My Swing (BC-to-MI)

[billchao]

10 minutes ago, BC-to-MI said:

Yeah, my clean strikes are probably 50/50 regular trajectory vs looking like knockdown shots, which is clearly a pain when trying to hit elevated greens or stay below the hole. That all makes sense. Thanks.

So keep doing the backswing piece, but on the downswing you're going to feel like your head stays back as your hips go forward.

You can practice this feel at home if you stand at address with your head close to a wall or a doorway on your left side. Just make mock swings without your head crashing into the wall or tipping away from it.

[BC-to-MI]

11 minutes ago, billchao said:

So keep doing the backswing piece, but on the downswing you're going to feel like your head stays back as your hips go forward.

You can practice this feel at home if you stand at address with your head close to a wall or a doorway on your left side. Just make mock swings without your head crashing into the wall or tipping away from it.

I'll try this out starting tonight. Thanks.

[Groucho Valentine]

IMO i think you need to leave the swing mechanics alone for a bit. Grip, posture alignment etc, all stuff that is always good to work on, but you need to work on tempo and shortening your swing. 

You have a big overswing. And it seems like from your vids that the overswing is throwing all kinds of stuff out of wack. I bet if you just shortened your backswing your consistency would improve. Its difficult to make a consistent move through the ball if your swinging your arms that far back, and it appears you dont have the hand-eye coordination or internal timing to work with that length swing. Its like you're out of control. Bubba Watson can swing like that, but not many people are blessed with his athletic instincts. 

Without focusing on mechanics at all, id work on getting a feeling of making a three quarter backswing and see if you can get a more consistent hit on the ball from there. Once you feel comfortable with a shorter stroke, then you can work on the mechanical stuff a little more. 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Groucho Valentine

[BC-to-MI]

On 6/18/2019 at 4:36 PM, Groucho Valentine said:

IMO i think you need to leave the swing mechanics alone for a bit. Grip, posture alignment etc, all stuff that is always good to work on, but you need to work on tempo and shortening your swing. 

You have a big overswing. And it seems like from your vids that the overswing is throwing all kinds of stuff out of wack. I bet if you just shortened your backswing your consistency would improve. Its difficult to make a consistent move through the ball if your swinging your arms that far back, and it appears you dont have the hand-eye coordination or internal timing to work with that length swing. Its like you're out of control. Bubba Watson can swing like that, but not many people are blessed with his athletic instincts. 

Without focusing on mechanics at all, id work on getting a feeling of making a three quarter backswing and see if you can get a more consistent hit on the ball from there. Once you feel comfortable with a shorter stroke, then you can work on the mechanical stuff a little more. 

Yeah, as I believe I have mentioned previously, the overswing is definitely something that I know I have struggled with pretty consistently since I started golfing. I've been trying to do more mirror work recently since the feel ain't real is very evident here. Even in my last video, I was trying to cut back on the backswing, but clearly didn't get very far with that.

Aside from that, I'm still really focused on the centered pivot and working in the piece @billchao mentioned about not sliding my upper body too far forward before impact. The last two rounds out have been solid, shooting a 91 and an 84, which are both in my three best scores ever, so that has been encouraging. Even beyond just the scores, I've noticed more consistency with my ball flight and fewer thinned shots.

[BC-to-MI]

The centered pivot is getting a lot closer to second nature at this point. There are times, especially at the end of a walking round when I'm getting a little tired physically and mentally, where it gets inconsistent, but I don't need to focus on it as much any more. Still need a lot more consistency with controlling the backswing and not letting my torso drift too far forward on the downswing, but most of my misses are now a couple grooves low and thinned, but straight, rather than unplayable slices.

