My Swing (David in FL)

[iacas]

First: MUCH better than before… good stuff. Good work. Keep doing it. Even when you hit the ball it was better, so keep at it.

Review the pictures from your lesson here: http://thesandtrap.com/t/71938/my-swing-david-in-fl/18#post_943503 . That's where I got the image on the right below.

As for what to work on? More of this in the backswing please… (You probably won't be able to over-do this any time soon). It's left side bending (knees, hips, and a little bit of left bend in the spine).

[David in FL]

First: MUCH better than before… good stuff. Good work. Keep doing it. Even when you hit the ball it was better, so keep at it.

Review the pictures from your lesson here: http://thesandtrap.com/t/71938/my-swing-david-in-fl/18#post_943503 . That's where I got the image on the right below.

As for what to work on? More of this in the backswing please… (You probably won't be able to over-do this any time soon). It's left side bending (knees, hips, and a little bit of left bend in the spine).

@iacas , I'm not sure what you mean by "left side bending".......  bending my left side towards the target during the backswing?

[iacas]

@iacas, I'm not sure what you mean by "left side bending".......  bending my left side towards the target during the backswing?

The backswing is a matter of stretching (right side - knee, hip) and bending (left knee, left hip, spine a little bit). If you only stretched, you'd just be standing at the top of your backswing. If you only bent, your head would go down.

If you take the picture of you at the top of your backswing, and imaging pulling your left shoulder straight down, that's gonna increase the "bend" on the left side of your body.

It's the same thing you did in your lesson. Dave held his hand out in front of your chest and told you to get your shoulder to it, right?

[David in FL]

Got it.

When I do that it "feels" as if my back is really bending towards the target and my whole body is bending away from my right leg.  Really doesn't feel right, but you're telling me that's what I should be feeling?

[iacas]

Got it.

When I do that it "feels" as if my back is really bending towards the target and my whole body is bending away from my right leg.  Really doesn't feel right, but you're telling me that's what I should be feeling?

Straight down -  towards the golf ball. Puts more tilt in your shoulders. Your left shoulder is no longer oriented towards the golf ball at the top of your backswing, right? It's oriented towards the golf ball.

David, you worked on this in FL with Dave. It was the entire first half of your lesson. It's not new. You're doing it some, but you need to do it more.

On the left I've drawn the oval (a circle, but it's tilted, so it looks like an oval) on which you should turn your shoulders. The point on your left shoulder should trace the first 1/4 of the oval down and back to the red arrow. I've also marked your head.

On the right, you can see that you've turned your shoulders flat, with the red point missing high of the spot on the oval marked by the red arrow. You should move your left shoulder down along the orange arrow (straight down) to get that red dot on the red arrow tip. Your spine angle from FO (the green line) won't change.

Just do this in a mirror. Whatever you feel you feel, but that's the motion itself.

Again, not new - just exactly the same thing Dave had you doing in FL during the first part of your lesson.

[David in FL]

Straight down -  towards the golf ball. Puts more tilt in your shoulders. Your left shoulder is no longer oriented towards the golf ball at the top of your backswing, right? It's oriented towards the golf ball.

David, you worked on this in FL with Dave. It was the entire first half of your lesson. It's not new. You're doing it some, but you need to do it more.

On the left I've drawn the oval (a circle, but it's tilted, so it looks like an oval) on which you should turn your shoulders. The point on your left shoulder should trace the first 1/4 of the oval down and back to the red arrow. I've also marked your head.

On the right, you can see that you've turned your shoulders flat, with the red point missing high of the spot on the oval marked by the red arrow. You should move your left shoulder down along the orange arrow (straight down) to get that red dot on the red arrow tip. Your spine angle from FO (the green line) won't change.

Just do this in a mirror. Whatever you feel you feel, but that's the motion itself.

Again, not new - just exactly the same thing Dave had you doing in FL during the first part of your lesson.

Yeah, I know......I'm just trying to recapture the feel that I had then.

Thanks.  I'll keep at it.....!

[iacas]

Yeah, I know......I'm just trying to recapture the feel that I had then.

