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My Swing (allenc)


allenc
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I've been Playing Golf for: I played one summer after high school and got to where I could shoot around 100. Once a year after that until my early 30s. Then I got a nice bug and played or practiced regularly for about two years. Then once a month till age 37. Now I'm 38 and have been back at it for about 6 months.
My current handicap index or average score is: 10 and I suspect it's still dropping a bit. I only have 18 recorded rounds since my comeback.
My typical ball flight is: I guess a draw when I'm swinging the way I like but I can start in either direction (accidentally) and hit some pretty nice fades.
The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Mostly I don't want to start it right (left handed) which often also means a mishit. I can occasionally make most bad shots you can name. I basically just want to hit it farther and straighter. Duh.


 Videos: 8 iron and driver. I'm aiming a bit right of the yardage markers. The face ons are not great, sorry. I'll post new ones when I get the chance to record some.

 

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Here's what I'd like to see you do.

- Turn more earlier.

- As you turn more, keep the upper part of the trail arm in front of the shirt seam.

- Check your grip.

One thing that stands out is the lack of wrist hinge you have on the backswing. I see two things causing that for you, the trail arm getting too far behind you and the position of the grip in the lead hand.

The more hinge/cock you can add to your swing, the more "leverage" you'll be able to have on the downswing, easier to create more speed and shaft lean at impact. Notice how "wide" your wrist angles are halfway through the downswing.

Drill/feels for the trail arm.

Mike McLoughlin

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Thank you very much for the reply.  I could also see that lack of wrist hinge and hands going far behind my back were two big things that separate my swing from an pro's.  I didn't think that they might be related though.

Here's a clip of some living room practice trying to get my backswing like Eric in the video you linked.  To me the final posterior attempt looked and felt the best.  My feeling was to lift my club almost entirely with my body and turn rather than my arms, since when I feel myself moving my arms they just want to go around my back.

I'm a little worried about trying to hit balls from this position though.  I've tried something similar in the past without much success either making contact or even being able to do it with a ball in front of me.  If I can get some confirmation I'm on the right track I'll give it another try.

Regarding my grip, I suspect even after reading that article that it is fine and that the way I'm taking the club back is what makes it look otherwise.  I previously consciously tried to keep to club square/closed/rotated clockwise all the way back which inhibited wrist hinge.

Here's a video just in case:

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So I accidentally deleted one of my videos in the OP then replaced it.  Is there a way to edit the link?

I used a new method of posting the video to youtube and the default category it gave me was "comedy"!   Haha, how far has artificial intelligence come.

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So I accidentally deleted one of my videos in the OP then replaced it.  Is there a way to edit the link?

No, but if you want to PM the link to me, I'll gladly put it back in the OP for you.

Bill

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” - Confucius

My Swing Thread

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  • 3 months later...

Here's what I'd like to see you do.

 

- Turn more earlier.

- As you turn more, keep the upper part of the trail arm in front of the shirt seam.

 

So I implemented the first point because it's easy.  My swings were at worst at least as good as before so that's good.

I attempted swings exaggerating the second point for a few practice sessions and found it impossible to hit balls so I assumed I was doing it wrong and stopped.  I no longer have the videos but my backswing looked similar to those in my Practice Backswings video above.  Instead I went with the bit less extreme idea of just taking it away a little more straight back as I turn and it seems to at least get the club a little less far behind me.

I then (about 3 months ago) took my swing with those tiny improvements for a session with an instructor I'd worked with before.  I asked him about my position at the top of my backswing and he did not think my arms were too far around and that many good players play with "stiff wrists", i.e. not as much hinge (cock? I don't really know the difference).  Again, I may have already improved both of those a bit from my original video.

He did change my setup a bit so that my head stayed more behind the ball, but mostly he wanted me to concentrate on getting the "swoosh" of my through swing more in front of me.  This aimed of course at improving this position:

daa78b75_ScreenShot2015-07-04at9.26.24PM

Unfortunately, the best he could advise was just to work on doing it which is easier said than done.  He did advise working with a swing fan and we took some videos of me using a couple training aids which illustrated the look I was trying to achieve.

So basically for awhile I just took some rehearsal swings trying to get the swing fan feel before making my real swing and sometimes it worked very well, even for a few days or weeks straight.  Other times I just couldn't get the feel and I struggled.  It was hard to figure out what was going wrong because all I had to go on was a nebulous feel.

While I was swinging well I did manage 3rd place in a large tournament with an 82, 81.  And I won a local championship in my division.  And I shot several practice rounds in the 70s so it did seem like things were going pretty well.  I looked forward to a huge 4 day event (Golf Channel Tour) in PGA West and expected to do great.  Unfortunately, my swing went to hell, especially with the driver, and only managed a sub 90 round (89) one out of four.

