My Swing (Zeph)

[uttexas]

difficult for me to freeze/slow down; but I clearly see a backswing plane that is flatter than the downswing plane. Clubhead getting behind hands early, not rotating hips a lot on the backswing, right knee gaining flexion from P3--P4=not getting hands deep enough. I suspect on the face on, we'd see some early flipping==left to right shots.

[iacas]

Zeph, here's the deal.

• Take a relatively strong grip, particularly with your right hand OR line your feet up well to the left of your intended target*.
• Feel that your backswing takes the hands and clubhead UP almost immediately (clubhead quickly, hands ~A2) and then feel that your backswing stops with the shaft vertical and your left arm horizontal. REALLY short backswings with a vertical shaft. You can turn your hips more too but I don't know how you'd work that feeling in without cluttering your brain too much.
• Start every ball to the right. We know it's "face" but instinctively to a player it "feels" like path. PUSH every ball.*

* You're probably decent enough now to understand what these will do. With a strong attachment you'll "feel" the need to swing to the right more. Same with the stance open - you'll WANT to push or shove the ball towards the target. These two starred things go together. A strong grip and a stance left will FORCE you to swing out to the right more. Be careful with these things - maybe you don't quite feel this the same way I do. The second bullet point above is your "fix."

[Zeph]

Cheers! Great what one can achieve with a smart phone and good e-buddies. Didn't think about the hands and club since they've been like that for some time now, also when I was drawing the ball, but I see what you mean. It was frustrating to say the least to lose my path now. I'm hitting the ball first, so it's just the path that screw things up. I'll get to the rest of the swing later, just looking for a way to get rid of the slice the next 4 days. I'll try this out before tomorrow's round.

[iacas]

It sounds like Hank Haney to say this, but you've gotta make the loop go the other way. Right now it's shallow to steep. Strive for steep to shallow. :)

[Zeph]

If anyone wondered, it worked. After hitting some balls, they started to straighten out and some had a small push-draw. Erik got it right again, no surprise there. Turned out i had more than enough to think about with the hands. I didn't try to hinge earlier or turn the hips. One thing at the time. I did focus a bit on sliding the hips, which seemed to work when combined with the high hands. It felt really weird, like I was in a position where I surely would slice even harder, but the results stands for themselves. I felt like Bubba Watson out there, though my arms are not as high of course. Impact was also better with this move. Felt like I whipped the ball more. I sometimes detached the elbow on the backswibg and re-attached it in the transition or on the way down. Old habits are hard to get rid of. Taking it to the course was not as easy, which I expected. Irons were good at times, driver went from a small pull-fade early in the round to push-slice. It worked at the range, I just need more reps there. Shot 87 on a pretty bad round. 35% fairways, 33% GIR and a whopping 39 putts with 6(!) 3 putts. I'm no expert putter, but that was just terrible. I can read greens fairly well, but my distance control was awful. Made my eagle though. Pull-fade drive to right rough, 6 iron from 180 to 6 feet. Masks the bad round a bit.   The fix works, but I need some time to get it working on the course. Gotta work on the other stuff too at some point of course. Do the hands go deep enough before going up? I did my usual takeaway and focused on lifting them at some point, perhaps a bit early? [VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-IaPXRPtYY&feature;=youtube_gdata_player[/VIDEO]

[bunkerputt]

Zeph,  nice changes.  I want to second Erik's points and give him some props.  That goes without saying around here, I guess.

Not sure if this will clutter your mind at this point, but from the DTL view, it looks like your shoulder path goes from steep on the backswing, which is nice, but to shallow and across/left on the downswing.  Since your arms are attached, they want to cut across and you aren't able to maintain arm pressure points very well.  You tilt left on the backswing, but don't forget to tilt right on the downswing to get the left shoulder moving up, right shoulder moving down, instead of left shoulder back, right shoulder right.  Remember, left shoulder down on the backswing, right shoulder down on the downswing.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Zeph

If anyone wondered, it worked. After hitting some balls, they started to straighten out and some had a small push-draw. Erik got it right again, no surprise there. Turned out i had more than enough to think about with the hands. I didn't try to hinge earlier or turn the hips. One thing at the time. I did focus a bit on sliding the hips, which seemed to work when combined with the high hands.

