My Swing (stitch)

[stitch]

I've been Playing Golf for: about 20 years, been swinging a club pretty much since I could walk. For the majority of those 20 years have played between 5-15 times per year and rarely ever practiced. In the last 2-3 years have started playing more (~20-25 times a year) and within the last 8 or so months have really caught the bug bad and have been spending a lot more time playing/ practicing. Especially during this quarantine, currently have played 32 rounds in 2020 and the days I don't play I'm spending about 3 hours a day at the range/ short game area. Playing about 4 days a week and practicing the other 3 days.

My current handicap index or average score is: Current index is 6.8.

My typical ball flight is: High. I was fitted for the clubs I'm swinging right now about 6 years ago and at the time I was seriously delofting the club at impact and hitting the ball low but since then my swing has changed and now I'm hitting the ball very high (average 7i max height is around 120 feet). For context, average 7i carry is ~180-185 yards.

My shot shape right now is a little inconsistent. For the better part of the last probably 5 years I have played a very strong grip and hit a big push-draw (sometimes as big as 30 yards to get back to "straight") but took a couple lessons over the winter and weakened my grip to get it closer to neutral and corrected the big in-out swing path. As part of this "former" swing, I wasn't able to really release my hands through the ball because I'd hit a snap hook if I did, so "pulling" my hands through impact was how I compensated. My eye still wants to see a draw as my natural shot shape but a fade seems to be the easier shot shape to repeat now than a draw. 

The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: My big miss now is a big miss left. Sort of a push fade/ slice. If my line is middle of the fairway, it starts on the left side of the fairway and keeps going.

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Videos:

Caddie View (Driver) 

DTL (Driver)

Caddie View (4i)

DTL (4i)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Edited May 4, 2020 by billchao
Embedded videos

[boogielicious]

Nice looking swing. For the down the line shots, have the camera aim along your toe line at hand height. This allows us to see the club head position versus your swing plane.

[stitch]

8 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Nice looking swing. For the down the line shots, have the camera aim along your toe line at hand height. This allows us to see the club head position versus your swing plane.

Thanks for the tip! I just ordered a tripod for my iPhone so I should be able to get some better videos uploaded soon, trying to balance the phone on the bag was getting old.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, stitch said:

2. Average up and down from inside 100 yards over 50%: Wedges, wedges, wedges. Continuing to develop distance and spin control, especially with chips and pitches.

I'd rethink that one.

• 50-75 yards, from the fairway, median distance to the hole is about 16'. And, this is from the fairway. PGA Tour players only make about 20% of their putts from that distance, and average about 2.7 strokes to get down from 60 yards out in the fairway.
• Median Scrambling on the PGA Tour is just under 60%. That's just the green side shots, mostly. If you could get to 50% from just THOSE, you'd be doing pretty darn well. To get to anywhere near 50% from inside 100… you'd be one of the top ten players in the world from that yardage, and maybe top two. Or one.

I didn't want to post this in the Goals topic, as we don't want to get into debates in that topic, but I'd advise against that goal at least, and generally spending too much time with your wedges. Spend enough time to develop what we call your "Greenside Shots" but after that, focus on driving and approach shots.

The "20-80" yard range has very little "Separation Value®."

[stitch]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'd rethink that one.

• 50-75 yards, from the fairway, median distance to the hole is about 16'. And, this is from the fairway. PGA Tour players only make about 20% of their putts from that distance, and average about 2.7 strokes to get down from 60 yards out in the fairway.
• Median Scrambling on the PGA Tour is just under 60%. That's just the green side shots, mostly. If you could get to 50% from just THOSE, you'd be doing pretty darn well. To get to anywhere near 50% from inside 100… you'd be one of the top ten players in the world from that yardage, and maybe top two. Or one.

I didn't want to post this in the Goals topic, as we don't want to get into debates in that topic, but I'd advise against that goal at least, and generally spending too much time with your wedges. Spend enough time to develop what we call your "Greenside Shots" but after that, focus on driving and approach shots.

