Golfer2223

Thank you for the excellent responses.

Bubba Watson -8 Matt Jones -7 Lucas Glover -8

Kasich really is the turd in the pool at this point.

I have a 60 degree wedge that I would like to use through this season. It's a replaceable face Taylor Made xtf conforming (not Z nonconforming grooves). There is literally nowhere to buy the replaceable faces anymore, they have become like rare gold on ebay. Anyway my grooves are okay but the bottom of the face plate where it connects to the head is becoming cracked, forming a quasi groove. Is this club now illegal by USGA rules because of the fracture? I don't think this created groove comes into play on normal shots, though it may be deep enough to impact something, though not noticeably. Is this conforming if I were to play in a tour qualifier or tour event?

Let me go further and simplify more as I'm really starting to digest this swing. Yes feel free to experiment with advice and be cautious and verify as you will. If you're open to experimenting you can always play around with things and see how it feels, throwing out what you may. Again you have a great swing so take this analysis I'm about to make as simply a hypothetical towards better golf. It's possible tindalla your swing is perfect and the best it can be, obviously looking at fred couples swing there is plenty to play around with, but it doesn't need any tweaking. Golf is very mental. That said most pro golfers take the club back on plane or outside the plane slightly, though there are many exceptions (Sergio). In your swing you clearly get a little below the standard plane, or flat, then it sets nicely at the top. On the through swing the club is pretty much on plane maybe a little outside the backswing plane. Many pros do this move also, although it is commonly taught to take the club back on a more outside plane than you bring it down (Scott). So you can always play with that. I just noticed somewhat of a lack of compression so I feel like getting taller may tweak the backswing plane more out and flatten the downswing plane slightly and give you some extra leverage. That's what I see between you and Rory is a difference in club leverage. On your thru swing the club kind of cuts under the ball slightly instead of coming over it. Most great golfers almost seem to slam down on the ball with assertion, even if they are ascending through impact with driver***. This is a funny concept but i believe it's the piece you might be looking for. Think of Rory hitting a drive, his club is coming down towards the ball, then it starts to flatten out and ascend into the ball, but what are Rory's hands and body doing? His hands are driving DOWN, not around or underneath. The hips and shoulders angle upwards slightly to get the club ascending, but the hands are always driving through. I feel that your hands might not be driving through as aggressively. Getting the club a little flatter on the thru swing will definitely make that happen, the question is how to get there if you go down that road. So simply put I think you may want to try standing a little taller and allowing the club to go straighter back. This might give you a flatter descent and put you more on top of the shot like Rory. Just my thoughts after watching your swing several times. If you post more videos or try this out we can see a difference and go from there. The more established members can always see if it looks better from there as well. Just a thought. last thought on posture: mcmac is right that it looks good, maybe i am nit picking. That is a better posture than most golfers but I see a lot of great postures. you lean into the ball a bit with your shoulders and it puts some bend in your back, as well as a very very slight reaching out of the arms. Either way sitting or leaning you could try getting a little taller. Lifting your head slightly might achieve some of this new feel. I would narrow the stance a little first and then try to keep the back and shoulders taller. Try it, you might like it. Just trying to be of help, again i think you have to try things out and see what fits. If you try it and you find you need some lean or taking the club back a little flat to get full power and feel then stick with that. World class golfers do these things, sometimes the muscles work together better from different positions. I always find the more moves i try the more sure i become of what works. Personally i have a slightly upright setup, and if i bend at the hips more it i don't hit it nearly as well. But i wouldn't know unless i tried. Now i can be confident in my "wrong" setup!

