My “go” threshold for temperatures is mid-40′s or so. That should get me plenty of shots throughout the winter, unless we have a serious cold snap or a lot of snow.

I’m surprised there’s no indoor range around, but I suppose our winters aren’t terribly long or all that harsh, so it must not be worth it for those 3-4 months (late November to early March).

I picked up the Champion’s Edition Putting Arc at putting-arc.com, and at least it brought me back to some structure in my practice, instead of letting me “feel it out” and do terrible experiments with my putting stroke. My stroke is consistently good now, and with the device I now have something to go back to, just in case I can’t play for a few weeks (or the entire offseason).

Seems like a common thread in this whole thing is to find some structure, set goals for practice, and stick to one thing at a time in order to get a hold of your swing again. Just my two cents. Good luck with your swing adventures.

This is a good time for me to study it a little and maybe write up a post about it. Maybe I’ll even give it a try at the range for a few shots (and this point, you’ll understand why I’m gun shy about trying anything new for more than a few experimental shots )

No problem discussing something like that here. These “my progress” posts are great spots to talk about swing theory and that kind of thing because I’m always interested to learn anything I can to help me progress.

I heard about Norman’s Natural Golf style early in my playing days (probably mid 90′s) but I never really studied it much. However, I definitely do think there’s something to it. Moe Norman is pretty much universally known as one of the best ball strikers ever.

I think people tend to dismiss his style maybe because he was somewhat eccentric. But he definitely simplified the swing. He really reduced the number of necessary movements. As we know, the more possible variations there are in a swing (more moving parts) the more difficult it is to get the club back to a very precise impact position.

As I was composing this comment, I took some time to refresh myself on Moe and watched some video. Most surprising is that his setup position was wildly unorthodox, but his impact position really wasn’t. At least not to the degree as his setup. I definitely don’t think it’s a coincidence that he hit the ball straight.

Here’s a good video that demonstrates that Norman basically just started the swing on the impact plane: click here. In a sense, it’s not all that unorthodox if you consider that he just cut to the chase right at address and removed a lot of the variation.

I wonder about the distance. I wouldn’t be surprised if the swing tends to produce shorter shots. It seems like maybe it’s a generally shorter swing, but I’m not really sure if that’s because some of these videos showed him as an older player. Perhaps some of the moving parts that are eliminated are those which produce power in a conventional swing. That would be an interesting analysis.

Regarding my shanking, I think your analysis is right on. I believe that in trying to be more on plane at the top, not only did I lay off, but I think I was also taking the club back a little too far inside and getting stuck some.

Unfortunately, my lesson got rained out today, so I’m on my own until spring. I think I might take some more video and just try and return to where I was before I started tinkering. I can still feel the right swing from all my work this summer.

On a different note, have you ever discussed Moe Norman’s method of playing? I’m the Paladin who posted many comments in the Stack & Tilt section, and I still love the method and believe it’s the correct way to play golf. Having said that, I’m always trying to discover the whole truth with respect to the swing, and I found Norman’s one-plane theory involving an arm position in line with the club at address very interesting. I tried it a while back at the range along with his wider stance, and I seemed to lose a lot of power; I just felt locked in, in that position. I didn’t try it for too long, so I suppose you could chalk such results up to sample variance. but the ball definitely wasn’t going as far.

I just thought it was an interesting discussion. Sorry if I shouldn’t have raised the matter in this thread.

As for your shanking, remember that if you were crossing the line and over-corrected, it would put you in a somewhat laid off position, which caused you to approach the ball on too flat of a plane with the clubhead passing through the impact zone further away from the body (this area is known as Shanksville).