The "20-80" yard range has very little "Separation Value®."

That makes sense. I hadn't really dug into the actual numbers but have recently started tracking some stats during my rounds (FIR, GIR, putts, and shots from 100 yards and in excluding putts, basic I know but its something) and was basing that 100 yard number off of that.

 

What would be a more realistic figure for up and downs? Just the general "greenside shots"? Or is there an actual number that I should be looking to get up and down more than half the time from?

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, stitch said:

What would be a more realistic figure for up and downs? Just the general "greenside shots"? Or is there an actual number that I should be looking to get up and down more than half the time from?

LOTS of info goes into this.

Generally speaking… I'd recommend picking up a copy of this book (I wrote it, but you'll find enough other people to attest to the quality). It will be eye-opening.

There are some topics here you can look at, too. Generally, people under-estimate the importance of the full swing and vastly over-estimate the importance of the short game and putting.

[stitch]

12 minutes ago, iacas said:

LOTS of info goes into this.

Generally speaking… I'd recommend picking up a copy of this book (I wrote it, but you'll find enough other people to attest to the quality). It will be eye-opening.

There are some topics here you can look at, too. Generally, people under-estimate the importance of the full swing and vastly over-estimate the importance of the short game and putting.

I was clicking around here last night and stumbled upon LSW but didn't buy it. I guess now's as good a time as any to go ahead and pull the trigger.

[iacas]

17 hours ago, stitch said:

I was clicking around here last night and stumbled upon LSW but didn't buy it. I guess now's as good a time as any to go ahead and pull the trigger.

What city did it ship to? I don't have an Atlanta order in the queue.

[stitch]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

What city did it ship to? I don't have an Atlanta order in the queue.

Just placed my order. Got sidetracked last night.

 

Would love any swing thoughts you have to offer as well. Thanks!

[stitch]

On 5/4/2020 at 7:12 AM, boogielicious said:

Nice looking swing. For the down the line shots, have the camera aim along your toe line at hand height. This allows us to see the club head position versus your swing plane.

How are these? I hope I'm not uploading too many, just trying to show as many looks as possible.

(Above Video) this is my normal swing, the result was a push-fade that ended up well left of my target line. This has become my normal miss (as opposed to the overhook I used to hit prior to swing changes made in the winter)

(Above Video) The only thing I'm trying to feel differently here is trying to take the club away on the inside. To me, it feels like I'm almost going to hit myself in the foot with the club it's so inside, although its pretty clear that's not actually the case. I don't miss left as often when my takeaway is inside like this, but I don't know if that is just a bandaid for other swing issues or if it's a move I should actually focus on making normal.

(Above video) pretty good driver here. Maybe a slight push but ball flight was pretty much dead straight.

(Above video) and just for fun, here's a little 4 iron stinger I've been working on. This swing was MONEY. Ball got maybe 15 feet off the ground and carried about 215.

[boogielicious]

13 hours ago, stitch said:

How are these? I hope I'm not uploading too many, just trying to show as many looks as possible.

(Above Video) this is my normal swing, the result was a push-fade that ended up well left of my target line. This has become my normal miss (as opposed to the overhook I used to hit prior to swing changes made in the winter)

(Above Video) The only thing I'm trying to feel differently here is trying to take the club away on the inside. To me, it feels like I'm almost going to hit myself in the foot with the club it's so inside, although its pretty clear that's not actually the case. I don't miss left as often when my takeaway is inside like this, but I don't know if that is just a bandaid for other swing issues or if it's a move I should actually focus on making normal.

(Above video) pretty good driver here. Maybe a slight push but ball flight was pretty much dead straight.

(Above video) and just for fun, here's a little 4 iron stinger I've been working on. This swing was MONEY. Ball got maybe 15 feet off the ground and carried about 215.

The film angle looks fine now. Are you adjusting your aim to include where you miss?

[iacas]

The hands go "right" early which steepens and tips out the club.