Help my swing please.....

[albatross]

Hello,

I would really appreciate some advice. I've only played for a few years and I'm playing worse now than when I started. I've posted some videos of me hitting a driver and an 8 iron. I realize just by watching these, that I'm too far from the ball.

Do you see anything else that would be causing me to hit a lot shanks or hitting irons SUPER short?

I've been struggling with the shanks for months and I thought I had it fixed until this morning. The result has been me hitting SUPER short shots when I don't shank it. I'll hit a SW from like 70 yards and the ball will go nice and high and about 40 yards!!

What swing correction would cause me to hit really high short shots with my irons and wedges?? Thanks.

I'll warn you ahead of time, this swing isn't pretty right now.

John

[Dent]

By the looks of it to start, at adress on the driver swing, it looks like your front knee already has too much bend in it to start with. Your front leg should be almost the same as your back.

[lolzzlolzz]

Your right knee sticks out to the right on the back swing, which carries your body over with it. To fix, keep your right foot square (12 o' clock).

I think you need to have a wider stance. Most people recommend a narrow stance, but it seems you are losing balance at the end of your swing. Wide stance gives you a firm base. Heels shoulder width apart on a 5 iron, wider for the longer clubs and more narrow for the shorter clubs.

The upper part of your arms should be pressed hard against the sides of your chest, and your arms should be as close to your body as possible. Don't slouch your shoulders.

The biggest thing I notice is the problem with your hip turn. First, your hips turn too early. At the start of the swing, your hands, arms, and shoulders should move together almost simultaneously. The movement of the hands, arms, and shoulders should pull the hips. This creates tension in the core, which unwinds and produces distance.



Look at Ben Hogan. His swing starts at 1:06, and he's only moving his hands, arms, and shoulders. His hips don't start to turn until a second later, at 1:07, when his hands approach hip level.

To add to the right knee problem... if the right foot is pointed out to the right and not at 12 o' clock, the hips will overturn and there will not be enough tension between the upper and lower body to create maximum club head speed.

Anyway, there is no one swing correct. Check your grip, and if it's correct, check your stance and posture. When you have a good stance and posture work on the back swing, then work on the downswing. If you have a correct grip, stance and posture, and waggle correctly you can practically forget about what the hands and arms are doing... everything will fall together.

Highly recommend you get Hogan's book (5 lessons).

[Avid Golfer]

Hello,

The first thing I notice with your driver swing is your setup. If you look at the pros most of them will look like they are setup with a reverse K posture where thier right side is kinked in and the left side is set taller.

Look at the picture below with pro examples of setup: http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/4...atsetupsj7.jpg Your setup on the other hand has the opposite look to it, and I believe that leads to a lot of the errors we see during your swing. Below is swing sequences of Charles Howell III vs you. http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7...ldriverus4.jpg At setup we see Charles Howell has his right knee and right bumped toward the target (inside his right shoulder and right foot), his upper spine is tilted away from the target and his right arm is extended across his body so that his right hand meets the left hand and the grip at the inside of his left leg. In comparison your left hip is bumped away from the target (and inside the left shoulder). As a result of how Howell was setup he is able to keep a braced back leg, coil up behind the ball, and eaisly return to a similar position at impact. Your setup has promoted a reverse pivot and a steep downswing (which robs you of distance and creates high shots). My advise for your face on swing is that you copy the pros and setup with a reverse K setup to promote a better swing and impact position. Edit: Added downline analysis below. Below is a downline comparison of your driver swing to the driver swing of Ernie Els. http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7...riverdlew9.jpg In the comparison image to Ernie Els we see the effects of your flawed face-on posture (noted above), you are too far away from the ball (as you suspected) which is shown by the distance of your shoulders from the white balance line that extends up from the balls of your feet, and the shaft angle pointing above your belt and at your stomach . At address you can see Els has the edge of his shoulders on the line, and the shaft points at his belt line (both because of he is setup with good posture, balance, and distance from the ball). As you swing back your upper left arm seperates from your upper left chest. That combined with you hanging over the ball and your left side (seen in the face on comparison to Howell) causes you to over rotate your arms and club and swing deep behind you on the backswing. As you start down your reverse pivot and your standing too far away from the ball result in you comming down steep, and moving toward the ball. Looking at Els swing you will see that his downswing starts with the club dropping behind him (and under his right shoulder), and his body staying behind the white balance line. When you look at your impact position (which I had to shrink down to fit ) you have very little of your body to the left of the balance line compared to how much of it was behind it at address. As a result of your loss of balance you move closer to the ball, and that leads to heel shots and shanks. My advise here is get good posture and distance from the ball at setup. During the backswing keep your upper left arm close to your upper chest. On the downswing maintain your balance and allow the club to drop behind you. (Another good example of staying behind the balance line is Trevor Immelman in the picture below: http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6...ownlinegp6.jpg )

[pat8]

One tip (from Ben Hogan) that has really helped me is make sure your left elbow is above your left ( a shaft should be able to go under your right Arm and over your left when you're addressing the ball; there's drawings in Power Golf and 5 Lessons . Make sure your're staring the downswing with your lower body.