slows the clubhead, don't we?
Not sure what you are trying to say here. TOO EARLY OF A RELEASE, OF THE WRIST COCK. WILL CAUSE YOU TO NOT GET FULL CLUBHEAD SPEED. This is why the pros hold the wrist cock as long as they can, and release it just in time to hit the ball. This gives the highest club head speed right at impact, or slightly after impact. Which means the club head is accelerating into impact. Which is what you want.

Are we all talking about backswing or downswing?

We're talking downswing, but we noticed you were talking backswing.

Swing with your body, not the wrists.

No one mentioned swinging with the wrists, and not the body. And I'm sure you cock your wrists during your backswing too. Could be wrong here, But I doubt it.
What I'm saying is that all the top pros I've ever seen, all cock their wrists in the backswing and have a 90 degree angle between the shaft and their left arm at the top. And they hold, if not increase that angle during the first part of the downswing. The pros "Release" that wrist cock late and use this to generate as much club head speed as possible. This also seems ot be something Laneys' instructor Ron doesn't want her to do. I assume he has a reason for this, but I don't know what it is, unless it's a short term thing to help correct something Laney was doing wrong before. A lot of instructor do this. They give a student a drill to work on that is what I'd call "Overkill". They want you to do the opposite of what you're doing wrong, and they go too far. I don't think too much of this method of teaching. I'd rather see an instructor have you make a good correct swing, not have to over do things and have you coming back for more lessons later to correct what they did the last time.

Don, it seems we have a misunderstanding. Ron is telling me to do what you just described, delay the release as long as possible. We're in agreement.

Meanwhile, back at the range... I have had great improvement in the last couple of weeks. I finally got the feel of waiting and letting the club fall, and then smoothly accelerating it with my body, rather than arms (as Divots was just saying). Learned this via little pitch shots. Ron had me, with a supersoft grip and wrists, make the gentlest little shots, just a few yards, but with all the power coming from my body dragging the clubhead around and through, no arms at all. Once I got the timing for this, and after a few hundred of these, it transferred to the full swing. Now I can feel that the force gets transferred to the clubhead and pulls my body around to the finish. How sweet it is.

it's these little break-throughs that make this game so much fun...now we can't wait to get out to the course and see if what worked and felt right the last time will even let us come close to hitting the ball solidly Great for you Laney.

It is a gambling game, isn't it?

Ron wants my wrist cock to release AFTER impact. He showed me the move in slow motion, but it's not something he tells me to think about doing. He tells me release just happens if the other stuff is correct. I'm pretty sure I'm getting it.

Laney: I went back to check what I believed you had posted, and this is what you posted. This is not the same thing as what you just posted.
Don, it seems we have a misunderstanding. Ron is telling me to do what you just described, delay the release as long as possible. We're in agreement.
I totally agree with this, you do want to delay the release, BUT NO UNTIL AFTER IMPACT. This is where I disagree with Ron, or what you are interperting Ron to be saying. If Ron is in fact saying to release after impact, I totally disagree with that.

Ok, I see your point, Don. I'll ask him about it tomorrow, I might be confused again.

I remember that drill from years ago when I took the game up again. Had trouble mostly with the driver, and the pro had me hitting these little PW chips. I thought he was nuts at first.

Nice to know you know.

Well hit the range yesterday in a nice warm mid 50s day...man it seems the rust sets in sooner in cold weather...plus I'm sure the layers of clothes had something to do with it. Was mainly working on swing basics, keeping the club on path and trying to get my shots to go as aimed. With extra layers on I can't make my normal turns. But eventually got it in line and hit some irons straight. Then I hit my long clubs, 3W and Hybrids and man were they way off. Hit everything with huge slice in the beginning but after 6-7 shots had them straightened out. Driver was fine, ripped 3 out of 3 down the middle 2 with a slight draw. So all and all was a useful outing.

I'm playing Tuesday and I think on the range I'll definately hit the 3W and Hybrids to dial in my swing, but I'll also need to spend some time on the putting green. I'm finding the greens now are fairly quick now that falls here...

Finally got a chance to get out to the range and work on getting rid of the nasty slice that worked it's way into my game with a driver last fall. I decided to go with a slightly stronger grip and try to remember to not grip the club too hard, and it was working pretty well yesterday. I installed a S flex shaft in a Launcher 460 Comp driver I picked up for $63, and how it's working much better. With the R flex shaft, the ball marks on the club face covered most of the face. With the S flex shaft all the ball marks are much closer to the center, and cover much less area of the face.
The main thing I worked on was making a much smoother and easier swing with all my clubs. My irons were much better for it. I have very fast reflexs, and I tend to swing too hard, even when I'm not trying to swing hard. Consistancy was the loser with this swing. With a more relaxed swing, where I was trying to start down slower, my ball contact was much better and much more consistant. I even got brave and hit my 3 wood off the deck for fun. It was also much improved with the more relaxed swing. I'll have to try to repeat that relaxed swing today out on the course and see if I can get my scores back where they were before last falls disaster.

