My Swing (Markdd91)

[Markdd91]

I've been Playing Golf for: 4 years off and on.
My current handicap index or average score is: 100-110
My typical ball flight is: Slice
The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Slice and overall inconsistent contact, seen most with driver. 
 

So I’ve been playing casually for a few years but I am really trying to focus on improving now. I do a lot of swing research and spend a lot of time at the range working on my game and I’m getting incredibly frustrated because I think my swing is decent and should produce at least above average results but clearly that’s not the case. No matter what I think about my swing the results are the truth. 

What I THINK I see in my swing is I am coming over the top and I’m not clearing my hips properly. This is causing me to slice the ball with an out-to-in club path swiping across the ball, and also causing me to basically hit the ball on my tiptoes which I think is creating low point inconsistency and my terrible consistency in general. The fact that I can’t get off the tee consistently absolutely kills me on the course. I have very little trouble with my irons other than a very rare mis-hit, but I’m usually in the woods left, right, or hitting 50 yard ground balls giving me terrible 2nd shots and then it’s mentally down hill from there. 
 

I don’t know how to fix my issues, or if I have even identified them properly and I appreciate any guidance I can get!

 

Thanks!!

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Videos: 

 

Edited April 25, 2021 by iacas
Embedded videos

[Markdd91]

I started to check out the Covid Practice Plan Challenge and I have already found multiple faults in my swing that I was nowhere close to identifying before.

First is with my grip/ early backswing. Looks like my right hand is too far on top of the grip, which gives me a very straight arm as well as leaving my right palm not pointing down in the early backswing. I definitely need to soften up my trail arm and got the elbow closer to my side. I’m guessing this is creating issues later in my swing as well. 

The second issue is my trail elbow is all jacked up. It’s getting way behind/around me and bending greater than 90 degrees. I believe this would create the casting/over the top issue I’m experiencing.

Thank you iacas for putting that together with the drills to work on and correct these issues. This gives me a place to start and hopefully I’ll be back with some improvements to show!

 

[boogielicious]

9 hours ago, Markdd91 said:

I started to check out the Covid Practice Plan Challenge and I have already found multiple faults in my swing that I was nowhere close to identifying before.

First is with my grip/ early backswing. Looks like my right hand is too far on top of the grip, which gives me a very straight arm as well as leaving my right palm not pointing down in the early backswing. I definitely need to soften up my trail arm and got the elbow closer to my side. I’m guessing this is creating issues later in my swing as well. 

The second issue is my trail elbow is all jacked up. It’s getting way behind/around me and bending greater than 90 degrees. I believe this would create the casting/over the top issue I’m experiencing.

Thank you iacas for putting that together with the drills to work on and correct these issues. This gives me a place to start and hopefully I’ll be back with some improvements to show!

 

Work through the first 5 drills in the COVID thread and post the videos here for help and review. Your swing is athletic, which helps. Also, if you film full swings, it’s easier to review if they are in slow motion. The drills can be at regular speed.

[Markdd91]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Work through the first 5 drills in the COVID thread and post the videos here for help and review. Your swing is athletic, which helps. Also, if you film full swings, it’s easier to review if they are in slow motion. The drills can be at regular speed.

Will do, and noted for the videos. Thank you!

[Markdd91]

It’s been awhile since I posted here but I didn’t make much progress last year unfortunately as life got busy. I am back to working on it now though and this is my swing today. 
 

I am still super inconsistent and just started filming again to try to figure this out. The biggest change I’ve made so far is to try to stop my backswing from wrapping around my head and going across the target line. I THINK this was causing some problems on my downswing with casting and with the club face being WIDE open on impact. I still think it’s an issue but this is drastically better. I’ll take any advice on this issues or the plethora of others that I’m sure are there!

Unfortunately it looks like my old video no longer works but I’ll make sure to keep them going forward.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Markdd91

[iacas]

Left arm is way too far out at 5. Shaft is above your neck.

[Markdd91]

13 minutes ago, iacas said:

Left arm is way too far out at 5. Shaft is above your neck.

Definitely see that now, will try to fix that tomorrow afternoon!

16 minutes ago, iacas said:

Left arm is way too far out at 5. Shaft is above your neck.

Do you have a suggestion on why I am getting into that position and how to fix it actually? I am looking at it now and have no idea why I’m doing that.