Thanks.  I'll keep at it.....!

Do it in a mirror. Don't even need to be outside.

[david_wedzik]

No change.  Struggling......

This is not that uncommon and I wish I had an answer that you'd really like to hear -- you've learned what you need to do and how to work on the things to improve your motion and your start lines -- but you are in a bit of limbo.

What I mean is that you are still most likely doing things in your "previous manner" but your mind is filled with the thoughts that it takes to do things correctly (with some more practice and time to get things right this gets better, trust me). Add to this the fact that your alignment is in the same limbo type state and you can see where the scoring problems lie. On the alignment side...can you play golf laying down an alignment stick quickly to see how much the alignment is an issue on the course?

Again, mostly this comes down to having thoughts in your head trying to do this correctly but the changes aren't there yet. Thoughts in the head are an ok tradeoff if they are getting the results you want...but otherwise not so great

Last thing: I know you aren't able to make tons of time to practice so get in a mirror at home and work on the things we discussed. The slow motion type work at home or in your backyard will pay dividends.

[David in FL]

This is not that uncommon and I wish I had an answer that you'd really like to hear  -- you've learned what you need to do and how to work on the things to improve your motion and your start lines -- but you are in a bit of limbo.

What I mean is that you are still most likely doing things in your "previous manner" but your mind is filled with the thoughts that it takes to do things correctly (with some more practice and time to get things right this gets better, trust me). Add to this the fact that your alignment is in the same limbo type state and you can see where the scoring problems lie. On the alignment side...can you play golf laying down an alignment stick quickly to see how much the alignment is an issue on the course?

Again, mostly this comes down to having thoughts in your head trying to do this correctly but the changes aren't there yet. Thoughts in the head are an ok tradeoff if they are getting the results you want...but otherwise not so great

Last thing: I know you aren't able to make tons of time to practice so get in a mirror at home and work on the things we discussed. The slow motion type work at home or in your backyard will pay dividends.

Appreciate the insight.  I do some mirror work every day, but I do need to get out to the range to reinforce it more than I do.   I know my alignment is better and the swing feels a lot better now, but ball striking is still a bit hit and miss.  Of course no 6 hcp is a particularly good ball striker anyway, so that's nothing new.  Shanks are long gone, just some ups and downs that are a little more dramatic than usual.  Hit 6 greens on the front yesterday, and only one on the back.  I can be such a goober with a golf club in my hand.  When you only hit 7 greens you gotta expect to shoot 81.... 20 round scoring average is 80.3 so it's not horrible , I just need to pick up 2 strokes.

I really feel like I'm on the edge of something good though. and that's where the frustration comes from.  It'll get there.  Thanks for checking in with me!

[David in FL]

Finally, maybe a bit of a breakthrough......  I know, I know, the golf gods are going to smite me for that, but after the last 8 months, they owe me one!

I may have found a new "feel" that's working.  I'm "feeling" like I'm swinging the club more around than up and down.  More pushes, and push draws, and hitting it dead center on the clubface.  Maybe even picking up a few yards as a result of the solid contact.

I'm a little concerned that I might be getting a little flat again, so I'll try to get a video the next time I'm at the range, but in short, if it's working, I'm not going to get too crazy about trying to change a whole lot right now.  My index just topped 7.0 for the first time in forever last month, but my last 3 rounds with the new "feel" have been 75, 76, 75.....all very solid, with 8 birdies between the 3 rounds.  For me, that's a HUGE improvement in ball-striking over what I've been struggling with most of this year.

We'll see.....

.......now, off to make some kind of appropriate sacrifice to appease the gods for my arrogance in posting this in the first place.    Playing again on Friday, so we'll see if they were accepting of my offering.

[saevel25]

Finally, maybe a bit of a breakthrough......  I know, I know, the golf gods are going to smite me for that, but after the last 8 months, they owe me one!

Uh Oh! You never berate the golf gods or you end up like this, getting struck by lightning and then claiming there is no God!

[David in FL]

Yeah, I know.  That's why I'm gonna sacrifice a snifter of good whisky in the hopes of mitigating my arrogance.