Five easy pieces - of the puzzle

The best news I've had lately is that split-hand putting works - for me, anyway. I've tried it all, but split-hand feels natural, almost total reliance on my decidedly dominant (right) lower hand. I imagine myself throwing a ball to the hole, rather than hitting it two-handed. For now, it's working well enough; my putts per round are starting to come down. Still not holing much, but I think that will come.

I've also convinced myself that for iron shots it's necessary to consciously break or cock my wrists quite early. This action accentuates the more upright swing plane and steeper descent into the ball that is giving me more action and more elevation, with fewer tops. While it's feeling good, I'll stick to it.

Not unrelated to this is my decision to opt for a constant ball position - directly under my shirt logo - or you could say about three inches behind my (left) front heel. This feels natural; suits my eye and it applies to all shots, including putting. The thing that changes is my rear foot position. The stance gets progressively wider stance) as the clubs get longer. Width of stance changes affect posture. There's a lot about this on the web and it supports constant ball position.

I'm also returning to my Jimmy Ballard connection commitment. I know that keeping the left upper arm close to my left pec works for me in terms of consistency, and I know it limits the length of my backswing, but with decent wrist cock and using the method I'll mention below, this is not a big issue.

Finally, I've decided that I need to go with a strong (rotated right) left hand grip and a weakish (thumb on top) right hand grip. I know there are hooking risks, but I'm losing too many shots to the right, hitting too many pushes, too many fades, so I need to try something new (for me). In the past, I've probably caused myself some problems by having both hands too strong, so this compromise will hopefully work out better. Again, there is discussion on the web about this.

That's my five easy fixes - or pieces of my puzzle - the next few weeks and months should be interesting.