I more or less striped it on the range before every round so I really racked my brain trying to figure out what went wrong.  I decided I must have just put too much pressure on myself which amped up my tension.  And that my swing must just basically suck if a little pressure ruins it that bad.

Back to the drawing board, here are a couple current videos of my backyard swing:

Hmm.  Nothing seems to be working to embed a video on the new site nor is there an option to preview the post.  I'm probably just dumb.  Here are links to the you tube videos.

 

 

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(edited)

 

Back to the drawing board, here are a couple current videos of my backyard swing:

Hmm.  Nothing seems to be working to embed a video on the new site nor is there an option to preview the post.  I'm probably just dumb.  Here are links to the you tube videos.

For the videos, just paste the URL into your post and it will embed on it's on. One of the great features of the new site!

Swing is definitely looking better. Keeping working on the turn, allow that right knee to work inward more as it gain flex on the backswing. Will help you turn more and keep the head from creeping forward on the backswing.

allen_1.thumb.jpg.7f2dddfa0b5dfce90cbaa0

Notice the hips are still centered as the left knee works inward.
allen_2.thumb.jpg.562eff8f95e4a7cff73af5 

Edited by mvmac

Mike McLoughlin

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  • 2 weeks later...
(edited)

My right knee is obviously working miles inward here and I generally hit them decently with it.  Still using my V1 iPhone app I notice my head moves forward on the downswing more than any comp video they provide.

 

Edited by iacas
embed videos please!
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • Administrator

Allen, got your Evolvr submission and will get it back to you by about Thursday.

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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Look for your analysis soon (it's uploading now). In brief:

  1. Check the right-hand grip (http://thesandtrap.com/forums/topic/75436-how-to-grip-a-golf-club-commonalities-of-a-functional-golf-grip/).
  2. Adjust setup slightly by bumping the hips forward a tad.
  3. Make short swings with the "umbrella" feel I mention in the video.
  4. Practice the right way: http://thesandtrap.com/forums/topic/54840-simple-specific-slow-short-and-success-the-five-ss-of-great-practice/.

Thanks @allenc!

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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Here are a couple views of backyard "umbrella" practice.  After a session or two I feel like I am able to really isolate the wrist hinge move for my practice swings.  At first I was probably including too much arm lift.

 

down the line:

 

face on:

 

Edited by allenc
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Now for an on topic blogish post.

 

I had a golf tournament today and wasn't really sure how to approach it.  I had just been working on the above takeaway for a couple days and it certainly isn't natural yet, in fact I feels quite a bit different to what I had been doing previously.  So the question was whether to try it as my full swing takeaway in the tournament or just revert back to my previous swing until I mastered it some more.  I hadn't even really hit full shots with it other than one or two at the end of my range session yesterday just for funsies.

 

I thought I might show up at the course early and try a few on the range to see what happened, especially with driver, but ran late and couldn't even hit one ball at the range.  So I just decided screw it.  I'm not playing for money or really for anything very important, why not just jump in and see what happens.

 

Well what happened on the first hole was I plastered a drive about 30 yards past my playing partners, pured a half swing 54 with pretty much the same swing as in the above post, and sank the putt.  Ok, it was pretty much all down hill from there but in general it felt very promising.  About 1/3 of my full shots felt fantastic.  I could tell I had much more lag and was making the 'hit' at a different part of my swing than before.  Another 1/3 of my shots were so so, and the last 1/3 were baddish to awful, including 3 or 4 tops.

 

Still, I felt like the bad ones were just because I was uncomfortable with the new move, and specifically I think I was often neglecting my turn as I was concentrating so much on the hinge.  Indeed later I hit the range and diagnosed that I may have been sliding my hips back a bit during the takeaway , possibly because the new forward bump of my hips creates some backward pressure off my front leg.  Once I realized that I hit two or three good shots by making sure not to do that, then left.

 

One other thing I noted was that the one time I was in a green side bunker I did awful even though I had been very confident with that shot lately.  Chunked one back into the bunker, then chunked the next one up onto the lip.  At first I just wrote it off as not committing or whatever, as I may have been spooked by the water less than 20 yards across.  But later I thought that the way I was swinging meant my bunker technique may have to be rethought.  Previously I pretty much just did a regular swing motion with a custom length backswing depending on the shot and aimed an inch behind the ball.  I did the same with these two shots but using the new takeaway, which my have got me more lag and thus more leading edge contact and more digging.  Add that to the fact I chose my 9* lob wedge rather than my 14* sand wedge for the shots may have caused the chunks.  Just a thought, maybe it really was just lack of commitment.