No problem. Let me be clear, I don't think you should be moving the ball away from you. Now that I see your iron swing it is just the opposite, you should be taller at setup and the ball should be closer. I was saying before with driver you should move the ball back, and essentially you would have to back up to realign. That's irrelevant now as the real issue is more pronounced with irons, it was harder to see in your driver swing. Seeing your swing close up now it's obvious your issue is simply a kind of "slapping at the ball" action. Again a great swing. You're close to fine, but being hunched and far from the ball is causing your club to cut under the ball a bit. You're not getting as many grooves into impact as you can, and not maximizing compression. Just stand taller and get the ball a little closer, try to get more of a compression shot rather than an undercutting. You should feel it right away. Look at the picture comparing you and Rory at impact. It really sticks out there. See how he is basically on top of the club. You aren't on top of the club enough and you are kind of sitting back like in a chair position. This is an easy fix, you'll probably see improvement immediately. Gotta get out of the chair position into a more athletic standing position and get on top of impact more. Regarding what you said about the setup: You do have the ball too far forward now. As you say you corrected having too much shaft lean at set up. You need to put the ball back to the middle of your stance more, but without the shaft lean. This is what I was getting at before, you can have the ball in the middle, without the shaft being overly forward. You will have to relax your left arm and keep the shoulders square, not open. As I said before, a slight open club face is great too. Regarding the weight distribution: You are feeling on your toes because of the posture issue I mentioned. You're in a sitting position and need to get more of a standing and solid position. Because you're sitting you may have been going to your toes to compensate, and now being on your heels feels more balanced, but you're not getting enough compression either way as we see in the impact photo. Really being on the balls of the feet should be the only comfortable position you can make a swing in, in which you are balanced to a full finish. It shouldn't take much experimenting, if you have the right posture, the most balanced position where you aren't falling in either direction is on the balls of the feet. Closing your eyes can help to get balanced. Feel like the club is hanging into the ground. Not reaching out to the ball. Kuchar basically hangs over the ball at address. The posture fix and ball position fix will give you a lot of improvement especially in regards to compression. Look forward to seeing how it looks.

Looking at the swing again it's clear your arms are making the swing happen. Gotta get the body involved from the ground up. Try to take very short swings, and get power into it. You need to get the body moving a lot more and the arms moving a lot less. The goal is the have everything moving together. So basically if you swing properly you won't be able to get your arms that far away from you. Then when hit through the ball you won't flip your wrist because the body will be engaged. Before I said your left shoulder and that still applies, your core needs to get involved and the left shoulder needs to rotate the left arm going back. What I'm adding now is that you need to practice a much shorter move in which the feet and legs propel the shoulders and the arms do not move much. I don't think this is confusing.

Great swing. I don't see any swing plane issue. Shanking usually occurs when golfers throw the hands out to the ball instead of bringing the hands in. In your case I think it's a ball position issue causing the club to be outside the ball. It seems like your arms are aimed slightly to the right of your feet, and the club is set closed to the target line. This tells me your ball position is too far forward. Nicklaus said all very good golfers set the club slightly open behind the ball, because that will allow it to be square at impact without manipulation. Try moving the ball back, and setting the club slightly open to the target line. Then adjust your body properly (by moving away from the ball slightly) getting your arms lined up with your feet. Now your hands will be set more inside the ball and you can swing freely without the heel of the club ever getting near the ball. When you have the ball too far forward and the club is closed to the target line, it causes the club to come outside the ball relative to the target line, where you never want it to be. Also when you fix this ball position issue and set the club properly you may feel the ball is a little closer to you, because it will be closer to your eye line, but really it is now further from you, making it much harder for you to shank it. This should really compliment what you're working on with the hips. The best way to cure a shank is to put an object outside of the ball and avoid hitting it. I would fix the ball position issue first and then see if you need the aid to break the habit.

Oh sorry missed that. Looks like in a 8/10 condition the retail on 710s are average 375us, 712s are 575, and 714s are 700. So according to price there is not much difference between 712s and 714s. I have hit the 712s and they were great, 714s I have been told are an upgrade. Never hit the 710s but I imagine they are older tech and will not go as far as the 712s. If it were me I would buy those if the condition really is that good. It comes down to how often this person hits the range. If he is a range rat who hits 300 balls four times a week then no, because the faces will be dead in a year or two. If he is just a regular golfer than yes, because Titleist is a much better club even at the 710 level than a callaway or taylormade. APs are one of the most versatile irons, they are good for single digit to double digit handicappers. Perfect for your level. Just take a good look at the face and make sure there's no huge gashes in the bottom grooves or clear face wear. Scratches on the head are irrelevant and merely cosmetic.

Okay @coop6 got a swing fix for ya. If you aren't looking for one feel free to disregard but thought I would share. Now that I've finally got a couple rounds in this year and feel like my swing is where I want it to be, I think I can offer some really solid advice to people. This way I'm not just being theoretical but actually promoting what works for me. I have a pretty standard swing so I just stick to the overall basics and don't try to touch the natural moves people have unless they are really wild. Anyway what I see you doing is taking the club back too much with your arms in the takeaway, or at least your arms aren't connected with the body going back. Not sure if it might be your right arm pulling too much but your left arm is definitely disconnecting early in the takeaway from what I like to see*. This is causing your arms to start over the top on the downswing because they aren't in sync, and so you have an impact where the right arm is totally straight (sort of like Baddeley). The right elbow should be more in at impact for consistency. I think you will see improvement if you do this drill: Practice hitting it as far as you can with half swings. What feels like a half swing to you might end up being longer but try to stay short and connected and really mash it. Do this until you feel like you're getting the most distance for the shortest swing. It's almost impossible to be disconnected on the takeaway and achieve power in a short move. What happens is golfers add swing length to a disconnected takeaway to get more arm speed and make up for power. You can probably hit is just as far as you do now with a more connected half swing. After you get this down the extra swing length will equal more distance instead of making up for the loss of distance. A good thought for the takeaway I use is keeping the left arm very straight and firm. If I keep the left arm firm and in front of my body, not much goes wrong.

