My Swing Video at Swing Academy

Please take a look at my swing here

Side View

I feel like it's really ugly, any tips or drills or anything would be VERY helpful, I hit the ball a long ways, but am terribly inconsistent. I am open to any ideas for tips drills fixes etc.

Thanks everyone

Is that the Fitzsimons G.C. range?

It doesnt look terribly bad....it actually looks very similar to my swing. To me, it seems you could be a little more relaxed at address but thats in individual thing.

From what i saw, youre a slider with your hips, (which is fine, some people just do that) but you have a very strong grip. What does the ball do after you hit it?

From what i saw i would work on the grip. (making the palms of the hands face each other more so they arent fighting each other for control) and relax a bit at address.

I just did my less than expert analysis for you for what it is worth. I think your posture at set up could improve. You could use less arm lift and more shoulder turn.

Why yes it is, my wife goes to school at the Hospital. So I spend a lot of time there.

As far as ball flight, I hit a lot of draws. Controlled most of the time, but I tend to either hit it really well, or shank it terribly.

Jambalaya left some very good comments on the swing academy site. Regarding address a few thoughts that might help you on set up are:

1. Try sqeezing your shoulder blades togeather slightly, which should help with the rounding of your shoulders at address. 2. Have someone hold a club shaft down your back, it should touch down most of your back and leave about 1-fingers with space between the club and your lower back. 3. For bending at the hips pull your pants up to your waist, most people tend to wear their pants below their waistline, the correct position is about 1/2" below your bellybutton (Imagine how you envision old folks wearing their pants). Now with your pants in that position and while wearing a belt, bend at the hips so that your belt buckle starts to point towards the ball (this image should help the proper joint bending). If you slouch your belt buckle will still face forward, which is the wrong feeling. Hope these help. -E

You can work on your setup but it wont do anything about the clubhead throwaway. The impact position shows that the clubhead is passing your hands very quickly, so either its a conscious attempt to get the clubhead back to the ball, or your body has stopped rotating, throwing all the energy into the clubhead - causing it to take off all on its own.

Take alot at both images from where the scroller is over the 'd' in 'fwd'. You'll notice a drop of the shoulders, and with your hands high and the shaft across the line, there is a lot of weight on your toes. From here, you body will try to keep its balance by standing UP, which will cast the club out because your intuition is to get the clubhead back to the ball.

Jump onto YOUTUBE and look at some of the top player's impact positions. This is a great image to have in your head while you practice.

A focus should be on flattening your shaft plane which will bring you a little more shallow into the ball. Rather than give you a drill, video tape your self trying to flatten out your shaft plane and work from here.

Your build is great for power so try to maximize this. If you can hit a knockdown/punch shot from a driver ball position - and take a good divot - you're on your way to longer, lower, straigher shots.

I'll go down the list:

1: You bring the club inside of plane on the back. This will lead to poor ball compression and low draws with hooks as your bad miss. Basically what I mean by that is the club is being pulled inside of your hands quickly. Look at the Tiger video below and notice how long the club stays outside of his hands on his takeaway vs. how quickly yours gets inside of your hands.

2: Because you bring the club so far inside of plane your club is very flat going back. This will lead to even more poor compression, hooks, and low draws.

3: Due to the fact that your swing is flat you are probably directing more energy outward rather than downward because you simply don't have the proper angle to strike down on the ball. This is why your left foot is rotating outward when you finish rather than staying planted. Try turning your left foot out more, it will save your joints a lot for when you get older and it will allow you to swing a bit freer.

4: Your lag isn't quite there yet. If you look at the side view you will see that just after impact your left wrist is already completely bent. The shaft is passing your hands just before impact most likely. The is a symptom of not having a good pause at the top of your back swing but also once again part of being off plane.


Try to do this:

1: Get used to turning your left foot outward 45 degrees. If the target is 0 degrees and the ball is 90 degrees then put it pointing in the middle of that.

2: This will get specific. Imagine you aren't holding a club, just a shaft with a laser pointing straight out of each end. Now imagine there is a 4 inch wide straight line that extends 4 feet in front and 4 feet behind your ball. With your take away draw a straight line back to the end of that line, when the laser reaches that point then flip the club up and draw the laser that is sticking out of the butt of the club straight down the same line. If you can keep the lasers on that line you are perfectly on plane.

You should be able to identify what I mean by that with this video. Just imagine lasers sticking out of both ends of Tiger's club with a straight line in front of and behind the ball. Another thing you will notice in his swing is at the top his club is pointed slightly left of his target. At the top of your swing your club is pointing right of your target. That's another symptom of a flat swing.



3: Develop a pause at the top of your swing and try to keep your arms as dead and limp as possible. Try to make your forward swing far more narrow than your take away. This will create proper lag. See video:

Notice how wide his back swing is and how narrow it is coming back through. That is club head lag which generates power.
Notice how your swing is just as wide going forward as going backward.

I agree that he brings the club inside but his downswing plane is really good. It seems to be a kind of an axiom in golf these days that if you bring the club inside the shoulder plane at a certain level that you can't have a good swing. That is probably true of most people because the resulting downswing comes back flat too. But his downswing is not flat. It comes down close to parallel and just inside the desired plane. I analyzed one of Hogan's swing and by today's measure he brings the club too far inside on the takeaway. I am not claiming to "know" this to be true but don't we overemphasize this factor? Isn't it partially what a two plane swing is about? Just asking. Shoot me down if you like.

He looks to me to be a little inside plane on the way down too but it is really hard to tell from the angle we are looking at.

He isn't so far under plane as to cause a huge problem though, he will just hit mostly draws assuming his other mechanics are good. If you want to get technical the only thing that matters is: 1: flat left wrist at impact 2: forward leaning shaft 3: down and outward strike on the ball Now plane line matters but in general you can hit a good ball even with a somewhat bad plane assuming you are doing all those things well. You will just hit the same draw or the same cut all day long. I know a lot of good players with those short comings and they do just fine. Hell look at JB Holmes. Those 3 things have to be there to hit good shots though. The rest of the ticky tack things will give more a bit more consistency, a bit more ball movement ability, a bit more power, and a bit more efficiency.

A big thank you to all that have made comments on my swing.....I went to the range with a few of those things in mind, and I was much more consistent trying some of the tips............I will take another video sometime when the weather is decent and see if there is any improvement in my swing. I will just post it to this thread when I get the video.

Thanks again to all that have helped, the advice at this forum is great.

IMO try shortening up your backswing a touch...im no pro but i use to overswing with my irons and was terribly inconsistent...i shortened up my backswing with my irons and i have total control now...i just use a longer iron if i need alittle more distance and not try to power it...hope this helps...just my 2 cents worth...good luck...and your swing is nice actually...good mechanics...

one of the best videos I've watched for the perfect swing:

You are gifted with an athletic golf swing and you simple need to make a few adjustment that will make you more consistent with your golf swing.

1) I notice that your right leg straightens on your backswing which may indicate that you are not turning level or parallal with the ground but lifting on your backswing.

make sure that your right knee remains bent on your back swing and the top of your backswing so that base is more stable.

level hip turn video

Level hip turn. if you set up with the right amount forward flexion your hips are set up NOT to turn level. If the back is straight how can the hips turn level?

Maybe the wording is just off.... maybe its level in relation to the new/altered position in address, which tilts the hips from back to front. From here, in order to help maintain spine angle, the hips will not turn level to anything. They must be dynamic in order to properly execute the pivot.

your swing is similar to mine.