Help - check out my swing

Greetings from Carnoustie, the place is hotting up in the build up to the Open, I cant wait to smell them burgers !!

Anyway, I'm having terrible trouble hitting the ball at the moment, and was wondering if any of you guys can point out any flaws in my swing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ-VYA2Qxx8

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yS3CREIviWs


Help is Appreciated.

do u pull the ball? j/w cuz from ur video it looks like ur cutting across the ball... (swinging outside-in)

Yeah I agree with Outrider you do look alittle outside in.

Yes, I tend to slice and pull, more so with Woods.

Setup looks good, takeaway might be a little to the outside (hard to tell with the angle)? plane angle is good but at the top of the swing it looks like your left wrist has broken down and your shaft is pointing way left of the target line which sets you up for that outside in.

You can see that outside in by... well the clubhead, but your hands are too far out. If you were to draw a line up from the shaft to the center of your right shoulder, then your hands on the downswing should be pretty much on that line.

Incidentally when you see video's and shots taken in the mags (generally, or at least this is what Leadbetter recommends) it's taken about hip height half way between the ball and the feet. Not down the line of the feet.

It looks to me as if you as shifting your hips towards your right foot, and then your left. What you should be doing is keeping your hips in place while rotating them. To fix this try keeping your feet in place and moving your right knee a few inches towards your left before you swing. This will prevent you from shifting your hips back and forth and will improve your ball striking dramatically.

Stokie, you have a typical amateur reverse pivot, outside-in swing plane, with a flip and cast release. Lets go step by step through your swing and take a look at it.


Setup:


The Good:
Your setup is pretty good. You have good tilt over the ball. Your arms are hanging down nicely and relatively relaxed... and you also have good knee flex. You look very well balanced. You aren't on your heels or toes. The width is good, grip is perfectly neutral, and your knees are just over the instep of your feet. You look ready to go.

The Bad:
You dont have any axis tilt away from the target. This is going to cause you problems with your release. Your ball position is also too far back. The combination of these two things with an intention to throw the clubhead at the ball will cause the casting and flipping. Your hands are mid body which also promotes a flip/cast. The goal should be to get your hands ahead for impact but by setting up with midbody hands you're giving yourself a mental image of where your hands should be at impact. Putting your hands forward would help assist you with your release.


Takeaway:



The Good:
I like your takeaway. You aren't rotating your forearms, you're just turning your shoulders. We can see your right elbow out in front of your rib cage which is a key indicator. You're keeping your tilt over the ball. You're keeping your knee flex, and left shoulder moving well under your chin with some space. You haven't tried to pick the club up with your wrists as we can see in the face on view. This means you're swinging the club instead of trying to leverage it.

The Bad:
Already we can see your right knee starting toward the outside of your back foot. This slide is not good because you're going to shift your lower body back while keeping the upper body leaning forward. This is the first indication we'll see of a reverse pivot. We can already see your axis tilt already getting more up and down than at setup.


Halfway Back:



The Good:
In the down the line view we still see you maintaining your tilt over the ball.. good balance and a testament to a balanced setup. You aren't shifting all over the place from heel to toe. Your right elbow is still out in front of your ribs, your left shoulder moving nicely under you chin with some space still, and the club is on plane going up through your shoulder. In the face on view we see your wrists are now starting to hinge which means the club is in control of the motion. That's a good aspect of a SWING motion rather than manipulation.

The Bad:
Just a continuation of what I was saying about the previous frame. It's just getting worse and worse. Right knee is kicking outward, hips are sliding back while the upper body is leaning forward. A classic example of a reverse pivot.


Top:



The Good:
Right elbow still out in front of your ribcage.. Right hip hasn't shifted AWAY from the ball (it did slide back from the target though), this means you actually are wound up on it. I'm afraid that with the knee buckling away though, you won't be able to push at the start of the forward swing. You won't be able to push until the knee gets back inside of your foot.... making your right hip action quite late. It's a loss of power.

Left shoulder is nicely placed under your chin... and you still have your spine tilt over the ball. This is all a pretty arm swing taking it back. Your hands are just a tad bit under the plane I would prefer but it's really nice. Club is not WAY behind you, but just a little bit. It's being held up right over your right forarm. Good position.

The Bad:
Your hip action is just killing you here. The club is a tad bit behind you but because your right arm is still out in front of you, you're fine. If you didn't have that right elbo position you could be in trouble. Overall though, this is hardly even worth working on. Lots of great players are right there including Tiger in 2000. In fact, your arm swing mimic's his.. but your lower body needs some work.

In the face on view we can see the right hip is not inside of your foot but directly over it not allowing you to push forward off that foot. We can see your axis tilt leaning forward now. Your left side is curved which is a sure sign of reverse pivot. This is the forward looking "C" that comes before a reverse pivot "Reverse C".


Halfway To Ball:



The Good:
You've maintained your spine tilt over the ball which will actally allow your right shoulder to move toward the ball.

The Bad:
Unfortunately now we see the results of the poor hip turn and reverse pivot. We usually see a comination things happen to try and make up for a poor pivot and your swing is no exception.

Notice that your right elbow is no longer in front of your ribcage but now it's behind you. This is even more visible in the face on view. It's to your side rather than in front of you. We have a right forearm that has already started to roll to try and shut the face down a bit. The right knee hasn't really moved except just to get back inside of your back foot. We could predict this in the earlier frame when your knee was trying to get outside of your foot due to the hip slide. The right knee should already be bent toward the left by now and I prefer to see the right heel already comming up slightly off the ground. Your axis tilt is nearly straight up and down which means from the back of your neck to the ball there is a lot of space. The only way you can make up that space is by throwing the clubhead away from you early. We can also see some effort to control direction by bending your left arm. By bending the left elbow it helps to close the clubface through impact and is very common to see this along with early casting and flipping. By this point you are VERY afraid of hitting it to the RIGHT.