[iacas]

18 minutes ago, Markdd91 said:

Do you have a suggestion on why I am getting into that position and how to fix it actually? I am looking at it now and have no idea why I’m doing that.

I do.

Take a look at your swing compared to, say, Justin Thomas as he's also fairly upright. See where you differ from him.

[boogielicious]

Also, if you film in slow motion, you will be able to see your movements better.

[Markdd91]

6 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Also, if you film in slow motion, you will be able to see your movements better.

Definitely see that now! 

[Markdd91]

33 minutes ago, iacas said:

I do.

Take a look at your swing compared to, say, Justin Thomas as he's also fairly upright. See where you differ from him.

I’m going to have to do some slow motion videos tomorrow to really analyze and see what I’m doing here in comparison. I feel like I am in pretty similar position at P4, but that definitely changes drastically at P5.

[boogielicious]

10 hours ago, Markdd91 said:

I’m going to have to do some slow motion videos tomorrow to really analyze and see what I’m doing here in comparison. I feel like I am in pretty similar position at P4, but that definitely changes drastically at P5.

@iacas mentioned your arm position at A5, which is arm parallel to the ground during the downswing. Look at JT during transition to A5. The butt of the club starts down first more than out. I was doing a similar thing as you are. Erik had me thinking of swinging down and wide from the top while shifting forward with my hips and left knee.

Post a face on view as well. Lack of weight shift can contribute to issues.

[Markdd91]

So I went out and tried to just think my way into changing, but that clearly doesn’t work. Even when I “feel” like I change my downswing to keep my left arm tight, it is still way away from me.
 

Also, still working on trying to stop my backswing from wrapping around my head too which is another frustrating battle because I don’t do it on a single practice swing, and then do it every real one. 
 

I think I need to work on some drills to fix this stuff, because my swing actually feels really good and I would think there was nothing wrong without the guidance here, thankfully I get the chance to try to fix it instead of continuing  the same mistakes over and over again.

This DTL should be better, I don’t know why the last one didn’t stay in slo-mo

 

 

 

[boogielicious]

The first five drills in this thread are great for this. A proper backswing sets up a good downswing. Also, when you work on changes like this, start off doing the slowly. It’s hard to make some changes at full speed.

Lastly, please pick an avatar.

 

[Markdd91]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

The first five drills in this thread are great for this. A proper backswing sets up a good downswing. Also, when you work on changes like this, start off doing the slowly. It’s hard to make some changes at full speed.

Lastly, please pick an avatar.

 

Thank you for this, I am definitely trying to go too fast. I am going to slow down, work these drills a lot more, and try to make some lasting positive changes!

[Markdd91]

So I am at a training until later this evening, so I’m trying to plan out what I’m going to do later on, and make sure I understand the issue I am trying to address. I plan to go through Covid Drills 1-5 with video and see how it looks. 
 

Am I correct that my back swing is the cause of my overly steep down swing, leading to way too steep of an approach that has the shaft at my neck at 5? I’m assuming if I fix my backswing, the downswing will follow suite naturally? 

[billchao]

3 minutes ago, Markdd91 said:

Am I correct that my back swing is the cause of my overly steep down swing, leading to way too steep of an approach that has the shaft at my neck at 5? I’m assuming if I fix my backswing, the downswing will follow suite naturally? 

I wish golf was that simple 😃

I think it’s the way you move your arms in the downswing. Your grip looks a little palmy, too.

[Markdd91]

I had about an hour to try to work on my swing. I am trying not to get frustrated, but I am competitive by nature and it’s hard to watch myself make the same mistake over and over again.

Started with the Covid drills:

Day 1: 

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

I feel like I don’t have any issue with drill 1 and 2. I think my wrists are doing the right thing and I feel like my left should rotates where it should. I’m still struggling with keeping my backswing from getting too long and across the target line, but I feel like there’s improvement there. If I can get to the point of no longer needing to think about this, I think it will help my focus on my downswing. 
 

Once I got to my full swing, I looked exactly the same as before, way. Too. Steep. I keep rehearsing, watching myself in the camera to see what “feel” or movement flattens out my downswing, but so far no luck getting it into a real swing. I did slow my swing way down and really focus on this and this was, what I think, was my “best” swing today. I am all ears for how I can get myself out of this steep downswing, or atleast make more efficient progress on it. 

 

I am playing my first round of the year tomorrow, any advice on playing while also trying to fix your swing?