What Are You Working On? - Page 48

Right hip turn (leg straightening).

Working on finesse shots with my new wedges.  They have smaller heads than my other wedges and far too much bounce for my liking. The sweeper/slider "grind" seemed like a good idea at the time.

My takeaway.  Especially the end of my takeaway, where, instead of twisting/rolling the wrists and drastically flattening the shaft plane, i need to gently hinge the wrists up so my plane resembles that of the majority of tour pros.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter 

I'm working on a few things now:

 

• Trying to make better contact: I've found that I've been hitting the ground first, then the ball, with my irons and hybrids, so I'm trying to fix my swing to eliminate that. I've also noticed that I haven't been hitting the ball in the centre of the clubface. Again, I'm trying to alter my swing to fix this.

 

• Driver Distance: I've had to slow down my driver swing in order not to slice the ball as much, so I'm losing some distance off my drives. I'm slowly increasing my swing speed and trying to figure out what is causing the slice.

For my swing, I'm now working on keeping my head still during my upswing and transferring my weight to my front foot on my downswing. It's working so far, now I just have to get used to it. 

Keeping my upper body "calm" throughout swing.

Mainly worked on curing my slice in the past. Now I'm starting some work on angle of attack. I should be able to work on my slice and angle of attack at the same time, but if the angle of attack practice is to much to handle. Making my slice come back as I work on aoa. Then I will have to abondon my angle of attack work and just go back to getting the ball out there straight. I like to practice the wrong things at the wrong time, but oh well HAHA.

Becoming more of a 1 Plane Swinger.

Weight Transfer

Passive Arms

Two main things

-Slicing- My biggest problem since I moved up from the driving range to the course.

-Topping- Wasn't initially a problem but has become worse now. Not sure what is causing this, I try my best to keep keep my left arm straight(which helps with slicing) and keep my head down but I still hit a few tops every round. Getting better with the irons though, just need to get my distance straight. I rarely top my woods though. 

Two lesser things

-Pitching- the right distance, I either hit it short or long. Very rare for me to hit a perfect pitch on the green.

-Chipping. Just when I thought I had the formula down, I now am overthinking and tend to hit my chips nice but a tad hard and they roll too far, sometimes even to the dreaded other side of the green. I rarely chip short though, and this is a minor  thing since I can't some good chips occasionally. 

If I correct these 4 things, I'm convinced I could be a much better golfer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beachcomber 

Right hip turn (leg straightening).

Now focused on weight transfer from right side to left side - building a well balanced pivot move.

I'm working on opening up my right hip (i'm a lefty) rather than sliding my hips forward to initiate my down swing.  I'm also working on my pitch/chip game because I realized that part definitely needs to improve if I'm going to lower my scores.  I still have a tendency to skull my chips or under hit my pitches so the bulk of my practice time on the range or into the net has been focussed on this. 

Top priority - Driver swing.  Working on a smooth tempo takeaway that doesn't creep too far inside.  Working on a full backswing with high hands that puts me in a powerful position at the top.  And it the downswing just happens from there (in theory).

Second priority - Pitching.  Working on clean contact and distance control from various types of lies from 30-60 yards out.  Working on turning the body and consistently catching the ball before the turf.

Third priority - Accuracy with the irons.  Working on consistent alignment and keeping the wrists supple enough through impact that I am not trying to hit at the ball with my arms.  Just finish the stroke that the body dictates.

Here's what I'm working on in order of importance and difficulty:

* Working on eliminating fine-grained forearm muscle movement from pretty much every shot.  This pretty much means perfecting wrist conditions by the end of the takeaway...Or making a perfect takeaway.

* Working on feeling a lot of pressure in my left foot at impact

* Working on getting left shoulder to rise at proper time, sequence, and rate

I'm doing all of this, just trying to do it better.  2 and 3 are related for sure and are critical for me for trajectory control.  Things are starting to feel somewhat automatic and I can just go out and shoot low scores, provided my course management is decent.  I feel like I have a lot of control over the ball, it's just a matter of picking the right shots, landing spots, and roll out.

I'm continuing to work with my Momentus Speedwhoosh for proper release and swing tempo to improve fairways hit and GIR. Stats show that I am as likely to miss left as I am right. Pull hooks or push slices tell me I need to be behind the ball and swing through the ball to finsih. Speedwhoosh tells me when my release point was correct. For tempo I'm going to try a tip I heard on GC the other night. Inhale on the backswing and exhale on the forward swing. Makes sense to me and maybe it will eliminate a bad habit I have of trying to hit the ball too damn hard which results in me clenching my jaw on the downswing.  I am trying to hit an average of 10 fairways (71.4%) and 10 greens (55.5%) every round and let the scores take care of themselves.  I am now hitting 6 (42.8%) fairways per round but only about 3 greens (16.7%).

Trying to shoot in the 80's and hitting a draw with my irons which is a real pain in the dick.

After a disastrous round in which I barely hit a fairway and shot higher than I have in > 6 years as a result, I'm working on slowing down my backswing with driver, pausing briefly at the top and then accelerating smoothly on the downswing - after making sure that I get in the slot.  Also I was not completing my backswing so I'm also working on having my back to the target at the top.  Don't rush and make a full shoulder turn!  For some reason this was much more of a problem with driver than with any other club.

Let's hope it helps ..... 

I'm working on keeping my right leg flexed during my backswing. I have a tendency to straighten the right leg in my backswing and all sorts of weird ball flights happen. When I stay in a good flexed position I can hit the ball like it should be hit. I enjoy watching Lee Westwood who in my opinion stays in the flexed position during his complete swing.

My next swing project will be keeping my behind in position. Watching my videos of my right leg not staying flexed through out the swing, my behind tends to move toward the ball about an inch during the downswing. I'm hoping the right leg project fixes both flaws.

Any help or advice is truely appreciated

Posture. I had my kids video my swing in the backyard the other night, my irons have been going right and I've had a driver slice since day 1 of re-learning the game earlier this summer. My back was horrible, no hip bend and I was completely hunched over at the shoulders, my lower body had almost no movement as a result. 

I'm working on very basic stuff. Grip, address, posture, balance, take away, shoulder turn, swing plane, tempo, keeping head stable and eye on ball until follow through naturally pulls it away.

It really seems to be helping my ball striking a lot. I work on this at the range but try not to think about it on the course. I want to build muscle memory and get to the point where I'm "in the zone" more often than not. One thing I also work at to help me not think mechanics during the swing is focus on inhaling on the backswing and exhailing on the downswing.