My Swing (tickbomb)

[tickbomb]

 

I've been Playing Golf for: 20 years
My current handicap index or average score is: 90
My typical ball flight is: Draw, high
The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: hook, shank, thin

I quit golf for a while and got back into it this summer.  I got 5 or 6 lessons to get me back on track, focused on setup and eliminating a bunch of excessive movements to quiet down the body.  I tend to over do things a lot.  So far I have really worked on getting to a less flat backswing, getting my grip really weak/neutral, eliminating side lunging, keeping the head more centered in the backswing, avoiding lifting up in the backswing for a feel of more power, weight transfer during the swing, ball position, and so on.

I tend to have a fast swing speed.  My 7 iron swing speed average is around 95mph.   I am playing some old cleveland CG2's with stiff shafts.  I've been doing some video reviews and I have a significant variance in the shaft drooping in the impact position, as much as an inch.  Also, during some impacts the club face gives up.  Everything goes left - heel strikes, toe strikes.  This was especially true with my driver when I miss hit it.   I went to a fitting recently and got some new irons.  So once I receive my new irons, hopefully I will see the hook taper off and maybe lead to some striking consistency.  I'll investigate some new driver shafts too.  I just feel like I can shoot in the 70's if I stop losing golf balls.

If you can see something I can fix in my swing to get that face to stay a bit more open.  I know I have early extension in my right arm.  Something I have no clue to fix.  I have tried to do no throw drills etc before.  Open to suggestions.

Thanks

 

 

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Videos: 

 

 

 

 

[tickbomb]

 

1) I've been working on my closed club face at the top that creeps in.  This is 100% a result of my right hand taking over and physically rotating the face against my left hand.  I can get back to impact square a lot, but I think this is causing my hooks.  So I am letting my right palm come off my left thumb at the top.  Not ideal, but I'll work it back later.  It goes back on normal on the downswing.  For now this allows me to feel like i'm in a much better position at the top.

2) My next goal has been to get my right elbow in, pointing towards the ball at P6.  Somewhat like the Hogan move or the normal magic move, whatever...  Almost like I feel like I'm trying to leave the face open and swipe past the ball.  I'm trying to avoid hooks and over draws, so anything to help slow down the closure rate of the face.  This has had the effect of shallowing out the club and having a right elbow is bent at impact.  I think I would like a bit of vertical lowing of my hands before I shallow during transition, but whatever at this point.  I can thwamp the yellow foam balls off the bathroom window pretty good from this attack angle.

We will see if I can take these to the range and hit some real balls.

[iacas]

26 minutes ago, tickbomb said:

1) I've been working on my closed club face at the top that creeps in.  This is 100% a result of my right hand taking over and physically rotating the face against my left hand.

I don't know about that.

26 minutes ago, tickbomb said:

2) My next goal has been to get my right elbow in, pointing towards the ball at P6.

Why? I don't think you're going to do it. Or that you need to do that.

26 minutes ago, tickbomb said:

2) I'm trying to avoid hooks and over draws, so anything to help slow down the closure rate of the face.  This has had the effect of shallowing out the club and having a right elbow is bent at impact.  I think I would like a bit of vertical lowing of my hands before I shallow during transition, but whatever at this point.  I can thwamp the yellow foam balls off the bathroom window pretty good from this attack angle.

I don't think your closure rate is causing the hooks.

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Without getting too far into it, I see a few issues, and I think you're getting well off track on what you're trying to do. I think you likely need to work more on face-on stuff, but you seem to keep recording down-the-line stuff.

Face isn't "closed," shaft is probably a bit shallow at A3, right arm is too straight and shoulders still fairly closed at impact. The right arm shouldn't be like that, but that's a result, not something to work on directly, IMO.

I don't like either of these. I'd really look to work on your pivot if these are anything like your current swing. Which I think they must be if you've posted them to this topic.

Weight is a bit back in your heels, so you "stand up" to re-balance a bit during the backswing. Then you have to go back down, which you do here…

The club is tipping out, and not because your right hand is doing anything…

So you swing left, and the face is probably closed to that path, but the fix is more likely to fix the path.