The fix works, but I need some time to get it working on the course. Gotta work on the other stuff too at some point of course. Do the hands go deep enough before going up? I did my usual takeaway and focused on lifting them at some point, perhaps a bit early?

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

Not sure if this will clutter your mind at this point, but from the DTL view, it looks like your shoulder path goes from steep on the backswing, which is nice, but to shallow and across/left on the downswing.  Since your arms are attached, they want to cut across and you aren't able to maintain arm pressure points very well.  You tilt left on the backswing, but don't forget to tilt right on the downswing to get the left shoulder moving up, right shoulder moving down, instead of left shoulder back, right shoulder right.  Remember, left shoulder down on the backswing, right shoulder down on the downswing.

There's a bit of that, but it's quite likely tied to the rate at which the left forearm rolls (#3 above, third accumulator) and its effects on the shoulder trajectory here. He'll keep the right shoulder working "down" a bit more as he starts sending the path out a bit more rather than having to pull it left across the ball because the sweetspot has gotten above the plane.

But yes, his shoulders will change, absolutely. Look at how little secondary axis tilt he has in the right side (A7) in the second image.

[GregZ]

Would working on not letting the right heel off the ground, but instead banking the right foot toward the target have an effect to get the path more in to out?

[Zeph]

#3 did the trick and got my push-draw back. Straightened out the driver too. Works mostly on the rang and occasionally on the course. I've hit some unusual iron shots the last days, mostly with wedges and short irons. They are not the usual thin shot. They fly perhaps half the height, a bit farther and got some spin. The divot starts 2 inches in front of where the ball was. It seems my lowpoint is too far forward. I blamed it on a couple of things, perhaps mostly the head moving forward and not looking at the ball. We'll see if that problems persist and how to deal with it when the time comes. I want to get some work done on my swing this year. I'll go back to school in the fall, but I got a couple of months vacation. I first thought about going at it myself, but I want to use Evolvr again instead. It would be fair just from the help I've been given in this thread. First I'm off to two weeks at work. It'll help me stay focused on one thing at the time and be more structurized. If I ever become a professional golfer (one can always dream), I'll ask Erik to be my personal instructor. Looking forward to working with the guys at GE again. I'll get results with any of them. I'm better at understanding fixes I'm given than to figure it out myself. Learned a few things these last couple of days. The more I play golf, the more I realize I'm more of a club swinger than golf player. My joy comes from hitting good shots where I want them. I may three putt and leave the green happy with my approach. I'm staying with the long game for now and see if I'll get it to a level where I'm satisfied enough to spend more time on the rest of the game.

[iacas]

Good stuff Zeph.

Just one quick thing: feel free to post some short-game videos to evolvr as well. I too like to hit "good shots" but making the putt for birdie or pitching in for eagle is still fun too.

[Zeph]

Sure, can't hurt. My biggest problem with the short game is that I don't practice it, at all. There was a period where read Utley's books and practiced the short game a bit, and the results went up dramatically. I know I got some technical issues with the putting. I'm rushing things, looking up too soon, not completing the swing, wrong shoulder movement, pushing the ball by not keeping the clubface square to the arc, slightly open shoulders. Probably some of the same stuff with chipping and pitching. At some point I might look into Aimpoint or something similar, but at this point, I'd make the biggest change by looking at the swings to get me to a level where I avoid three putts most of the time. My short game is also usually a reflection of my long game. If I hit good shots tee to green, I'm more likely to putt and chipp well too. If I'm putting for double bogey from 30 feet, I tend to lose interest. If I get my game to a consistent level similar to when I shot 77, I'll more likely put more effort into the rest of the game.

[Zeph]

I've started working on my swing again after a 1 ½ year practice layoff. Got some of my old stuff to clean up. Head, take-away, backswing etc. First session a couple of days ago was pretty bad, but today was much better. I worked mostly on my take-away, a little on staying more left and not racing the hips, and a little on the head. My hands could get a bit deeper right away and I whip the club inside. Worked on getting the hands on line and keeping the club more on plane. I also tried hinging earlier, which resulted in a series of very good shots! It was hard to get right at first, so I decided to just try hinging right off the bat once I start the swing. It worked pretty well. A few fades here and there, but most balls had a draw pattern. Filmed a bit on the first session, where I didn't hit it very well. The good news is that even with the bad swing, I still got the hands in front of the ball at impact. That work I did earlier on swinging the arms faster definitely paid off. The hands are not where they're supposed to be, but at least I'm not hitting it fat anymore. My misses now are thin and some fades. Hit some really sweet shots when the stars aligned and I got the various parts going at the same time. I hit some shots where I tried keeping the hips still from the top. They're probably still more rotated than most, but the contact with the ball was very nice.

