The 2017 season has a terrible start, due to consistently bad driver swings. Basically I just could not get the ball in the air, or it got up but then quickly dropped, and lost distance tremendously. This problem started in March, and then I stopped playing for about two weeks, because of travel.
The first round after the travel break was great, with only a couple of bad drives. Then the problem came back in May and became even more severe.
The driver trajectory was low, and often to the left. Occasionally I would top the ball a couple of times during a round.
This problem lasted for about a month. I went to driving range for a couple of sessions, without much improvement, until someone at the range told me to aim to the right when making the body turn at downswing. Then I realized that I used too much hands, without enough lower body turn. I tried to aim my belly button to the right at the downswing, and this fix did work! On May 31, I went to play at GreenCrest after work, and it worked out on the course too (a couple of drives around 240 yards). So I simply used "go belly button" as my driver swing thought, and I also used it for other clubs.
Later on, I would just remember that my hands should follow and lag the lower body turn, and should feel the lag between lower body turn and the hand swing, especiall for driver. The driver performance in June was mostly good, but some bad shots would still show up once in a while. Now it is July, and there are a couple of rounds in which all drives are pretty good...
Another thing to note: shank came during the last several holes at Heatherwoode on July 3. I could not get rid of it during the round, but on July 4 I fixed this problem at TopGolf. I just refer myself to my previous note in 2014 for how to fix it: more upright backswing (at 3/4 checkpoint), and extend my arms as straight as possible, especially at the top of the backswing. Also relax and be confident. Then this problem is gone on the courses...
