Hitting the shot to hard....

[Belloz22]

Hey all, i posted few weeks ago about being frightened about playing shots, and since then, i have read the inner game of golf which has helped tremendously in calming my nerves and my focus. My question is, when i had coaching several years ago, my coach said, at the final pause, to pause the cue through to your chest with a sharp positive thrust, which should be the same power everytime, and the only thing you change is how far the tip is from the white. However, whenever i push the cue through postively to my chest, i always feel lik im going to hit my shot to hard and over run everything. This is especially the problem with soft shots. Should i alter the speed i push the cue through to my chest on all shots, or should i continue as i am, but reduce the gap between the tip on white more, as well as move my cue arm below 90degress so there is less room to increase my accelration on my stroke??

[The Doctor]

I would say that the advice you have had from your coach is spot on, however, the technique mentioned will only work well on shots of a certain strength and above. Without being scientifically correct, I try to imagine a range if shots from 20%-100% being played in this manner but with shots of less, use a slightly different technique. For these shots instead use a similar approach as you would if you were rolling ball with your hand, kind of like using the speed of the cue as opposed to a constant cue speed. Hope this makes sense and helps.

[nrage]

I would say that the advice you have had from your coach is spot on, however, the technique mentioned will only work well on shots of a certain strength and above. Without being scientifically correct, I try to imagine a range if shots from 20%-100% being played in this manner but with shots of less, use a slightly different technique. For these shots instead use a similar approach as you would if you were rolling ball with your hand, kind of like using the speed of the cue as opposed to a constant cue speed. Hope this makes sense and helps.

The doctor is spot on IMO. Many pro's use the technique he's describing; a constant cue acceleration on all shots with variable back swing. Some pro's go the other way, using the same back swing and variable acceleration, but I think the former is easier to learn, easier to judge and therefore should be more consistent on average. That's not to say you couldn't learn/do it the other way, just that it would be harder to master I reckon.

I think all/most pro's regardless of their technique for the majority of shots will use the 2nd technique the doctor mentioned, you can see it when they play a slow roll up behind a baulk colour, or a tap into the pack from very short range. They just gently push into the white, with a very short back swing, and tend not to go through the white at all. It's best done with a very light grip, and the only thing to watch out for is that you don't resort to an actual 'push' shot.

[damienlch]

hi belloz22... perhaps you can experiment with your grip... my shots go all over the place all the time until i changed to a lighter grip and less feathering, just 2 or 3 times... problem is some old bad habits die hard and i start to tighten my grip unconsciously.