Well, had to hit off the mats yesterday. For some reason I was drawing everything and sometimes hooking. My new swing has removed the slice from my game.

I was drawing the ball substantially that I had to weaken my grip a great deal to straighten it out. I don't know what was causing this.

Anyway, I also demo'd the New Cobra FP's. I was hitting them probably a good 10 yds further than my old Ping Eye 2's. However, I kept hitting big high draws. I liked the way they felt though. Easy to hit and don't have stuff hanging off the back of the long clubs at address.

I then hit a new Cleveland CG Gold. You could work this club a little more but it didn't go as far as the Cobras. I will try these out again on grass to see how I like them.

My session went good but i don't know why on this day I was drawing just about everything and had to weaken my grip substantially to straighten out. I guess next time I'll be fading everything. Oh well, I used to pray for a draw and now that I have one I just want to hit it straight. Such a cruel game. I'm happy though. At least I know I can work the ball, now if I can control how much to work it.

JP4; I read somewhere that the Cobra FP irons have about 2 degees less loft than most other irons. Which would explain the longer distance. If you can hit the ball nice and high and long with them, I don't think you have any reason to conplain. Try again and then decide what you like the best.

Yeah, Cobra has traditionally had lower lofts than any other brand and so you'll get more distance, which is good and bad. If you use them, and then later start looking at other brand irons, you might find some that feel nice, but you wont hit them as far. That bothers a lot of folks. I've not hit their irons yet though. And I probably wont for a year or two, I'm not quite ready to switch clubs again.

That would explain it then. That would actually be a positive for me because I just can't seem to get a lot of distance.

Speaking of distance did anybody see yesterday Paul Casey at Doral on a 163yd Par 3, use a 9iron? Freaking unbelievable.

JP4; I didn't see it but I can believe it. I normally hit my 9 iron 150 yards carry. If the greens are firm and the ball is not sticking close, I can see hitting my 9 for a 163 yard par 3. In the past, I have hit my 9 iron over 160 carry when I didn't mean to. On one 165 yard par 3 with real hard green, I hit my 9 thinking I'd land the ball short and let it run to the flag. I must have nailed it perfectly, because the ball landed 2 feet past the flag, maybe 3 feet right, but it ran all the way to the back of the green. When I got to the green, I only found a small 1/8 inch deep dent in the green, not a real ball mark, just a small dent. I hate it when the greens are that hard. The only way to get close to the flag is to land the ball short of the green and hope it runs on.

As for the Cobra irons, to me the biggest downside of less loft on the irons is the lower ball flight that goes with it. More distance is fine, but if you hit the ball too low, you can't get the ball to stick close to where it lands. That's not good. The 9 irons is basically a 8 iron. More distance with less height.

Went to the range today and hit the following drivers:
Taylormade r7 driver
Cleveland Hibore XLS driver
Callaway FTi driver

There were reps from all of the companys.

I started with the Callaway FTi.
The rep handed me a regular flex 10.5* and I was skying the balls and spraying them all over. We switched to a 9.5* stiff and the shots really straightened out. I had no problem driving them into the back net at 250 yards away. The FTi did seem like it had a lower trajectory than the other drivers I hit. The square head also took at little getting used to it.

Taylormade r7
This was the last club I hit at the range. 10.5* stiff. No problem reaching the net at 250 yards. But at about the 200yard mark I started to see the ball start to hook significantly. Not quite enough distance, but I expect the hook would have been a good 25 yards if there was enough area to carry the whole shot.

Cleveland Hibore XLS
I just loved this club, started with the 10.5* stiff. Most of the shots were dead on straight. It did seem as if the launch angle was high. The Cleveland rep suggested a 9.5* stiff. The balls just rocketed off the club and were just past the apex when they hit the net. Maybe 25 yards high, close to half way up the net. I found this club to hit the straightest for me. I imagine the distance was also probably the longest.

Don...it sounds like me and you have similar goals...as my main objective at the range is trying to smooth out my rather quick swing...so starting down slower is a nice key?

Bobby; I've been a competitive pistol shooter for over 30 years. And for the type of shooting I do, it's very important to do things as fast as possilbe. For shooting my fast reflexes are a big help. For golf they cause me to swing too fast, even when I don't try to swing fast. This is why my goal is to start the downswing slower and not swing to fast at the start. When I was hitting balls this week at the range, I was trying to start down slowly and make a nice easy swing. What was nice was to see the ball go the same distance as when I was starting down faster, but with less control and consistancy. I can tell it's going to take some time to gey my brain to remember to start down slower, and smoother. I like the results when I do it correctly, as I'm a lot more consistant and I hit the ball pretty much directly on line with no ball morement left or right. I could live with that I think. When I played 18 holes the next day, I hit some really good shots, and I hit some not so good, and I know some of it was due to starting down too hard and fast. That and not having good posture at setup. That's one more thing I tend to forget about at times.

NO...........taking is back slower is a nice key.