A single AP2 iron still retails for $80 so obviously the person is being nice. I was given free irons once I used them for a few years and then returned them to the guy. Dufner uses AP2.

@mvmac What I think will help you tremendously is to make some swings using only your arms and shoulders as much as possible, especially on the through swing. Try to really stay back and let the club swing in front of you. In your swing the body is a bit in front of the arms, on the backswing as well. On the backswing the hips and knees open up before the club has gone very far. Let the club get going before the body going back. On the forward swing, try to keep your back to the target longer. This is a common swing concept being taught now "back to the target." If the body is too far in front of the arms there is very little control over impact, and you have to really stay ahead of it. If you can get the arms to be more in control of the forward swing, you can get a lot more height and spin on the iron shots.

@Diego Verbeke your club face is not open at the top it's square to closed. I don't see a late set either. What I do see is a beautiful backswing. You have a big flip going because you're not using shoulder rotation to hit the golf ball. You rotate the club going back, but the shoulders are not guiding the backswing, instead you have the arms guiding the shoulders. Then going forward the arms are in control again, the body opens up and the wrists make a scooping motion. I think an impact bag would help you greatly. Many golfers don't get the shoulder rotation going enough, especially on the down swing. The shoulders have to rotate on top of the hips, they rotate and spin throughout the swing, and the spine also twists slightly. Don't do anything strenuous as this would need to be shown in person but this is why you flip it. When I had a flip my instructor helped me with the ball behind the ball. It helped me get the feel of what good descending contact actually feels like. The problem is this drill can promote somewhat of a forward slide, as the person swinging seems to do to get the job done. The drill does get the hands where they need to be though. After I finished my lessons, I realized the real problem was improper shoulder rotation, and I fixed it. Next time you hit the range, ask yourself at every point in your swing, are my shoulders actively involved? Are they leading the arms or following the arms? One can "cheat" so to speak and just put the hands where they have to be, but since you have the flexibility clearly, you should try to fix the rotation problem. It can't hurt!

Whatever if I am not deleted I will just help the member swings until then and not post anything for discusussion.

If what you're saying is correct, that the speed is maximum before impact and measured then, then I am wrong about that. See I can admit when I'm wrong! That is the difference between us. I was under the impression some devices are placed after the ball that measure swing speed (not the modern launch monitors). Perhaps that is how these older devices worked. In any case, swing speed is fastest just prior to impact* However it is still a fact that weight transfer is a part of gaining swing speed, and having more weight will increase the pull of the club and speed, all things being equal. Maybe it is only a few yards or so, but so what? I didn't say it's the only factor or the biggest factor. Why get offended over this statement which is true? Are we only allowed to talk about things that affect the shot more than 20 yards? I know for me gaining 10 pounds gave me about 5 yards more. Since I'm on the lighter side, it had more of an impact. It became easier for me to support the club without exerting myself. Maybe it's not a big deal to all people, but for lighter guys or gals, it can be. This is my problem with how you approach my points @iacas, you have to discount everything I say because you don't think it's that important. I'm sorry but if that's how you act on here, then please delete my entire account from your database. I was wrong about when the fastest point in the swing is, is that going to hurt anyone? I am right that weight transfer impacts swing speed. More importantly this debate over Tiger Woods is a matter of opinion. You keep saying it is a matter of fact because it is on paper, well that is completely stone headed. How can the stats measure if the player had a better angle to the hole, or what the level of difficulty of the putts were? They can't. You know it, I know it, and everyone knows it. You want to believe one thing that's fine, I don't agree with you, and there is no right answer. I came on here to help golfers, which in a short time I have, but obviously this is not the place to do so. It is one thing to correct me if I'm absolutely wrong about something, like when the swing is at its fastest point. But to not only determine which of my points has enough importance to be relevant, and to tell me my opinion about Tiger is wrong and yours is fact, but to limit participation and my account because you don't agree is simply a violation of common practices. You can run this site like a fascist regime if you want, and leave me out of it. You are one of those most petty people I have ever encountered. I highly doubt people are going to get much help here if you control the flow of information this way, some of them may not know better, but some of them do. Good day.