 

Anyway, it was fun.  Now back to more umbrellas every day next week.

 

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I just uploaded your analysis, but in general, very good work. Keep at it. There's more in the video, but basically:

  • Setup looks great. Turn your left foot out a tiny bit more.
  • Grip looks good.
  • Keep doing what you're doing. Make sure of two things as you work on hinging or cocking the wrists faster/earlier in the backswing:
    1. Keep turning as you do it. There's a danger that by focusing just on what the arms or wrists are doing that you can make the backswing too "armsy." Just check in every so often to make sure you're still turning well.
    2. Keep the backswing and follow-through short. If you worry about the club passing your arms too late into the follow through you'll just train yourself to leave the face wide open throughout. Keep the follow-throughs short. You can still end up hitting the ball pretty hard, but don't swing past your belt much at all. Your back yard videos (because there's a net there) are better in this regard than the range videos (no net, ball can fly > 2 yards :-D).

Good stuff. Keep at it.

P.S. If you can have one swing thought when you play golf, find it in warmup or practice and otherwise focus on getting the ball around the golf course. 30 full swings are not going to be a huge setback even if you DON'T "do" your new stuff… but if you can work on it a little bit just by having it as a swing thought, that's better. But don't forget that the ultimate goal when playing golf is to have fun and PLAY GOLF. Don't worry about "practicing" or "working" too hard on something.

  • Upvote 1

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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  • 3 weeks later...

So my recent evolvr lesson has to do with this position on the downswing.  My right arm needs to be less across my body and more pointed straight at the camera.  Secondly, although I wasn't completely clear on whether this is true, the line from my shaft to the ground needs to be pointed at or outside the ball rather than down between the ball and my feet.

pointing_down_at_a5.thumb.jpg.2264419c8d

Eric's advice on how to do this mostly was to swing more "outward" rather than "downward."

In the past I recognized something I believe to be related when studying differences between my swing and professional swings.  Pretty much all pros have a sort of loop at the top of the transition where the clubhead appears to drop back behind them before they do much on the downswing.  After this move the shaft is definitely pointing outside the ball and remains that way all the way down.  I noticed I start the downswing with a kind of downward move with my head and shoulders.  With this move my club at best starts down without changing direction much, and at worst loops in the opposite direction of the pros.  At the time I tried to change this, pretty much to no avail.  Now that I have it on good authority that it is a priority I think I'll try harder.

Unfortunately I have no idea how.  I gave it a try at the range yesterday but swing "outward" to me is fairly synonymous with "try to shank it" or "try to slice it."  Since it was the range where result don't matter I gave those swing thoughts a try anyway, and they worked perfectly...  I shanked and sliced everyone one.  Also, the videos showed that the position at A5 was, if anything, even worse than before so obviously that wasn't working.

Eric also said that further improving my wrist hinge will probably not tie into the above, but since that leaves some possibility that it will I decided to work on that.  Here are two full swings where I swing back slower than usual so I can exaggerate the wrist hinge as much as I possibly can.

The first was a large push off the toe and the second was a dead straight great shot.  Interestingly, the frame at the A5 position in both swings is almost identical.  Here's one because I can't tell the difference:

exaggerate_wrist_straight.thumb.jpg.3bbb

It actually does appear my arm is pointing straight back a little better here, but the shaft is probably aiming even more downward than in the photo at the top of the post.  I'm not really sure which is more important but I have to believe pointing that much down is bad so Eric was probably right about it not tying in to the wrist hinge.  And I think those were pretty good hinges if I do say so myself!

Later, I messed around a bit in front of the mirror to see if I could get a feeling where I was doing the right thing and did find something.  It seemed if I could start the downswing with more of a hip move, doing as little as possible with the shoulders, my arms and club got into a pretty decent position.  Now Eric didn't mention anything remotely of that nature in the relevant video but it could just be a feel thing: I feel hip but I'm actually moving my arms and club in a more outward direction.

Anyway, for now that gives my something to try next time, but I suspect this piece will be a lot harder to improve than the wrist hinge since it's during such a dynamic part of the swing.

 

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23 minutes ago, allenc said:

So my recent evolvr lesson has to do with this position on the downswing.  My right arm needs to be less across my body and more pointed straight at the camera.  Secondly, although I wasn't completely clear on whether this is true, the line from my shaft to the ground needs to be pointed at or outside the ball rather than down between the ball and my feet.

The second thing will probably happen automatically. Even if it doesn't, it's not something to worry about right now.