But before you really worry about the path, I'd fix the pivot, otherwise you're going to have to go back and change the path again later anyway, for a second time.

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So if it sounds like I haven't said anything helpful, here it is. I'd work on:

• Setup. Not so wide, weight toward the balls of your feet, and make sure your grip is good.
• Pivot. Not nearly so much sway, with proper flow. That means a small early shift away, spiraling UP (but staying the same height), and then an early shift forward.

I'd work on that first, and see what shakes out after that. Probably hand path would be next after that.

[tickbomb]

Thanks for the analysis.  Yes I can work on pivot and sway.  Actually, I've been working on sway with two alignment rods sicking out of the ground to my legs the last week.  I agree these pictures don't show a closed clubface, but letting my right hand relax allows me into these A4 positions you see above.   I can also work on the standing up.  It's an old habit of trying to load the club and hit the ball too hard or something.  When I focus on keeping my head still, it doesn't move on the backswing at all.

On the path, I would say that I'm pretty neutral to 2-3 degrees in to out (see attached).  When I hook it, I can tell on the downswing that something is off - feels like I closed the face at impact.  But I guess crazy in to out feels like a closed face at impact.

Report.PDF

[iacas]

I mean… you can’t work on ten things at once. "Can" and "do" are very, very different things.

And I’m not sure what you’re showing me in that report. Or how many shots you hit. I don't think you're the "staff model" and you're not Rickie Fowler. The only other line… has a bunch of "--" for the data.

So again:

• Setup.
• Grip.
• Pivot.

The first two are static. You can take all the time you need to do those. Then tackle the pivot.

It might take you months.

[tickbomb]

Sorry I was showing path.  I was fooling around with a bunch of clubs at the store the other day.  I would say the one thing that is consistent in my hooks are non-center contact, either toe or heel now that I look at other videos.  Literally every non-center hit is a hook.

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, tickbomb said:

Sorry I was showing path.

Yeah, I don't see the path there.

Just a bunch of "--" on what I think is your line.

[tickbomb]

2nd page staff model was the only one that had the dots on the face to record it. 2.8 in to out, 2.7 degrees open face, for a push.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, tickbomb said:

2nd page staff model was the only one that had the dots on the face to record it. 2.8 in to out, 2.7 degrees open face, for a push.

Okay. On one day, with one swing, right? On a mat, hitting into a screen…

[tickbomb]

Hey man, I'm honestly trying to improve, I'm taking all your advice here.  Just trying to share the info I have.

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, tickbomb said:

Hey man, I'm honestly trying to improve, I'm taking all your advice here. Just trying to share the info I have.

I understand that. And I'm trying to help you here… You shared the data from one swing. And you made maybe two other swings (?) which weren't pushes (but which were hooks). Indoors, on a mat, with a screen for your target, probably. I don't see your path being that far right (or really right at all) in the videos you posted.

I just don't see any of these as being likely "path 2.8° right" swings:

But what do I know? 😄

[tickbomb]

First picture camera is incorrectly positioned.  That one went dead straight.  Sorry my bad.  I was aiming to the blue.  Next time I will make sure the camera is in the right position.

[boogielicious]

7 hours ago, tickbomb said:

First picture camera is incorrectly positioned.  That one went dead straight.  Sorry my bad.  I was aiming to the blue.  Next time I will make sure the camera is in the right position.

Setting up the camera takes a bit of practice too. It is important so we can see the positions from the proper angle. Also, remember to take swing comments as constructive advice. It’s easy for us to get a bit defensive when we think we see one thing in our swings and an expert sees something else. I’ve been filming and reviewing my swing for years and yet @iacas (my instructor), will see things I don’t. He also understands what is the most important piece to work on first.

[tickbomb]

I’ve been doing a lot of work over the last couple of months on my swing and had great results.  I’ll give you the good and bad.  What I did may not work for you, but it has for me.  I pretty much do the opposite of anything I've read or watched about.  I wrote this for me to track my progress, but it may help you, so enjoy.