[Zeph]

It is the national day of Norway, it's raining, it's cold, it's blowing 25mph, everyone else is out eating cakes and walking in parades. What do I do? Go to the range and work on my wrist hinge of course! I've signed up for Evolvr again, as I mentioned earlier I would. I was right in assuming that the first lesson would be about the take-away and wrist hinge. I'm working with Mike and looking forward to this process. Here are a couple of shots. The first from my swing I uploaded to Evolvr, the second from today. I'm going to stay better focused this time around on what I'm working on. Not starting to work on other stuff once I get it right. I hit 4 buckets today where I only had one swing thought; hinging the wrists earlier. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/258143/width/640/height/487][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/258143/width/640/height/487[/IMG][/URL] Two different cameras and different lighting by the way. I realize now that I could've just used the 60FPS mode when I'm working on the slower parts of the swing. I've higlighted the position of the clubface on the second picture. Not a big change in the swing, but a big change in the contact and consistency. The difference in ball striking was incredible. It wasn't the usual bad shots from the beginning, I was hitting the ball solid from start to end of the session. Except for the occasional small fade and the pull-draws, the balls landed at the same spot time after time. It is really no problem making changes when I hit the ball as well as I did today. If I some day is able to combine this with the other stuff I've got to fix in my swing, I'll be hitting those shots I've always been looking for, all the time. Where you can't feel the ball through impact. I'll be working on the wrist hinge and wrist hinge only the rest of the week before I move on. Mike mentioned in the analysis that this part will help me with more consistent and better contact. Well, he was not wrong.

[Zeph]

Working on a few things here. The club is there to prevent me from dipping too much. I tried without the club first, but that did not work very well. I still dip a bit, but there is progress. The nice thing about this setup is that I can hit balls without really thinking about keeping my elevation. The club will tell me if it gets too bad. This change made my wrist hinge disappear again, so I'll need to put some work in on that one as well. My swing thought here is to straighten the back knee. Perhaps a bit much, but I have to exaggerate it to get it right. My tendency is to bare straighten it at all. Still missing some components here and there, so the ballstriking is a bit here and there, but the good hits keep getting better. I'm still very fast through the swing. I would make it easier for myself by slowing things down. [VIDEO]http://youtu.be/YC08ZbfIVsA[/VIDEO]

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Zeph

This change made my wrist hinge disappear again, so I'll need to put some work in on that one as well.

Nice work.

And I disagree that you'll need to "put some work in on that one". Who cares what it looks like at A2 if you're fine at A3/A4/A5/A6?

[Zeph]

[LIST] [*]Centered head [*]Straightening back knee [/LIST] I should start shortening the backswing again. Found some old notes on the subject. Hit the ball really well this session though. Head movement on backswing is not too bad, but still move a bit forward on the downswing. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/279106/width/640/height/295][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/279106/width/640/height/295[/IMG][/URL]

[Zeph]

It's not fair. Same club, same swing speed. Only difference is the stupid little ball. Perhaps I should try playing golf blind folded. Sequence here and sequence there, something is rewired in my brain when there is a ball in front of me. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/280415/width/518/height/700][IMG]http://thesandtrap.com/image/id/280415/width/518/height/700[/IMG][/URL]

[nevets88]

Are there any SnT/HSK instructors nearby you?

You seem to contract above the head (it goes down) in the swing with the ball and the head is perfectly still (Key #1) and the hands are higher in the picture without the ball which I'm sure you've already noticed.

I have a similar problem except when I get my hands forward, sometimes I shank or thin it, but I'm progressing slowly. It's hard to get rid of old habits. Getting my arms down faster and the drill where you preset your weight and hands forward helped me.

This sounds crazy, but how about taping yourself blindfolded or eyes closed. Take yourself literally.