Tips for Starting Over

[Vinsk]

7 minutes ago, billchao said:

I had to guess, you’ve seen instructors who want to fix your lead arm bending by straightening it instead of addressing why it bends so much in the first place.

Well I’m pretty sure I have some idiotic habit of moving my leading arm way too far across my chest which moves my trail arm too far behind me and it all breaks down.

I’ve watched the GEARS videos that show pros only move their lead arm about 15* which is quite eye opening. I’m working on the ‘arms mostly lift and body rotates’ concept that Erik has mentioned. But I think having a sleeve on my lead arm or trail arm that forces me to perform this would be helpful since my feels seem to vanish with any speed at all.

 

[SEMI_Duffer]

8 minutes ago, billchao said:

It’s really not. You’re changing an aspect of your swing while retaining others.

In my case: No, I'm not.  As I wrote, earlier: By the time I'm done there won't be a single aspect of my swing that will resemble my old swing--from setup, to back-swing, to down-swing, to impact, to finish.  Everything will be different.

Ok, I lied.  My grip will be unchanged   That was the one thing that was right with my old swing.

[pganapathy]

15 hours ago, iacas said:

What?

Tiger did not "start over." Not remotely close.

Wouldn't you define rebuilding a swing as starting over.  It isn't like he made one minor tweak.  Unless you mean starting over in the sense that is not played for a long time and taking up the game again

[klineka]

33 minutes ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

In my case: No, I'm not.  As I wrote, earlier: By the time I'm done there won't be a single aspect of my swing that will resemble my old swing--from setup, to back-swing, to down-swing, to impact, to finish.  Everything will be different.

 

"By the time I'm done" is the key phrase there. It will happen incrementally, not with the flip of a switch or just by you (or anyone) "starting over" 

It's 100% possible for everything to be different in a swing, but that isn't achieved by "starting over", it's achieved by you replacing old parts of your swing with new parts of your swing. That doesn't happen in an instant or even all at once across all aspects of your swing.

 

1 minute ago, pganapathy said:

Wouldn't you define rebuilding a swing as starting over.  It isn't like he made one minor tweak.  Unless you mean starting over in the sense that is not played for a long time and taking up the game again

I wouldn't define rebuilding a swing as starting over. Myself and plenty of people on here who are actively taking lessons are likely rebuilding their swing but are not starting over. 

You are right that Tiger didn't make just one minor tweak, but he also didn't have someone wipe his memory of what it feels like to swing a golf club and then have someone teach him the new swing. That is what I would consider to be "starting over" which is why I don't think that is really possible in the golf swing for someone who has any history of swinging/playing.

[SEMI_Duffer]

39 minutes ago, klineka said:

"By the time I'm done" is the key phrase there. It will happen incrementally, not with the flip of a switch or just by you (or anyone) "starting over" 

It's 100% possible for everything to be different in a swing, but that isn't achieved by "starting over", it's achieved by you replacing old parts of your swing with new parts of your swing. That doesn't happen in an instant or even all at once across all aspects of your swing.

Y'know what they say about assumptions, right? 

I'm not playing, right now, haven't played, and I won't be playing until I have a new swing.  I am not changing my old swing to my new swing in pieces.  I'm literally starting anew--having discarded my old swing entirely and building a whole new swing from the ground up.  E.g.:

• First I learned a new setup
• Then I learned a new grip--or would have if the grip I'd had wasn't already good
• Then I learned a new take-away
• Then I learned a new back-swing
• Then I learned how to properly begin the transition
• Now I'm learning a new down-swing
• Next I'll learn the finish

I'm pretty sure that qualifies as "starting over?"

(Yes: This is an extreme example.  That's how I roll )

Edited August 14, 2023 by SEMI_Duffer

[klineka]

12 minutes ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

• First I learned a new setup
• Then I learned a new grip--or would have if the grip I'd had wasn't already good
• Then I learned a new take-away
• Then I learned a new back-swing
• Then I learned how to properly begin the transition
• Now I'm learning a new down-swing
• Next I'll learn the finish

How is that not "starting over?"

So you learned a new setup first. Any swing you made with that new setup still had elements of your old swing in it even though it was with a new setup. 

Then you had your new setup with a proper grip when you learned the new takeaway. Any swing you made with the new setup, grip, and takeaway would have had a backswing, downswing, and follow through that had elements of your old swing in it.

The fact that you described how you are working on each portion of the swing separately proves my point that "It will happen incrementally, not with the flip of a switch or just by you (or anyone) "starting over"

It's not like you said one day "I want to start over" and then had an instructor teach you the proper way to do all 7 bullet points you listed and then you implemented them all at once while simultaneously forgetting and unlearning how your old swing felt in each of those same bullets. That doesn't happen.

[SEMI_Duffer]

8 minutes ago, klineka said:

So you learned a new setup first. Any swing you made with that new setup ...

Except I didn't do any swinging with that new setup.  I'm still not doing any swings.

Ok, that's a lie, too.  I have gone out to the back yard and hit some balls into the woods or into my net--just to see what would happen.  But, no range time, much less playing.  (And I didn't do even that until I'd "completed" the back-swing portion of my training.)