 

Driver has been an absolute train wreck the last couple rounds, basically unplayable, as it's been a wicked slice that I'm just praying I can control and have it roll at a 45 degree angle to about 250 or so. Today, I just really focused on making a proper centered pivot and having the feeling of just bringing my arms along for the ride. I still ended up with a long backswing, but my last 15 swings were 10 of the best drives I have ever hit, three solid ones, and a couple offline, but usable ones. Instead of low line drives, even on good contact, I was hitting high 5-yard fades and carrying about 270-280 into the wind. Definitely one of the best golf feelings I've ever had. Hoping to be able to replicate this tomorrow.

 

[BC-to-MI]

Got out on the course yesterday. Driver wasn't quite as good as it was on the range the day before, but I was getting solid distance and everything was either fairway or within a few yards of it without needing to wildly overcompensate with my starting line.

Approach shots were either on the green or just off. Obviously, it is a lot easier to manage wedges and short irons into greens from the fairway than mid-to-long irons from the rough. Funny how that works.

Chipping and putting were a disaster, which led to a higher score than my ball striking should've led to, but overall, I'm much more focused on the long game right now, so I was pretty happy with the process vs the results.

[BC-to-MI]

The last few weeks have been a lot of playing and not much time at the range, so I can definitely feel myself slipping back into some old habits at times and losing some consistency. I had a three-round stretch of horrible ball striking, not full out shanks, but hitting irons at a 45-degree angle, but realized I was getting rotation in my upper body, but not with my lower half, so I was able to get that back on track a little bit.

I've started to dial in my 1/4, 1/2/, 3/4, full wedge distances, so that part of my game has really started to improve. Between that and a tweaked putting grip helping me to get my putts on the correct line extremely consistently, my scores have been dropping whenever I can find the fairway.

Unfortunately, finding the fairway has been quite the issue recently. I've been fighting an extreme "fade" that isn't quite the nasty slice I used to have, but often puts me OB or in a spot where I need to punch out from, nonetheless. Regardless of where I aim, I start the ball in the middle of the fairway, it goes straight for about 60% of its flight, then takes a right turn toward the white stakes and lands about 40-50 yards short and 40-50 yards right of my straight drives. (This can be seen in the DTL video).

Just after these videos were taken, I started working on a drill that I have done previously with some success to get the club into a better position at A5 and A6, rather than having it swing out and around, causing the left-to-right ball flight. It definitely helped to straighten out the flight, so I'm going to incorporate that into my next range session.

 

 

[BC-to-MI]

Been really focused on driver recently and it feels like I am starting to make some progress. I've tried to really get the hip rotation down and stop my arms from wrapping too far back behind my body to the point where I can see the driver head in my peripheral vision. I didn't get any video, so I have no idea whether I am actually doing this, but the feel is definitely different, and it seems like it allows me to do a better job of cleaning up my swing path and closing the club face in relation to the path.

There are still 2-3 disaster drives each round, but even those are generally playable. Most recently, I was able to hit all great drives except one (which I was able to scramble a par out of) and shoot a lifetime-best score of 36. Had a few shots I'd like back that would have allowed me to break par for the first time, but I can't be too disappointed.

[iacas]

I agree with @billchao about the posts from a month ago, and look forward to your recent changes and improvements.

[BC-to-MI]

Had some equipment issues in the last week or so (RIP to my driver and 3 wood shafts), so just iron video here. The pivot rather than a sway is pretty natural at this point. There are still a couple times in a round I revert back, but I can feel it right away and make the adjustment. As is evident here, I'm still really struggling with keeping my whole body from shifting forward in the downswing. I've been scoring better recently, but a lot of that can be attributed to my short irons and dialing in my partial wedge distances. My ball striking with the mid and long irons has been up and down, and I've been fighting a bad push that has really cost me some strokes, even when I make good contact.