TOC
Update/History
Goals
Recent Results
How I Improved
Next Steps

Update

Sometime after the last post I made, I nearly quit golf.  I had a lot going on personally, Covid, kids, whatever.  Mostly self pressure - I was taking lessons, not improving.  I played a really bad round and got home and snapped all my shafts one by one.  Which, before you write me off as crazy or an angry person, this was very uncharacteristic about me, stress is real.  Maybe something I would have done when I was 8 years old.  My wife was shocked she found me crying in the backyard.  But eventually convinced me to get back into it and figure it out.  So I’m not writing this to really get attention or whatever, but just as a confession to the priest and maybe to help others figure things out.  You can turn things around, sometimes you just need to hit rock bottom first.

Golfing Goals

So before I got back into it, I made some realistic goals.  I’m a father of 4.  I just don’t have time to go out and play 4 times a week.  Let alone once a week.  What I do have time for is my simulator golf league on Sunday nights.  Is simulator golf real golf?  Well it’s real to me, it’s fun, and while my kids are too young for me to ditch the family for 6 hours to play a round on Saturday, I can get away Sunday night and at least gauge improvement against my historic simulator scores.  My goal was to upgrade my equipment, improve my swing, and get my score down for the winter simulator golf league.  My target was shooting in the 80’s.  Compared to last year, I was in the high 80’s-low 90’s.  Consequently my real golf scores were usually in that range too.  But most people play much lower in the sims.

Results

Last week I shot a 76 and the week before an 87 in the sim.  The difference between the two was ball striking and short game.  It took a round to get the feel for chipping in the sim.  I play again tomorrow, so we will see how consistent I am and how much the courses affect my score.  But generally, my striking and short game pitching are way better and I scored probably the best two simulator rounds I have ever played.  Never shot a sim round in the 70’s and bighorn isn’t an easy course.  16 players in the league, I had the lowest score and there were much better golfers out there than me.

Statistics for the round (i didn’t take a picture for the first round):

Fairways hit were low, but I was bomb and gouging it so I either ran out of fairway or just missed it.  A couple take aways from my rounds:

Driving.  My ball speed is 175-185mph.  I launch it at 12-14 degrees.  The only times I carried under 300 yards were when I miss hit/poor contact.  The first round my longest drive was 395 yards (down hill, almost all carry).  My best drive was probably 345 yards 60+ feet uphill.  So distance is not my problem.  My major problem, which has been consistent between the rounds, is that I start with a strong fade with my driver and about halfway through my fade turns into a very strong draw/hook (which is a historic flight for me).  My goal is a one way fade.  Current setup is a Taylormade R1, fade weighting, set to 12 degrees.  Stiff stock shaft.  Not optimal probably.  Might be impact location changes during the round that cause me to hit the toe more causing draws.  Not too sure yet.  

Irons.  Ball striking was greatly improved.  10 GIR, which is a great improvement for me.  What is not in these stats is how good my long irons were.  I had several (4-5) fantastic 200+ yard iron shots that saved me from a bad iron tee shot or got me on the par 5’s in two.  I should have played the par 5’s better than I did.  I did have a couple iron miss hits throughout the round, but generally miss hits were not too bad.  Maybe missed a green short or hit an iron off the tee a bit fat.  My biggest miss hit was on 11 that resulted in a 4 iron shank off the tee into the water and a drop back in front of the tee box.  But that was followed up with a punch back onto the fairway and a 220+ pure iron into the green (Plus a three putt for a 7).

Wedges.  Were solid.  I’m still learning distances with them as they are all 2 degrees more lofted than my previous set.

Chipping and putting - it’s a simulator, so it is what it is.  But generally I got up and down and two putted well.

How I have Improved

Education.  I took the Gankas course.  Although people have their opinions on him, his course is fantastic and very, very, very detailed and long.  Lots of different options and explanations of every aspect of the swing.  Although I took a lot away, I am not actually a proponent of everything they preach and I think there are some aspects they miss.  But generally, I would recommend it for most people.  For me, they went into details like ball position’s effect on fades/draws.  Driver attack angle/hitting up on the ball and its effect on fading/drawing. So on and so forth.  With the level of detail they go in, you can start to appreciate how your setup can change flight, without even changing your normal swing path etc.  So there was lots of golf education there beyond the traditional swing elements.

