On the follow through, I lose my posture. When I swing the club in my right hand and use my left hand to keep my left hip pushed in – I make a great pivot. But, with two hands on the club, I lose the bend in my hip. I do have a chronic bad back for 25 years. But, I figure there must be a set up tip or some other tip to help. Your thoughts?

I will give you a quick tip that will allow you to deal with this matter.

Get over your ball, and take your normal stance. Now, pretend someone directly behind you calls your name. When you leave your feet planted where they are, turn as if to speak to him behind you and that is the action that should take place with the initial turn of the waist/knees.

I shot a good round in my estimation (85 at bellair gc in az). on hole 12, a par 3 170 from the white tees, the pin was on the front of the green. i totally killed my 6 iron, but it hooked left on me, and into the bunker. i believe my hands flipped a little on the downswing… any tips?

First things first, be very thankful that you have a hook, because it is much closer to a correct swing than those that yield slices. The first thing I could tell you is to look at your hand position on the club. You might be holding it too strongly, meaning that your hands are more behind the club than on top of it. What you want to do is to move your hands so that the "v" made by thumb and index finger of your left hand points to your right shoulder, and the "v" on your right hand points to your left shoulder. Another common fault is in your swing plane. You’re probably taking it too far inside, giving you an inside-out swing. Try taking the club straight back behind that ball, and don’t bring the club inside at all until it’s at waist height. This will help make the path of your club straighter. The last thing should stop the flipping in your hands. Visualize that you’re hitting the ball with the back of your left hand, and that it’s sweeping down and through the ball. This will help you to deliver the clubhead square to the ball. Best of luck!!

On a recent post I was told to keep your back to the target, then drop your arms. What are tips to do this successfully.

If any of us on Yahoo answers really new how to do that time and time again, we would be on the PGA tour making a lot of dough instead of killing time in our cubicles on the internet. But I’ll throw in how I attempt it. I don’t like to think of shifting weight to the left or sliding the hips as I am fairly tall and I end up sliding too much and blocking the shot right. I like to think of starting my downswing by turning my left hip to the left. When done properly this keeps me behind the ball, and puts me on a lower inside plane (I am a 2 plane advocate).

I am a decent amatuer high school golfer who shoots up to 43 (on nine of course) on a good day and up to 60 on a bad day. My main problem is the consistency of my irons shots. I drive about 260 down the middle and have a good short game. However, I hit grounders with many of my long irons that not only kill my score, but also put me in an even worse position. If any of you have any tips, experirences, or methods to help me overcome this problem it would be greatly appreciated. My stance is such that I place the ball in between my legs, should I change it?

And yes I do practice frequently.

First of all if you hit your woods well you can trade in… say your 3 iron for a 7 wood. That’s what I do and I LOVE it.
Aside from that you could use a swing trainer but before you do that I would recommend a pre-shot routine if you do not already have one that will allow you to maintian the fundamentals for every shot. The pre-shot routine would address the flaws in your particular swing.

I need any tips or tricks to increasing my swing speed
Also I occasionally blade my short irons from 120 yards into the green how can i prevent that THANKS

I’m going to give you the same answer for both questions. When the club passes your hands (flipping your wrists) before impact, you will be both slowing down and exposing the blade to the ball. So the trick is to get you into a good impact position, where the back of the left wrist is flat and facing the target. For practice take an old beanbag or even a pillow to make very small chipping swings into, really feeling that left wrist pressing forward as the club hits the bag. Try to get that feeling when you are hitting your short irons. The other thing you notice is you can’t get there if you are falling away from the ball, a very common fault. So make sure that you are moving through the ball to your left side instead of falling backwards. If you can master that your distance will jump.