iacas
August 2nd, 2005, 11:00 pm
Gosh darn has my swing gotten terrible lately. I've continued to score well, but it's been a scramble every week. I've attached an image. There's a video out there too (http://iacas.org/asm/golf_swing_august.mov) (32 MB, 5I swing x 2, 7I swing x 2, Driver swing x 2), requires QuickTime 6 or something).
Anyway, let me blast myself for the heck of it.
Frame 1: Standing a tad too close to the ball. This video was shot slightly right of center, but my alignment is good. Shoulders may be a tiny bit open. Need to stand further back and bend at the hips and knees a little. Not much - an inch or two, max.
Frame 2: Whoa now! Taking the club WAY too far to the inside. This is somewhat recent, as I've been trying to get the club in a better position at the top (not laid off), but this is clearly not the way to do it. Holy cow am I inside. Jeepers! Bad, Erik, bad!!!
Frame 3: Club's still behind me as a result of coming too far inside on the takeaway. Shoulder turn nearly complete against a pretty solid base and minimal hip turn. Arms are a bit low, again a result of the poor takeaway.
Frame 4: Here is where the shitty takeaway really penalizes me. My left hand should be over my right shoulder here. Instead, it's below it. In other words, the club has gotten very far around me. The clubface is a tad closed here (not much) and it's pointing down the target line, so that's good, but my hands are way too low. This leads to...
Frame 5: ...the cut swing you see here. My body knows that there's no way I can get my hands to the inside - they're so far behind me, there's no room for them to the inside. So my shoulders turn hard, I come outside-in, and I hit a weak little cut. The shaft plane is actually okay here - I managed to "save" this particular shot and only hit a small little cut, but it's still a terrible position.
Frame 6: Impact looks good, but you can see I'm still pretty straight. Spine angle matches, but that's about all that looks good here. Weight shift is good. Head has stayed at a constant heights, hands returned to address position, hips are moderately well cleared (though not as much as I'd like, again because my shoulders have to rotate so quickly to get the club down to the ball). Not bad, not great.
Frame 7: Club way inside again because I've come over it a little. Not too bad. Nice calf muscle. :-)
Frame 8: Arms didn't extend through. I tend to collapse my arms a little when I hit a cut, unlike Vijay Singh, and to extend them really well when I hit my normal draw. I'd rather be a little more straight-legged here (left leg), but that's pretty nit-picky.
Frame 9: Decent follow-through. Belt facing target, club high and on a good plane.
As I said, on this particular shot, I managed to save it.
I spent a lot of time today getting the club much higher. Higher hands, higher arms. It really paid off, and surprisingly quickly. Width in the backswing - particularly high hands at the top of the backswing - is power and gives you room to drop back down to the inside and to come down the line. I hit a bunch of little tiny draws today, my normal shot.
But ugh... these swings, and that video...
I'm pretty darn self-taught, and I'll go two or three weeks before I pull out the camera. I want an effective swing, not a pretty one, but there's no denying that the camera allows me to see my swing instead of trying to feel everything.
Apparently, I've gotten very lazy lately. That stupid lazy cut is the result of a terrible backswing, which resulted in a terrible position at the top of the backswing. I had some good scoring rounds like this, but I haven't been striking the ball consistently. Pulls, cuts, and weak shots all around.
Dunno if this helps anyone, but talking about it helps me, so... there it is.
Anyway, let me blast myself for the heck of it.
Frame 1: Standing a tad too close to the ball. This video was shot slightly right of center, but my alignment is good. Shoulders may be a tiny bit open. Need to stand further back and bend at the hips and knees a little. Not much - an inch or two, max.
Frame 2: Whoa now! Taking the club WAY too far to the inside. This is somewhat recent, as I've been trying to get the club in a better position at the top (not laid off), but this is clearly not the way to do it. Holy cow am I inside. Jeepers! Bad, Erik, bad!!!
Frame 3: Club's still behind me as a result of coming too far inside on the takeaway. Shoulder turn nearly complete against a pretty solid base and minimal hip turn. Arms are a bit low, again a result of the poor takeaway.
Frame 4: Here is where the shitty takeaway really penalizes me. My left hand should be over my right shoulder here. Instead, it's below it. In other words, the club has gotten very far around me. The clubface is a tad closed here (not much) and it's pointing down the target line, so that's good, but my hands are way too low. This leads to...
Frame 5: ...the cut swing you see here. My body knows that there's no way I can get my hands to the inside - they're so far behind me, there's no room for them to the inside. So my shoulders turn hard, I come outside-in, and I hit a weak little cut. The shaft plane is actually okay here - I managed to "save" this particular shot and only hit a small little cut, but it's still a terrible position.
Frame 6: Impact looks good, but you can see I'm still pretty straight. Spine angle matches, but that's about all that looks good here. Weight shift is good. Head has stayed at a constant heights, hands returned to address position, hips are moderately well cleared (though not as much as I'd like, again because my shoulders have to rotate so quickly to get the club down to the ball). Not bad, not great.
Frame 7: Club way inside again because I've come over it a little. Not too bad. Nice calf muscle. :-)
Frame 8: Arms didn't extend through. I tend to collapse my arms a little when I hit a cut, unlike Vijay Singh, and to extend them really well when I hit my normal draw. I'd rather be a little more straight-legged here (left leg), but that's pretty nit-picky.
Frame 9: Decent follow-through. Belt facing target, club high and on a good plane.
As I said, on this particular shot, I managed to save it.
I spent a lot of time today getting the club much higher. Higher hands, higher arms. It really paid off, and surprisingly quickly. Width in the backswing - particularly high hands at the top of the backswing - is power and gives you room to drop back down to the inside and to come down the line. I hit a bunch of little tiny draws today, my normal shot.
But ugh... these swings, and that video...
I'm pretty darn self-taught, and I'll go two or three weeks before I pull out the camera. I want an effective swing, not a pretty one, but there's no denying that the camera allows me to see my swing instead of trying to feel everything.
Apparently, I've gotten very lazy lately. That stupid lazy cut is the result of a terrible backswing, which resulted in a terrible position at the top of the backswing. I had some good scoring rounds like this, but I haven't been striking the ball consistently. Pulls, cuts, and weak shots all around.
Dunno if this helps anyone, but talking about it helps me, so... there it is.