However, the biggest improvement for me came from this Japanese teacher on youtube:

Combined with the education from the Gankas site, I have improved my ball striking greatly.

Focus on impact, then swing.  I hit a lot of balls at the range last summer, pitched a lot, and stopped playing, but I think the biggest upgrade was a home net.  This allowed me to hit 1000’s of balls.  I’m working from home, so everytime I needed a break from work, I would hit some balls, best of all it’s cheaper than the range.  I’ve worn out and cracked so many balls.  Although I don’t have a launch monitor, I can pretty much tell if I hooked it or if I miss hit it.  But the biggest thing I focused on was good impact.  No toe hits.  No hosel rockets.  Number one priority!  I was really trying to get ball striking in the CoG.  The pic below shows a little bit thin tendencies (from a couple months ago), I’m way less thin now, but you get the idea.  Trying to get consistent impact.  Every shank probably leads to at least 2 dropped shots.  Maybe more from as a result of a confidence killed throughout the round.  For a while, I stopped caring about my swing and just focused on feel to get solid impact.  I experimented with my swing to see what movements caused more toe strikes and what movements caused more heel strikes.  Setup constant, if my impact starts to drift, I’m pretty confident in what is causing that in my swing now.

Swing Approach

My current swing is built around doing a lot of impact feedback adjustments, combined with how my body works.  My body simply won’t do what the Gankas course optimally wants you to do (they do have a lot of alternatives and matchups).  E.g If I add flexion in my left wrist at the top of my swing, my right hand comes off the club because my right wrist can’t bend anymore.  I can’t supinate my arms enough to shallow the club to the max.  My low back has mobility limitations.  I pinched a nerve trying to get an open chest at impact.

Grip - I consider my grip neutral to weak.  This was a big change I made a couple months ago from a strong grip.  From the gankas course, you can learn about the relationship between grip strength, the need for flexion, and their effect on dynamic loft at impact.  Gankas, for the most part, wants you to lower dynamic loft at impact, but currently it’s not a priority for me as I like my flight and I do deloft a couple degrees or so at impact.  Another one of the biggest changes I did was moving to an overlapping grip from an interlocking grip.  I don’t know why, probably because of my engineering ring on my right pinky get irritated by interlock, but I’m used to it now and like it.  

Swing:

DTL (recent)

FV (from a month or so ago).  I just haven’t taken a video lately because it’s raining etc.

P1 Take away.  My initial take away attempts to keep the club low and square to the ball as long as possible.  That’s my only thought.

P2-P4.  at club parallel I start to cup my left wrist.  The cupping goes 100% cupped at the top to P4.  As stated before, I’ve tried to do the opposite (e.g.flexion) at the top and it leads to all kinds of problems with my right hand grip.  You will notice that I am way past parallel at the top and the club points across the ball line.  This is probably from the cupping.

P4-P5.  My transition is a combination of shallowing (i.e. right arm supination force) and a gradual de-cupping (or flexion) of the left wrist.  See the japanese teacher’s youtube video.  If you hold your club up in front of you, the move is a clockwise rotation at transition:

You will not see this move in my swing.  It’s a force that is applied to the club, when combined with body and other moves, puts the club on plane in a powerful way.  But I am 100% applying this. 

In my swing the only thing you can see is the club going from pointing across the ball line to back on plane.  But the shallowing move is a force that shows up in some swings and not at all in others.  The harder you apply this move, or the more clockwise force you put into your swing, the faster your club speed goes.  It is very hard to tell from video whether someone is pulling the shaft vs applying a torque to the handle.  I can see it now in some people, but those are obvious cases.  For me, I feel like I’m torquing the club clockwise all the way through impact.  It is very weird at first, but it magically works itself out.

