Golf practice Monday 20070326

Today's practice wasn't good at all. First started with pitching wedge but hitting the ball thin or fat. The hand was already ahead of the clubhead at startup position with weight more on left.
Probably need to keep hand more within the body and low. And during impact needs to accelerate through with turn of upper body but hand keep low in follow through and hold the finish. Hand must still be ahead of club head at finish. Drill: imagine the end of shaft has another club or stick extending upward and the whole swing especially after impact the projected shaft should not hit the body.
Then initially some success with the 7 iron. Focus on the grip and maintain the grip position and in particular with relationship to the wrist. Did not think about the downswing like dropping first from the top or the wrong way hitting from the top. Then changed to driver with a lower tee no sky hook today. But seems the swing speed needs to pick up and turning the right wrist otherwise the ball will slice? Need to find out more on problems and fixes with the driver.
Then go back and work on 5 and 6 iron. Here the problem came in. Somehow the grip did not feel right at all. Starting noticing the left hand grip there was plenty of space at the bottom of the palm and the initial grip always does not feel right and when the club was laid on the mat somehow the fingers and the hand would reposition the grip. Tried taking off the glove for better feel. Try Sam Snead book suggestion focus on left hand on initial downswing and only just before impact add the right hand power to it but cannot consistently remember to do that and result not consistent.
Major problem tho was suddenly too consicous of the backswing and just cannot get a correct feel how to reach the top position. Early on reaching the top position was unconscious and atuomatic. Only some feeling that the plane is more like vertical without too much around. But not sure if shoulder or upper body has turned or turned enough. Only sometime consciously get head stayed back behind ball during impact. Or try also rotating the right hand over the left hand after impact. But after impact the finish position was still unsatisfactory. Cannot finish in a wrap around or finishh high. Could it be if the backswing becomes too slow it confused the rythm to get to the top position? The wrist and hand position also seems tired and cannot hold in place but became unstable. That caused the downswing out of plane and the resulting ball flight was hooked weirdly with medium height.

Need to figure out how to have a consistent backswing and get a acceptable ball flight(height and direction) and with acceptable distance. Probably still need to start with shorter swing first and concentrate on getting the correct ball flight and keep the rythm.