 

 

[BC-to-MI]

So, my knowledge of the golf swing isn't great, but I've picked up a lot from this site, especially regarding certain checkpoints to look for. With many hours of analyzing pitching mechanics, I know that still photos derived from video don't always tell the whole story, and I assume the same is true for golf, but it often gave me a decent idea of what needs to change. With that caveat in mind, looking at my swing here compared to JT (we are very similar size with high swing speed, so it seemed like a good starting point), it seems like after the over rotation in the backswing, I am able to get into pretty good positions except my entire body being shifted forward in the downswing, as @billchao pointed out earlier. Probably explains why my good strikes have great ball flight and stop quickly, but I have a lot of inconsistency in getting those good strikes. Could the excess rotation be forcing me to clear my body too far forward in order to allow my hands to get through, and when I don't, this leads to the good contact, but pushed, shots. I may be completely off, but just wanted to get my thoughts recorded to see if I'm picking up on some stuff.

 

[BC-to-MI]

Messed up my shoulder pretty good about a week ago, so I've been fighting through that a bit. The inconsistency is really becoming pronounced recently as I'm generally playing pretty well only to have a couple shots here and there completely derail a hole or three. This was certainly the case yesterday when I managed to shoot an 87 despite hitting six balls OB, including a 40 on the back with a triple bogey in there. I can go from hitting a perfect drive and then 4 iron to get on a par 5 in two, only to follow that up with a 9 iron that I hit at a 45 degree angle into a pond on the subsequent par 3. I've been bailed out a lot based on my distance off the tee leading to a good chunk of approach shots only needing a wedge to hit the green.

Even on the range I have really struggled to string together any number of solid shots in a row with anything longer than a 9 iron. Think I might have too many things in my head and need to ensure I am really just focused on one thing. Might get a continuous video of a few shots in a row so I can see if the things I think have become second nature might be fading in and out more than I think they are.

[BC-to-MI]

Range session was up and down on Friday. My wedges and short irons were really good -- I was hitting them right on target consistently. My mid irons were hit or miss, but my long irons were a trainwreck, and the driver was up and down. Was trying to focus on shortening the backswing to not feel the need to jump forward, but clearly that didn't really see any improvement there.

Played nine on Sunday and was horrible at the beginning with an OB tee shot and a shanked 4 iron on separate holes, but I made an adjustment later in the round and it seemed to help. The second part of the round, I started standing closer to the ball to see if I could shorten everything up and not feel the need to throw the clubhead out at the ball. I ended up making a 3 on the 190-yard par 3, then after a blow up, I made par on the final three holes. My iron striking was the best it has been in a long time, as I have been getting away with terrible iron play recently, so even though my score wasn't great for the round, the last few holes were quite encouraging. I'm going to try and get some video of the new setup tomorrow.

 

[BC-to-MI]

Planned to get out to the range last night, but my buddy needed someone to fill in for his regular league partner. Managed to hit my opening tee shot on a 600-yard par 5 about 10 feet, so I got off to a great start with a 7 on the first hole. After that, though, I was able to pull it together and ended up shooting a 42 (36.5 rating/139 slope).

Didn't hit the driver well at all -- I don't think I hit a single ball straight or even close to a fairway -- but I kept the ball in the play and my irons were really good, minus a couple 4-iron duffs while I was still thinking about my first tee shot. Yesterday was the first time I've felt comfortable standing over a shot longer than 100 yards in a while, so even though the first hole was a disaster and my score was pretty much in line with where I have been the last couple weeks, it was definitely progress for me. Hopefully, I can get some carry over to Thursday as I tend to play my worst golf during my own league nights.

Edited August 14, 2019 by BC-to-MI

[iacas]

Backswing is long, but the main thing is just that the left arm shifts out a good bit during the downswing. Should still be "deeper" at A5.

[BC-to-MI]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

Backswing is long, but the main thing is just that the left arm shifts out a good bit during the downswing. Should still be "deeper" at A5.

Deeper as in this way?

[iacas]

47 minutes ago, BC-to-MI said:

Deeper as in this way?

Yep.

[BC-to-MI]

14 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yep.

To work on that at the range, could that be something as simple as making swings with a towel/glove/headcover under my left arm to maintain the feeling of keeping it closer to my chest through the downswing?