Squaring the face.  The next thing you will notice in the Japanese video is that if you don’t add flexion you will have a very open face at impact.  That is why I go from cupped wrist to adding flexion.  The real trick is applying clockwise torque to the shaft all the way to impact.  At first I had a tendency to change the way I was applying torque at P6 to impact.  At P6 I would switch to a horizontal rotational force applied with the back of my left forearm to get to impact.   But if you just keep torquing the shaft the same way through impact, you don’t have to transition the force and it’s much smooth and much more powerful. The analogy is these perfect circle people:

Another way to describe it as horizontal force vs vertical force.  In the top view, what I stopped doing is the horizontal torque to get the club on the ball from P6.  If you apply this force here, you will see heel strikes and shanks, not to mention lose speed:

I just keep on applying the vertical down force more like this picture.  Not saying Rory does this, just using a Front view photo.  I torque down all the way through the ball:

I think of the torque as almost completely vertical and down through the clockwise rotation of the arms.  Zero horizontal.  Obviously that’s not completely true, because I would never get to the ball, but that’s the feeling.  But one thing that I referenced before, that is obvious when you think about it is, a horizontal torque will lead to more heel strikes (as you swing outwards) and a vertical dominant force will lead to toe strikes.  I found this to be the case and it’s also highlighted by the Japanese instructor.  So the forces and how you apply them lead to different impact tendencies, setup being all equal.  At first, I had to actually feel like I was going to shank the ball when I committed to more vertical torques.  This was a massive adjustment going from a shanker to a toe striker.  But after a lot of adjustments and practice, I’m pretty happy with my impact tendencies.  If I start hitting the heel, I know I’m getting too horizontal.  If I’m hitting the toe, I’m applying too much vertical torque.  
 
Body Rotation.  Gankas is all about body (hip) rotation and shoulders leading the arms, especially at impact.  As far as I can tell, and it’s my personal interpretation, most people are talking about horizontal rotation around the vertical body axis or the spine, or at least people think about it that way (the hips rotate horizontally about a vertical axis).  I stopped caring about that type of rotation.  Those things still happen in my swing and I’m not trying to eliminate them, but if my power comes from a vertical torque down, what’s actually important is vertical shoulder rotation about a horizontal axis.  That rotation should be leading the perpendicular shaft angle at impact.  You still have to rotate about your spine and rotate your hips in support of that, but it’s physically impossible to translate a horizontal body torque to accelerate a 90 degree vertical plane.  The only things I got out of focusing on horizontal hip rotation and leading shoulder rotation (about my spine) were hooks, shanks (e.g from centrifugal force pushing the club out), and a messed up lower back.

Next steps

Equipment Changes

Driver.  I ordered a new shaft for my R1 before I go to a more recent head.  HZRDUS Green 6.5 70g.  I have found it really hard to get consistent impacts with any driver I use.  So we will see if an extra, extra stiff driver helps me.  I might add some lead tape to the toe as well.  I’m trying to support a one way fade miss.  It doesn't really matter in the simulator, but in real life, I need a one way miss.  I also am going to spend more time with driver impact feedback.  Most of my practice has been with irons.  I’ve been teeing the ball down with my driver.  When I tee it up, I find it very difficult to get centre contact.

Irons.  The Cobra RF irons are fantastic.  I got KBS $-taper 130g x-stiff shafts P to 4i with large diameter grips for my large hands.  I think going to x-stiff and large grips were one of the best changes I made.  All the youtube videos about how hard they are to hit is nonsense.  They force you to improve your striking.  Don’t listen to anyone who says you’re not good enough for them.  The only downside is if you swing any other irons afterwards, they feel like you're swinging a canoe paddle.

Woods.  Currently I’m not playing any woods.  I am contemplating either reshafting my 3 wood v-steel with an x-stiff or getting a 5 wood.  I need something that goes 250-260 because I find that a lot of courses cater to that distance.

Wedges.  Playing the 3 kirkland wedges.  Great, but the shafts are wobbly.  I am going to also add a 49 degree gap wedge between my 52 degree kirkland and the 46 degree cobra pitching wedge.

Swing changes.  Focusing on driver one way miss is #1 priority.  So we will see if that is only an equipment tweak or perhaps more time spent focusing on driver impact feedback.

Next Goals.  I’m going to focus on shooting in the 80’s in the simulator.  Anything in the 70’s is great.  But this time I’m not putting pressure on myself.  I think given my struggles in the past, that is a reasonable goal.  I could focus on more up and downs, but I don’t give simulator golf short game and putting too much credit.  I will continue to work on ball striking to improve confidence.
 

