Here's my fugly swing

Sorry for the crappy video, lighting and basically everthing else. I was striking the ball solid today with my irons, but fade was often there and the take off of the ball would usually too far right (not straight according to my feet).

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...VEExport-1.flv

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...=NVEExport.flv

Here's what I mean by take off being screwed up. Light blue is obviously what the flight path should be, dark blue is angle my club head seemed to be taking today. Any tips/drills for fixing this? Do you guys think it's my backswing that causes this problem? Orange are obviously my feet and black dot is obviously the ball.

For starters you need to stop moving that right leg,your straighting it on your back-swing and it looks like you have lateral movement,right leg should be braced.

I've been trying out the stack and tilt method, that's why it looks goofy. I don't think I am doing it right, though.

First of all, I salute you for being honest about your swing. Not many people is willing to admit, "Hey! See my fugly swing."

From what I've noticed in the video, it seems that you barely able to hold the club on top of the swing hence the club kind of falls down there (out of the swing plane). The next thing is that you don't have any torque indicated by straightened right knee. You need to feel the resistance of recoiling your upper and lower body and use that uncoiling force for the downswing. I may not be much of a help here, but I do strongly suggest you to train your wrists/arms first to be able to steadily hold the club on top of the swing. I used to hold a wedge standing with extended left arm in front of my chest (palm down) and roll it upward repeatedly and regularly. Once your wrists/arms are strong enough you could find a good instructor for the proper fundamental. I once were just like you. The logic thing is how could one run if one couldn't even stand up? Hope that helps.

I agree. The main problem is your grip and not having a fixed right side on the backswing to load.

I don't know if you practice in your flip flops, also. But I recommend practicing with golf shoes or whatever shoes you use to get your balance.

Let me see if I'm understand this right. I need to keep my right arm/wrist rigid instead of letting it collapse back? I'm a little confused.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!


Best bucket of the year this morning. Made great contact and put the ball where ever I wanted! Maybe only 5-10 shanks out of 80-90 balls! Man it felt great to get back in my car happy instead of upset! HAHA.

Only bad news is that with stack and tilt method, my drive has lost about 25 yards carry. I'm not sure I'll stick with that method for drives. Maybe as I keep using stack and tilt I'll get it back, though; as this is only my second day at the range with S&T;

There is something going on with the way you grip the club.

At address, your arms should hang straight down....with more of an angle between your arms/wrists and the club shaft. The angle will be maintained during the swing naturally.

Power and accuracy will improve.

try moving your right foot back when you are set up to the ball.


might work it might not, unfortunately its one of those games!!

I tried to reply to this but I guess I didn't get past the Preview. Anyway, what I noticed about your swing is that you use your arms and hands way too much. It ends up looking a bit unnatural and stiff, like you are trying to force the club into all the right positions with your hands. Work on developing a nice fluid swing with body motions that automatically puts the club head where you want it, rather than depending on your hands to guide it. It should feel a bit like you a cracking a whip (though not so loose as that, of course) just beyond the ball. This requires good tempo and good balance. Swing at the grass until you feel it!

Another thing I see is that your right knee is coming too close to being hyper-extended. Try to keep it more stationary on the back swing with the knee slightly bent. The added stability will help you consistently move through the ball.

He meant that you're letting go the club when it's on the top of your swing, hence the collapse thing. What it also does is making your club sway inside (across the line) of the swing plane. Here's a

video to fix it. Hope that helps.

I'm no swing doctor, but the straightening of the right leg is what jumped out at me right away. Mainly because that's what I used to do, and still do on occasion. Bracing that right leg has help my consistency tremendously, hitting irons the best I ever have after making that change. I think it also fixes a lot of other problems like balance, swing plane, etc. Allows you to approach the ball from the inside as well I think.

Feels strange at first, especialyl if you are used straightening, but eventually it will become natural and you won't have to think about it.

You should take a video of you hitting a ball. You'll have a completely different swing when you are actually hitting the little white ball.

Agreed with the "sway inside" comment (not sure about letting go of the club). Rugger, the last thing you need is more rigidity in your wrists. I think what was being pointed out there is that when the club hinges on your back swing it points to the right. Personally, I think this is because your wrist is *too* stiff and the club isn't allow to naturally collapse on plane.

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm about to go to the range and try some things out. I'll report back!

ok, let me try to get some of the good suggestions from this discussion organized for you.

I agree with these suggestions:
1) Your grip
What are you using currently? To me it looks like perhaps you are using a 10 finger grip (no overlap no interlock?). Its hard to see whats going on in the video, but no matter what I think it would really help your swing become more natural if you did a total overhaul on the grip. To me it looks like you hold the club way too much in the palm of your right hand, which hirts your ability to hinge your wrists properly. It also looks like your hand may be too far under the shaft which gets your club face very closed at the top of your swing. Here is what i mean by closed clubface (see if you can see it in your videos too):
On the left the face is Square, on the right it is closed:


Here is a closed clubface half way back. The toe of the club head should be pointed straight up at the sky at this point:

Changing grips is going to really suck, it wont feel natural at all for like 2 months, but i promise you it will help you find consistency. This is where you should start:


2) Your right leg
Whoever was talking about your right LEG (you seemed to think it was your arm before, but its is your leg!) is absolutely spot on. I know you said you were trying the stack and tilt, which i cannot help you with, but i suspect that trying to swing that way is giving you bad lower body habits. The problem is you start with a bent right knee, then it straightens out at the top of your swing, then it bends again through impact. Basicly you are not getting power from your lower body this way, and you end up using your arms too much (another good observation by someone)
Here's something to try next time you go to the range:
- You have a reasonably good knee position to begin with, maybe a touch too bent for my eye but just fine. Take your settup position, don't worry at all about results, and think only about your right knee. Feel how that knee is bent and now concentrate on keeping that knee and leg solid.
- You want to keep that knee bend almost exactly as it is for the whole back and downswing. What i mean is, don't let your knee bend any more than it is bent, and don't let the knee straighten at all either. Swing the club a few times thinking only of that. When you turn back on the back swing you should feel yourself bracing into that back right leg and the leg should be solidly resisting or supporting your turn and weight. You should always feel like your weight in on the instep of that right foot as you swing back.

If you keep that right leg solid, I guarantee you will see more power and more consistent ball striking. More power comes from using the lower body effectively, and the consistency comes from the fact that you have a constant height now, meaning you aren't bobbing up and down as you would with an over active lower body.

3) The other thing mentioned was your hips going back too far and how you probably aren't coiling as well as you could. I agree that this is important, but I would mostly ignore this for now, because i think that my suggestions about keeping a solid right leg may help fix this for you, and there is no need to be thinking about a million things at a time. However, this is a topic which is covered very nicely in the Hogan boo i suggested above, as is the swing plane.

Also, if you have tivo, it sounds dorky but I get the best tips from the golf channel shows, particularly playing lessons (old ones more than the new), personal lessons, and any of the Bobby Jones "how i play golf" series.

Good luck, thanks for sharing the videos.

Also, if you do another video from down the line, get the camera more directly behind you looking at the target.