23 minutes ago, allenc said:

In the past I recognized something I believe to be related when studying differences between my swing and professional swings. Pretty much all pros have a sort of loop at the top of the transition where the clubhead appears to drop back behind them before they do much on the downswing.  After this move the shaft is definitely pointing outside the ball and remains that way all the way down.

Well, small point, but if it stayed pointing outside the ball all the way down… they'd miss the golf ball. :-) It has to point at the target line eventually. :-D

But yes, by moving your hands "out" a little more, the shaft will probably lay down slightly.

23 minutes ago, allenc said:

Erik also said that further improving my wrist hinge will probably not tie into the above, but since that leaves some possibility that it will I decided to work on that.  Here are two full swings where I swing back slower than usual so I can exaggerate the wrist hinge as much as I possibly can.

 

Watch that you're not doing this too much:

565e5356b62e4_ScreenShot2015-12-01at9.11

The hands shouldn't really move up and out (away from you) at this point in the backswing. Hinge the wrists as your turn lets the arms go in. If you create depth on the backswing (by turning and letting the turn take the hands up and in), you'll have room to go "out" to start your downswing. If you only go "up" on the backswing, you'll have to stay "in" on the downswing.

You can see this here:

hands_out.thumb.jpg.f0c8e6c829c90b463118

Then, what I'm suggesting on the downswing doesn't have to be a big change.

Right now, you do the red arrow (on the right). I'd like to see you do the green arrow. If you do that, the clubhead will likely drop or shallow just a little (other green arrow). If it does, the shaft will be where the white line is (as you can see it'll point just outside the ball).

Downswing.thumb.jpg.6b1ffa6332d22ba93003

23 minutes ago, allenc said:

It actually does appear my arm is pointing straight back a little better here, but the shaft is probably aiming even more downward than in the photo at the top of the post.  I'm not really sure which is more important but I have to believe pointing that much down is bad so Erik was probably right about it not tying in to the wrist hinge.  And I think those were pretty good hinges if I do say so myself!

Look at how stiff or how much tension or force you have in your left wrist around the transition. If it's tense, or actively pushing, etc. it'll probably keep steepening the shaft. Try it with a soft wrist, at least your left wrist.

If you continue to struggle with this submit another video and I'll record a video for you explaining what I mean with some video.

Also, I changed my name to "Erik" here a few times. :-)

23 minutes ago, allenc said:

Later, I messed around a bit in front of the mirror to see if I could get a feeling where I was doing the right thing and did find something.  It seemed if I could start the downswing with more of a hip move, doing as little as possible with the shoulders, my arms and club got into a pretty decent position.  Now Erik didn't mention anything remotely of that nature in the relevant video but it could just be a feel thing: I feel hip but I'm actually moving my arms and club in a more outward direction.

Could work. Record it and see if the picture changes.

23 minutes ago, allenc said:

Anyway, for now that gives my something to try next time, but I suspect this piece will be a lot harder to improve than the wrist hinge since it's during such a dynamic part of the swing.

It will be more difficult, you bet.

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

Check Out: New Topics | TST Blog | Golf Terms | Instructional Content | Analyzr | LSW | Instructional Droplets

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Thanks for all the the clarification. 

58 minutes ago, iacas said:

Also, I changed my name to "Erik" here a few times. :-)

The only thing I have to add right now is sorry about that.  I typed lots of words fast and spell check doesn't catch that.

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2 minutes ago, allenc said:

Thanks for all the the clarification. 

The only thing I have to add right now is sorry about that.  I typed lots of words fast and spell check doesn't catch that.

No worries. Did the rest of what I posted here make sense?

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

Check Out: New Topics | TST Blog | Golf Terms | Instructional Content | Analyzr | LSW | Instructional Droplets

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15 hours ago, iacas said:

The hands shouldn't really move up and out (away from you) at this point in the backswing. Hinge the wrists as your turn lets the arms go in.

That's good to hear and see.  It was fairly awkward to do that with my hands in those swings so I'll stop.

15 hours ago, iacas said:

If you create depth on the backswing (by turning and letting the turn take the hands up and in), you'll have room to go "out" to start your downswing. If you only go "up" on the backswing, you'll have to stay "in" on the downswing.

That resonates with me and makes it clearer.  I think I can use that thought.

15 hours ago, iacas said:

Look at how stiff or how much tension or force you have in your left wrist around the transition. If it's tense, or actively pushing, etc. it'll probably keep steepening the shaft. Try it with a soft wrist, at least your left wrist.

This might be helpful.  I know my wrists can be tense at all points of my swing but I can relax my left wrist if I'm focusing on it.

14 hours ago, iacas said:

No worries. Did the rest of what I posted here make sense?

It all made sense to read.  It will only truly make sense when I see myself doing it. ;-)

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