Sorry forgot to mention that I also do a lot of swing training with my eyes closed now.  It has been excellent ball striking training.

[tickbomb]

Better Front View from today (other one was from a couple months ago).  I'm trying to lower the swaying.  Need to do some more shadow drills.

Keeping an eye on impact.  Started off with some heel strikes today.  Second session was better:

[iacas]

I don't think GG likes them filmed from here either, but I think you're way too far out to the ball here.

It's going to make things look quite a bit different.

Also, and I know you're just using this as a diary of sorts, but… you should participate in other topics. People will care more about what you're doing and working on.

[tickbomb]

Happy New Year.  Overall, I'm making good progress.  I played a couple times, including a 76 and an even round in the sim with a couple of birdies and an eagle.  Would have been well under par, but I got too greedy with my driver and went for the last par 4 and ended up in a bad spot.  What is clearly hurting me is launching my driver 300+ and having these 50-80 yard pitches which I don't practice at all.  So either I practice those a lot or go back to irons off the tee to a good distance.  What fun is that?  But to be clear, I'm using the sim to improve my game while having fun over the winter.

I had the opportunity to have a lesson a couple weeks ago on a Trackman sim.  This is the first time I have used a trackman.  That, coupled with the pro teaching was a young guy who was at a high playing level (trying for the DP world tour), it was a really good experience rather than just a local coach.  Rather than work on swing mechanics, we just really baselined the swing I had with the trackman.  I've always battled an over draw/hook, and I really wanted to tame it and/or push for a right side fade miss.  With the trackman we were able to determine the following:

Short Irons:  I'm typically in to out 5-6 degrees and have a neutral face.  So a club to path of -5 degrees at times.  Which matches my real life experience of a starting line of slightly right of target with an over draw/hook.  Match that with a fast swing speed = lots of draw.  So what we worked on with the irons was trying to move the path to the left and keep the face neutral.  This was mainly done by opening up my stance, aligning heels rather than toes.  Another thing we worked on was getting the angle of attack down more, which apparently somehow decreases by more leftward paths.  By the end of my irons, I was hitting a nice cut, which was a welcome change.  

Driver:  Driver and longer irons I tented to have a neutral path and a closed face.  So we worked on keeping the face more neutral.  We moved the ball up in my stance and was hitting more up on it, which to me was very hard to keep neutral.  I had some interesting results, but I think spending more time in a trackman sim would help. 

I'm going to do some more lessons while the guy is in town until feb or so, but the real take away is that I really need to calibrate my swing.  Even if I have a close to perfect swing one day, you need to be able to tweak the path to start to shape it the way you want.  This seems obvious, but I think I'm really going to start to work on shot shaping, especially in lessons.  Yes always work on fundamentals, but that needs to be translated into the ball flight you want.

Here is my updated swing and practice swing from the back:

I've been really working on sequencing my swing.  This means taking some time at the top to let the club come back on plane or a more reasonable spot.  That's what im doing in the practice swings.  Just thinking about moving the club first, then the body.  To me it really feels like looping the club and hitting the go button  when the club has started the down swing (i.e. in the second picture when the club feels like it's had time to change direction):

This delay in body movement has allowed me to get a bit less steep.  I'm not totally where I would like to be.  But this has improved my consistency and impact significantly.  Almost like every swing hits the ball very pure with a lot less effort.  It took some timing and sequencing to get used to, but now my body movement feels more in sync with the club that has already started its downswing path.  Maybe there is something worth exploring more there.  Less thrashing, more syncing.

I play tonight.  Let's see what happens.

Wayne

 

 

[tickbomb]

Ok worked with my online coach.  Worked on a full turn to get some more depth.  Added flexion "force" to get the left wrist to at least go flat.  Much Much better.  Much shallower.  From a feel perspective, it feels like my swing has a lot longer flat spot before impact.  Almost like the club is getting behind the ball 12 inches.  Maybe that's an exaggeration, but coming into impact I can see the benefit.  Especially for wedges.  Going to keep working on this to get everything synced and a consistent feel and impact.  Will take some time to progress this to playable, but I have all winter.  Probably going to do another Trackman session soon with my in-person instructor to calibrate the flight.