My Swing (JJLinn)

I took your advice from last time, went to the range, and took some videos. First video is with my PW, then either my 6 or 9i (can't remember), then the longest one starts with my 6i and goes to about 2/3 through. There's a bunch of good hits and bad, and I figured it'd be good to include both. Help is much appreciated.

JJLinn, just my opinion, but it looks like you could benefit from working on your takeaway to get a nice backswing going. Right now you are lifting the club up very steeply with your arms, instead of turning the hips and shoulders to make your backswing.

This video might help.

Thanks for the tip. What would this help me with...consistency, swing speed?

Hopefully both. By using your body to move the club, instead of just your arms, you can generate more speed and consistency. Just my .02 as a fellow amateur... I'm sure others will have suggestions for you.

Being as young to the game as you are, it's important to focus on the easier concepts now.

Try and think of starting your swing with your left side, rather than just your hands and arms. You need to work on a uniformed turn away form the ball rather than picking up your hands right away.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I could use a few more yards on each club, so hopefully this works. With range balls, my PW was going anywhere from 95-105, my 9i was going 100-110, and my 6i was 140-150. I feel like there should be more of a difference between my PW and my 9, but I don't know how to do that.

The yardage distances will be greater when you start hitting the ball better. I would make sure to incorporate bringing the club back to parallel, and stopping and making sure the butt end of the club is not crossing over your target line (i.e. pointing right), and swinging from that point until you reach club parallel to the ground on the other side. That drill is great for building a solid swing; if the club is in a good position at parallel to the ground in your backswing, things get a lot more repeatable and you will gain a lot of power.

Parallel to my shoulders you mean? At the swing starting around 0:40 in my PW video it looks like I did that, and (what do you know) it looks like I hit it pretty good.

Parallel to the ground is what I mean.

I went back today and tried to use all of your pointers, although I must say when I tried to let my arms go up and down with my shoulder turn, I felt really out of control. Anyway, here are 2 videos of me hitting my driver...was hitting a fade/borderline slice all day (you can hear me say "I cannot fix that fade" in the 2nd video, haha):




Also, is my swing speed as agonizingly slow as I think it is, and does my driver shaft look bent/not straight?

Your problems are fairly simple. You swing well, well above plane.

Here's a shot of you with a driver, and me with a lob wedge:



Do you see just how high your driver is? With such a steep plane, all you can do is cut down across the ball and your chances of hitting it solidly are very, very small. What you need to to do is to swing around, not up and down. I employ a loop swing, where I take it back vertically like Furyk, and drop it down flat. It works for me, but not for everyone, and even I've gone off and on with it over the years.

Wow, what a huge difference. I remember watching the Haney Project and hearing him talk about this to either Barkley or Romano, and I wondered if I had the same problem. Now I know I do...I'll have to look around and see if I can find any drills or techniques I can try to get this into my head.

I have a funny swing, but you can try to copy it:

The golf swing is like an underhanded throw, but most people try to make it like an overhanded throw. The proper swing feels like skipping a rock across a pond.

Well I got out on the course today and hit some decent shots, but every time I tried to lower my swing plane, it felt very awkward and unnatural which resulted in bad shots. Also, my driver was fade/slicing all day, and I have no idea how to fix it. I'll try to get out on the range this week to get some video for you guys to break down.

then don't practice on the course?

Swing changes should be made at the range.
Good luck with the swing plane, that's a tough thing to change.

Well, the driving issues were the same new swing or old. I hit 1/9 fairways.

You can't expect these things to change overnight. You have to really work it down over time. It should take probably 15 range sessions to really get something ingrained permanently.

Range session #1 trying to fix my swing plane was an epic failure...got good contact on maybe 4 of the 45 balls I hit. Here's a video...lighting is really bad, but you can see most of the swing: