10 Biggest Swing Killers (AMG)

[klineka]

28 minutes ago, Williamturn said:

2 & 4 for me. 

I wonder if anyone has any success in removing the inside takeaway and too deep issue? 

Lifting the arms doesn't appear to work for me. I need to find something else.

Please send help!

Start a swing thread in the "Member Swings" section of the site. There you can post videos of your swing and people can offer suggestions to help.

I'm not a golf instructor so it's entirely possible that there are other things causing the inside takeaway/too deep issue(s), but for the inside takeaway copying what Justin Thomas does in his pre-shot routine where he takes the club back to P2, pauses, checks the positioning, then resets might be beneficial to you. It will probably take hundreds if not thousands of reps before it feels "normal". Do it somewhere where you have a mirror down the line and can see your hand/club positioning when you pause. At the beginning you will also likely have to exaggerate the feeling and it will probably "feel" like a Matt Wolff takeaway which is why having a mirror is important for feedback.

[billchao]

On 1/2/2024 at 7:28 AM, Williamturn said:

2 & 4 for me. 

I wonder if anyone has any success in removing the inside takeaway and too deep issue? 

Lifting the arms doesn't appear to work for me. I need to find something else.

Please send help!

It’s hard to say exactly what your issue is without seeing your swing. You could be rolling your hands back, pulling the trail elbow behind you, pinning your lead arm against your chest, etc.

Whatever you’re doing, stop doing it 😉

[p1n9183]

On 1/2/2024 at 9:28 AM, Williamturn said:

2 & 4 for me. 

I wonder if anyone has any success in removing the inside takeaway and too deep issue? 

 

I realized I had both problems a month ago, and a little of the 5th too. The problem is that your arms are turning to much to the right in relationship to your chest. (your hands get out of sync with your body)

If you just swing backwards with your hands and keep your hips and torso still, the hands don't move to the rigth, but upwards over your rigth shoulder, like if you were about to chop´some wood with the club. From that position, turn now your hips and torso to the rigth and you are going to see that the hands automatically set perfectly in position, bearly rigth of the center of your chest. Couldn't believe it at first, I was so used to move the hands too rigth when in reality the hands move more upwards than laterally on the backswing.    

I fixed it just by taking out the club a little bit to the outside in order to keep it in front of my chest as much as I could.

My way to check if this was working, was to make a regular backswing and stop in the top, and from there look were my rigth elbow was pointing. Normally is going to be almost perpendicular to the club. That's bad, but when I checked it after taking the club a little out, the elbow started to create a 35/45 angle with the shaft. From that position, your arm and body are a lot more connected and is a lot harder to get stuck on the downswing.  

 

Currently I'm guilty of 7,8 and 10 but I can live with that.  

[DrMetal]

Do you think a slow backswing is a swing killer?   I've played with a slow back swing for years, thinking better to be slow in the backswing, to allow more time to think, to straighten and tense up the leading arm.  

But lately, it seems to be hindering me. I was tensing up too much in the backswing, not getting enough 'spring' in the foreswing (was getting 130 yards with my 7-iron, terrible). 

As soon as I sped up my backswing (to say 50-75% of that of my foreswing), I got the spring back, more power, even straighter, 7-iron = 160 yards. 

[iacas]

Seems like you answered your own question.

[DrMetal]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Seems like you answered your own question.

I agree!  I can't help but wonder though:  There are many great players with a deliberately slow backswing.  What are they doing differently, why so slow, why does it work for them?   Is a deliberately slow backswing necessarily a bad thing?! 

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, DrMetal said:

I agree!  I can't help but wonder though:  There are many great players with a deliberately slow backswing.  What are they doing differently, why so slow, why does it work for them?   Is a deliberately slow backswing necessarily a bad thing?! 

They're just suggesting — as I have, too — that slower is generally worse. Doesn't mean there aren't going to be exceptions.

[klineka]

20 minutes ago, DrMetal said:

There are many great players with a deliberately slow backswing.  

Do you know for a fact that they're deliberately slow? What specific PGA tour player(s) do you know of that have outright stated they are trying to have a slow backswing on purpose?

Or does it just appear to you that their backswing is slow so you think they're doing it on purpose?

 

21 minutes ago, DrMetal said:

why does it work for them?

Because they are world class athletes that can make just about anything work. 

[Ty_Webb]

5 hours ago, iacas said:

They're just suggesting — as I have, too — that slower is generally worse. Doesn't mean there aren't going to be exceptions.

Kenny Perry had a pretty slow backswing. Hideki and Cameron Young both have a pause at the top. I don't know if I dreamt this, but I feel like I just heard that Hideki tried not having that pause and gained like 7mph on his swing speed (118 - 125 or something like that). Not sure I want to see Cam Young's swing speed jump 7 mph - he hits it plenty hard enough as it is!

[DrMetal]

If you place the ball too far up in your stance (when hitting irons), are you more likely to hook it or slice it? 

I think the answer is hook it, right?   Assuming a straight and consistent club path in your swing, after your club head nadirs out at the bottom of your swing and you enter into your follow through, you start to close the face.  So if you place your ball too far ahead in your stance, you will tend to hit is with a more closed faced, resulting in a hook.   Does that sound right? 

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, DrMetal said:

If you place the ball too far up in your stance (when hitting irons), are you more likely to hook it or slice it? 

I think the answer is hook it, right?   Assuming a straight and consistent club path in your swing, after your club head nadirs out at the bottom of your swing and you enter into your follow through, you start to close the face.  So if you place your ball too far ahead in your stance, you will tend to hit is with a more closed faced, resulting in a hook.   Does that sound right? 

No. The path isn't linear - the farther forward, the more left (for a right-handed player) the club tends to be moving.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether a player is more likely to draw/pull/fade it from a ball position that's "too far" forward, but… almost nobody plays a ball position that's "too far" forward. 😄 

[DrMetal]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

No. The path isn't linear - the farther forward, the more left (for a right-handed player) the club tends to be moving.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether a player is more likely to draw/pull/fade it from a ball position that's "too far" forward, but… almost nobody plays a ball position that's "too far" forward. 😄 

 

Ok.  So I have this problem:    If I place the ball in the middle of my stance (when hitting my irons, like you're supposed to), I just can't seem to make good contact.  I'm chunking it; it seems like I'm hitting way behind the ball, and my clubhead is not yet at the bottom of the swing trajectory (ie where it's supposed to be when contact is made).     I'm not sure why this is.  I think it may be because I'm not bending enough at the waist, leaning forward.  I may be standing up too straight. 

If I place the ball forward in my stance (by as much as 3-4 ball lengths, especially with my long iron), I get nearly perfect contact . . . but with a hook/pull tendency.  

[iacas]

22 hours ago, DrMetal said:

Ok.  So I have this problem:    If I place the ball in the middle of my stance (when hitting my irons, like you're supposed to)

The middle of your stance is too far back for irons, too.

22 hours ago, DrMetal said:

If I place the ball forward in my stance (by as much as 3-4 ball lengths, especially with my long iron), I get nearly perfect contact . . . but with a hook/pull tendency.  

Make a better golf swing. Figure out why… and work on that.

And grip the club open in the meantime.