I will say this: Just the changes to my setup, take-away, and back-swing produced incredible results.  I was hitting it better, more consistently, on-average, than I ever had before on my best days.

I could have stopped my training there and probably had happy results, but, now the "just how good can I get my swing?" bug had bitten--so I've just kept going.

Thiis is why I say my current hobby is not so much "golf" as it is "golf swing" 

After I've got my new swing, then I'll start hitting the range and practicing the new swing I've trained.  After I've practiced enough that I know what I have--have confidence in my swing and have something of a handle on my dispersions/shot zones, then, and only then, will I start playing again.

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Well I’m pretty sure I have some idiotic habit of moving my leading arm way too far across my chest which moves my trail arm too far behind me and it all breaks down.

I’ve watched the GEARS videos that show pros only move their lead arm about 15* which is quite eye opening. I’m working on the ‘arms mostly lift and body rotates’ concept that Erik has mentioned. But I think having a sleeve on my lead arm or trail arm that forces me to perform this would be helpful since my feels seem to vanish with any speed at all.

 

Part of it is simply unlearning your idea of where the top of the backswing is, or where you need to stop going further. Mine has changed a lot over the years, yet some things still creep back. There’s never been a single eureka moment where a feel just fixed everything for me. In fact, quite the opposite happened and some feels that worked during a lesson and subsequent practice sessions eventually stopped working and required adjustment, or attacking from a different approach.

 

[SEMI_Duffer]

7 minutes ago, billchao said:

There’s never been a single eureka moment where a feel just fixed everything for me.

I had plenty of those the first year I practiced and played.  Problem was: They'd disappear just as magically as they'd appeared the next day, or even just hours later 

7 minutes ago, billchao said:

In fact, quite the opposite happened and some feels that worked during a lesson and subsequent practice sessions eventually stopped working and required adjustment, or attacking from a different approach.

I fully expect that what I'm training won't stick entirely and the training drills I've used to learn them will have to be repeated for as long as I play golf... or golf swing 

[klineka]

21 minutes ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

I fully expect that what I'm training won't stick entirely

So if it won't stick entirely but you're still making a full golf swing, what do you expect will happen? Perhaps there's a chance you'll fall back into some old habits?

[SEMI_Duffer]

13 minutes ago, klineka said:

So if it won't stick entirely but you're still making a full golf swing, what do you expect will happen? Perhaps there's a chance you'll fall back into some old habits?

That's distinctly possible.

Understand: My old swing was essentially "what came naturally."  So, yeah: A definite possibility.

That's one reason I'm approaching swing training as I am: In an attempt to replace what came naturally with a new naturally 

[colin007]

Can't wait for the before and after videos which I'M SURE will be posted

 

[billchao]

2 hours ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

I had plenty of those the first year I practiced and played.  Problem was: They'd disappear just as magically as they'd appeared the next day, or even just hours later 

I’m speaking purely upon reflection.

In the moment, every one of those changes was going to drop my index by five strokes 😉

1 hour ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

That's one reason I'm approaching swing training as I am: In an attempt to replace what came naturally with a new naturally 

It’s a little more complicated than that. Some new things you’ll find you can do naturally as you learn them. Other things, you’ll have to actively work on all the time. At least that’s how it is for me.

[GolfLug]

If you are starting over, I think it is imperative to learn how a club moves around the body and then teach the body make it move like it should. 

Get a Planemate or something It will keep you from over experimenting with 10,000 different tangents. You will have much better luck ingraining new motor patterns. 

[saevel25]

Can you start over in golf, sure if done properly. Can we play the semantic game, that starting over must be an absolute where nothing before shall exist in the new, sure we can. I feel those arguments are not relevant here because you can still take the swing down to the studs and rebuild it. Will there be 10% of the old swing in there, sure. They still started over. 

[iacas]

8 hours ago, pganapathy said:

Wouldn't you define rebuilding a swing as starting over.  It isn't like he made one minor tweak.

Tiger did not start over. Not even a little. That'd be utterly stupid.

He changed a few things, which at his level, required a year or so to get to the point where he could play to the level that he expects of himself.

Tiger in no way "started over."

8 hours ago, klineka said:

You are right that Tiger didn't make just one minor tweak, but he also didn't have someone wipe his memory of what it feels like to swing a golf club and then have someone teach him the new swing. That is what I would consider to be "starting over" which is why I don't think that is really possible in the golf swing for someone who has any history of swinging/playing.

Yup.

[SEMI_Duffer]

6 hours ago, colin007 said:

Can't wait for the before and after videos which I'M SURE will be posted

The "after" videos: Certainly. The "before" videos: I'm not certain.

The only "before" videos I ever took were upon request by my instructors. I should be able to find them, but, they're not very good. I took 'em in a class studio room at my old gym that wasn't as brightly-lit as I'd thought it was, and my iPhone 6S didn't have very good low-light capability, so there's lots of motion blur, IIRC.

But think "typical amateur, little hip turn, little upper-body turn, arms and club going way too far back, bent lead arm, chicken wing, way steep down-swing that's all arms and shoulders, usually OTT, no finish" and that was essentially my old swing. Oh yeah: Also swayed both ways.

Name a swing flaw. My old swing probably had it 

Edited August 15, 2023 by SEMI_Duffer