My Swing (BC-to-MI)

[BC-to-MI 37]

Consistency with my irons has greatly improved recently, but now my driver has completely left me. I have a completely different tempo with my irons and driver, so that may have something to do with it. I pretty much only have one or the other on any given day, whether it's on the course or at the range. My most recent round, a very rare for this year 18 holes, was a pretty good summation of my game: an 87 with just three bogeys. Nine pars and six doubles. Basically, if my tee shot was in play, it was a par, but too many holes where it wasn't in play or it was a sideways second shot.

I was able to scrounge up some money for my first lesson on Sunday, so I am excited for that and hopefully get something to take away from it.

[BC-to-MI 37]

Had my first ever lesson on Sunday. The biggest takeaway was that I am absolutely terrible at aligning myself. I've created a good routine for ensuring that my clubface is aligned properly with my target, but my feet are very often not, which is causing issues with my swing path, ball flight, and start line. This was encouraging because it's something that should be a relatively easy fix once I determine the best way to align my feet/shoulders and should show pretty instant results.

The other thing the instructor mentioned was the way my weight shift and lower body actions were affecting my balance in the follow through. Instead of getting my weight to my front leg and clearing my hips through impact, I was sliding my entire body forward and spinning out of the shot, resulting in an off-balance finish and poor contact.

[BC-to-MI 37]

Played my first round after the lesson and I was really pleased with it. I was definitely more conscious about my alignment and I didn't have any shots that I hit well but went way off line (or off the intended line) or any swings that felt like I was compensating. Shot +5 for the nine holes (3.6 differential), so it was definitely one of my better rounds of the year and two of those strokes came on duffed short game shots that were unrelated to the full swing.

[BC-to-MI 37]

Since the last update, things have really gone downhill. I think going from playing 4-5 times per week last year to once every couple weeks has really taken it's toll on my ability to have any consistency, especially because I haven't had much opportunity to get to the range, either.

Irons have been pretty bad, but made some progress yesterday. Went back to a focus on feeling more weight in my heels to have less sway in my backswing and less flex in the front knee.

Driver, on the other hand, has a been a disaster. Can't remember the last good, or even decent, drive I hit, both on the course and on the range.

 

[Lord Pastrami 1]

On 9/25/2020 at 6:04 PM, BC-to-MI said:

Since the last update, things have really gone downhill. I think going from playing 4-5 times per week last year to once every couple weeks has really taken it's toll on my ability to have any consistency, especially because I haven't had much opportunity to get to the range, either.

Irons have been pretty bad, but made some progress yesterday. Went back to a focus on feeling more weight in my heels to have less sway in my backswing and less flex in the front knee.

Driver, on the other hand, has a been a disaster. Can't remember the last good, or even decent, drive I hit, both on the course and on the range.

 

I looked at some of your earlier videos and you seem to come in steeper to the ball now than you did before, at least on that 6 iron swing. Also noticed that your left arm is bent at impact on the face on view. You might want to move the ball forward in your stance a bit. 

You have a great swing. Very close to being a really good ball striker. You open the face too quickly on the takeaway by letting your left arm rotate too much. There are a couple of feels that could work for you, depending on whether you work better when thinking of body movements vs club face awareness. 

For the former, try feeling like your right arm is more above the left arm on the takeaway. Getting your right wrist working back more instead of up also helps. 

If you work better thinking about the club face, then have it facing the ball longer on the takeaway. 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Pastrami 1]

This is a good video for you

 

[BC-to-MI 37]

11 hours ago, Lord Pastrami said:

I looked at some of your earlier videos and you seem to come in steeper to the ball now than you did before, at least on that 6 iron swing. Also noticed that your left arm is bent at impact on the face on view. You might want to move the ball forward in your stance a bit. 

You have a great swing. Very close to being a really good ball striker. You open the face too quickly on the takeaway by letting your left arm rotate too much.

Thanks for the input. Yeah, after reading your comments I went back and looked at videos from last year when I was playing a lot better and it seems like I was doing a better job of keeping the club face more neutral through the takeaway and backswing, which I would imagine is what is leading to compensating with a change in club path and the steep downswing. Definitely something I'll use next time I am at the range.

[chspeed 146]

21 hours ago, BC-to-MI said:

Thanks for the input. Yeah, after reading your comments I went back and looked at videos from last year when I was playing a lot better and it seems like I was doing a better job of keeping the club face more neutral through the takeaway and backswing, which I would imagine is what is leading to compensating with a change in club path and the steep downswing. Definitely something I'll use next time I am at the range.

Please take with appropriate context, but it looks to me like the swing starts coming undone when you lunge towards the ball with your upper body from the top. Your head moves forward and down. One thing that helps me with that is to "separate the head" from the front shoulder. This forces me to more turn the upper body more in place while the lower body slides and opens.

[BC-to-MI 37]

So, I finally got my stubborn, impatient self to work on stuff with slower swings (I know, I know). I didn't take a single full-speed swing the entire day, so if nothing else, progress there. I'm not going to lie, it is really awkward feeling for me to make swings at less than full speed. I really tried to focus on controlling the club face early as @Lord Pastrami mentioned a couple posts ago, and without thinking about it, there seemed to be some improvement on the lead leg angles that @iacas was talking about based on the face on video.

I worked on some different feels, and the one below seemed to work best, which was focusing on the back of my trail hand and how it should be working in the takeaway. Still was very awkward compared to what I'm used to, but *on average* my start lines were improved.

Driver was a mess. With the slower swing, I was having trouble even finding the clubface, let alone making even half decent contact. Just felt wrong the entire time.

 

[BC-to-MI 37]

Tried to just focus on the club face in the takeaway today. Not sure how well it is really going. Seemed like I had more good contact than I have in recent range sessions, but my good contact wasn't as good as it normally is.

Driver is a disaster. I randomly will hit a good one every 10 swings or so but can't feel anything noticeably different. The first video here is a swing that carried about 18 inches, the second one is pretty typical for me right now: high, spinny, and finishes two counties over to the right.

Pending any more unusual November weather here in Michigan, this is likely the final range session of a frustrating, if not thoroughly disappointing, year. I saw my handicap jump nearly three strokes (8.9 to 11.6) and even that is held down from a lack of rounds this season (I would be a 14 if you calculated with my 8 best rounds just from this season). I never really felt like I played any good golf and I'm at the point now where I feel uncomfortable standing over the golf ball, even at the range. I definitely attribute a lot of this to a lack of reps (13 rounds on GHIN this season vs 62 last season), but it has certainly been a struggle, nonetheless.

I don't really have a place to take full swings during the winter, so I'm going to need to try and find some drills specific to my needs that I can work on indoors and don't require a ton of room.

[BC-to-MI 37]

Well, probably should have just ended the other day. This is one of the "best" shots I had during the whole session. Anyway, onto the winter.