Impact:



The Good:
Still have good tilt over the ball and right shoulder is low under your chin. That shoulder is really driving forward and low. A good supply of power.

The Bad:
Your arms are very very close to your body because you're trying to pull the club accross it (Outside-In). You have posted up on your left leg, however it's angled way back. You aren't actually geting OVER the foot you're hanging back. This is typical for a reverse pivot.

Your right elbow is still behind you and bending back. Your left wrist is not flat which is a clear indication of flipping.

I have often said flipping is an intention to control DIRECTION. Either direction to get the ball UP in the air, or CLOSE the face and avoid a cut/slice. You are trying to get the clubface closed and hold it square to the target as long as you can. Again the left elbow bending helps to do this.

Follow Through:



The Good:
Heel of your back foot is finally comming up off the ground. Right knee is kicking in the right direction... not directly at the target or the ball.. but about 45 degrees between the two. It is the correct hip action, it's just really really late because you had to shift your legs first. Once you had leverage to push off the right foot, you did a nice job. Like I said though, that right knee being shifted out too far forced you to wait until it was back inside of your instep. Now you have good axis tilt... it's just a little late.. and you're posted up well on your front leg. You're actually going to finish in balance nicely.

The Bad:
Look at the clubface. Despite everything you did to try and close the clubface at impact, you have been forced to keep your forearms under rotated while you slap your hands at it. Anybody can demonstrate this to themselves. If you bend your left wrist back on itself and try to curl your right hand around that flip, it becomes very difficult to let your forearms roll. As a result the clubface stays OPEN on the release.

We can also see the club exiting very very low.. all the way down to your belt. This is much flatter than it was on your backswing. Remember how the club was disecting your right bicep on the backswing? We want the same thing to happen on the forward swing. It should be disecting your left bicep. This is a good indication of how far accross your body (outside-in) you came.


Finish:



The Good:
Right shoulder is under the chin appearing even with the left shoulder. You've gotten over your front foot nicely and in balance. I love how flat your front foot is. You had great balance through the whole swing. Your hands are right over your left shoulder which is good.

The Bad:
The club is not pointed back to where the ball was. This is a sure sign of forearm manipulation of the club during the swing. It was pulled off plane.

The right leg hasn't fully been released toward the target. It should be passing your left but here we can see some pressure still on the toes of your back foot and your knee just isn't quite even with your left. This is a sure sign of a lack of release. It's easy to see from this finis that something has been held back


Comments:

I would put some more tilt in your setup away from the target. On the takeaway we just want to make sure that right knee is not shifting out over your foot... it should stay just inside. You really want to feel the pressure increase on the arch of your back foot. That pressure will move up your leg to your thigh where by the time you get to the top it's practically burning.

If you tilt properly at setup, put the ball forward, and shift your hands forward .. you will see progress in the way of getting rid of that reverse pivot.

Your arm swing is fantastic on the backswing.. but it needs a little work for the release. I strongly recommend you watch my release video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8ckECXHu4U

Awesome analysis Ringer. I just checked out your website and see that you provide swing analysis online for just $15. Expect some video's from me soon

Ringer great stuff. Yeah I am not over the top but I have a lot of his traits.

Ringer is you do cast or whatever do you have any excersises that you would recommend?

Understand that I teach less "drills" and more "intention". I try to give you an intention and fiddle around with the intention because drills often create a false sense of feel.

A good example of that is how many people LOVE swinging with their feet together. The problem is, once you spread your feet apart all the benefits of feet together disappear. Sure you hit several great shots with your feet together, but what are you really learning to do? You're learning how to hit shots with your feet together and not learning how to do it with your feet apart. Anyway, back to your question. Understand that a lot of "casting" comes from a lack of axis tilt away from the target. It's not always the case but is quite frequently found to be. Just really work on getting your hands AHEAD of the ball by continuing your accelleration. If you can feel like the fastest part of your swing is PAST the ball but you don't feel your body over rotating to do it, then you'll have it. If you flip the club around and grip it by the hosel then swing.. you'll get a wooosh sound. Make sure you get that woosh sound AFTER the ball position. This will ensure you're accellerating and keeping your hands ahead of the ball.

Yeah just got back from the range. I felt that my swing was really coming through well, or well enough. I am not going to get discourage just keep on trying to get that perfect swing.

Anyway I have one question if you don't mind me asking. I was told that I should close my shoulders more when I tee of and let my right foot kick out like at a 45 degree or something around there. Are you familiar with what I am talking about?

New here, but excellent analysis Ringer. Very Impressive. And the first thing I saw was the reverse pivot.

Didnt read every little part (most of it) but I would recommend putting your hands slitghtly forward at address. And inch or so towards the target.

other than that, Ringer, you covered it

Well its really up to the people that post the images/people that are intended to view them whether or not they can see them lol. But ill have to go with ringer on the feet together, it might help for a shot or two but in no way is it a permenant fix.

This was an issue in another of Ringer's posts, but he cleared it up by using a different host. If he edits his posts with the alternate host for the pics, everyone should be able to see the photos. Great analysis though, and I liked your website.

I cant thank the man enough, he really put some time and effort into that and he didnt have to, it just shows you that there are good people out there.

I will try to fit all these fixes into my swing at some point, I will start with my hands forward and try to keep my right leg still.

All the best from Carnoustie, lets hope Tiger takes part in the British Open right here in my town.